Lehal Library

122 The Agrarian Uprising dead. 1' Persecution had the opposite effect. Since the peasants were in sympathy with the Khalsa, they thwarted the administration by giving shelter to the fugitives, and many joined hands with Khalsa bands to ambush the state constabulary. The only notable exceptions were the Niranjanias14 of Jandiala near Amritsar, who collaborated with the authorities. The Khalsa suffered terrible hardships during Zakarya Khan's stem rule. 15 But they remained as defiant as ever and developed a spirit of bravado which enabled them to face adversity.16 Zakarya Khan17 died on !July 1745. His son Yahya Khan, who was also the son-in-law of the chief wazir at Delhi, had no 13 Sikh historians Ratan Singh Bhangu (whose grandfather, Mehtab Singh of Mirankot, was one of the many thousands of Sikhs to be executed at Lahore) and Gyani Gyan Singh go into great detail on the tortures and executions carried on at Shahidganj. The names of some of the martyrs arc held in great esteem by the Sikhs, particularly Mehtab Singh, slayer of the notorious Massa Ranghar, who had desecrated the Harimandir by using it for drinking and debauchery, and the youthful Taru Singh, whose only offence was to have supplied rations to Sikh fugitives. 14 See footnote 4. 15 Although Zakarya Khan showed little mercy to the Sikhs {and they did little to deseive it) he was an able administrator and did much to relieve the suffering caused by the Persian invasion. He pleaded with Nadir Shah and had him release many artisans of Delhi who were being taken as captives. When he died 'there was so much grief for him among all people, especially in the city of Lahore, that for three nights in succession no lamp was lighted in any house. Thou.sands and thousands followed his coffin through the streets, lamenting aloud, beating their breasts, and heaping up flowers on bis bier, till al last not a handful of flowers was left in the city.' (Anand Ram Muk.hlis, Tazkirij, 139. Q.ioted byJ. N. Sarkar, Fall of 1M Muglwl. Empire, 1, 106.) 16 To the Sikh desperado of the time, the Punjabi language owes some of its charming vocabulary of braggadocio still used by Nihailgs. A Sikh describes himself as sava /,aJih (the equal of 125,000) or as an army (lau1) . When be goes to urinate, he says be is going to 'see a cheetah off; when he defecates he announces that he is going to •conquer the fort of Chittor' or 'give rations to a Kazi'. Coarse food like gram is 'almonds'; onions, 'pieces of silver'; a chillie, 'a quarrelsome dame.' A one-eyed man was, and often is, called lakMietra Singh, the lion with a hundred thousand eyes. Death is simply an order to march-and so on. 17 Zakarya Khan was succeeded by his son Yahya Khan. Wt.thin one year