Lehal Library

158 The Agrarian Uprising were now strong enough to fight the vandals in the open. The misls gathered m full strength and fell upon Jahan Khan. They killed over five thousand Afghans before Abdali could come to their rescue_f'4l Abdali took Anrritsar, but this time spared the Harimandir; perhaps he had been told of the way the Sikhs reacted to the defilement of their shrines. lnstead, he proceeded to their richest agricultural land in the Jullundur Doab. He found the entire countryside hostile LO the Afghans. A contemporary newswriter describes the siUlation: 'The Shah's influence is confined merely to those tracts which are covered by his army. The Zamindars appear in general so well affected towards the Sikhs that it is usual with the latter to repair by night to the villages, where they find every refreshment. By day they retire from them and again fall to harassing the Shah's troops. If the Shah remains between the two rivers Beas and Sutlej, the Sikhs wiU continue to remain in the neighbourhood, bnt if he passes over towards Sirhind the Sikhs will then become masters of the parts he leaves behind him. ' 61 Abdali crossed the Sutlej into Malwa, where Najibuddaulah and Amar Singh of Patialajoined him. He gave Amar Singh the district of Sirhinrl and invested him with insignias of ro)'alty and the title R.ii.jii-i-Rnjgiin.1;y_ He made a few desultory attempts to lay 60 The nt'ws of this Sikh vie.Lory over t.he Afghans was received with great relief by the British, who had n:ason LO believe that Abdali's real object in coming to India was to help Mir Qasim against them. A dispatch sent Lo the Nawab Wazir of Oudh said that Lord Clive 'is exLremely glad co know that the Shah's progress has been impeded hy the Sikhs. U they continue to cm off his supplies and pJunder his baggage, be will be mined without fighting; and then he will eitht:r remm to his country or mee, wilh shame and clli,-grace. As long as he does not defeat the Sikhs or come to terms with them, he cannot penetrate imo India. And neither of chese events seems probable since the Sikhs have adopted such effective tactics, and since they hate- the Shah on accopnt of his destn1c1ion of Clwk.· (C..P.C., ii, 52; H. R. Gupta, Hisu,ry of ii~ Sikhs, 1, 255,) 61 C.P.C., ti, 79 and 139; H. R. Gupta, flist,0ry ofthe Sikhs, 1, 256; Ganda Singh, Ahmed Shah l>urrii.ni. p. 314. 62 111e sycophant Amar Singh expressed his gratimde to his patron Wazir Shah Vali Khan Bamezei, who had interceded on his behalf, by