Lehal Library

Ahmed Shah Abdali 127 was killed, his son Mir Mannu, who took over the command of the Mughal army, compelled the Afghans to retire. This was a golden opportunity for the Sikhs. The twenty-five regiments split into more than sixty bands of freebooters, and harried the retreating Afghans all the way up to the river Indus, depriving them of their stores and horses. At the same time, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia moved into the vacuum created in the central Punjab by the Mughal-Afghan conflict. He defeated Adina Beg Khan at Hoshiarpur and arrived in triumph at Amritsar in time to celebrate the Baisakhi fair. At the meeting of the SarbaL Khalsa it was resolved to merge the independent jathas into one army, the Dal Khalsa. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, who had gradually taken over the leadership from the ageing Kapur Singh and who had come to be addressed as the padsah (king) of the Sikhs, was made the supreme commander. The Dal was divided into eleven misls. 2 1. Ahluwalia, under Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, who was also the supreme commander of all the misls. 2. Fyzullapuria or Singhpuria, under Nawab Kapur Singh. 3. Sukercbakia, under Naudh Singh of the village Sukerchak near Gujranwala. (Naudh Singh was the father of Charhat Singh Sukerchakia, whose grandson, Ranjit Singh, became the first Sikh monarch of the Punjab.) 4. Nishanwalia, under Dasaundha Singh, the standard-bearer (nisanvala) of the Dal Khalsa. 5. Bhangi, under Harl Singh of the village Panjwad. The name Bhangi came from the addiction to hashish (bhang) of Bhuma Singh, who preceded Harl Singh as leader of the misl. 6. Kanh&ya, under Jai Singh of the village Ka.hna. 7. Nakkai, under Hira Singh of the village Baharwal, situated in a tract near Lahore called Nakka. 2 The Arabic word misl means 'like'. The Sikh mists were 'alike' in the sense that they were considered equals. Their fighting strength was, however, far from equal. Some had only a few hundred men; others, like the Bhangis, could put more than ten thousand soldiers in the field.