Lehal Library

164 The Agrarian Uprising Dogra kingdom ofJammu became a bone of contention among the misls. The Bbangis were the first lo levy tribute on the Dogras. The Kanhayas and the Sukerchakias, who followed the Bhangis, fell om among themselves over the plunder of the rich city. The mopping up of Muslim principalities owing loyalty to the Afghans was done by the Nakkais, Sukerchakias, and Bhangis. The Nakkais extended their power along the southern reaches of the Ravi up to Harappa and beyond. The Sukerchakias expanded in all directions around Gtyranwala. The misl that rose to supreme preeminence in western Punjab was the Bbangi under Hari Singh (d. 1765), his two sons Jhanda Singh and Ganda Singh, and their numerous kinsmen. The Bhangis had taken the two premier cities of the Punjab: Lahore and Amritsar. They, along with the Ahluwalias, defeated the Pathans of Kasur and made them tributaries. [n AD 1772 the Bbangis captured Multan and held it for eight years until it was recaptured by the Afghans. Jhanda Singh subdued the Baluch tribes between the Jhelum and the Indus, levied tribute on Mankera, then crossed the Indus and captured Kalabagh. About the same time, Gujjar Singh Bhangi began systematically to reduce the Muslim tribes further north: Gakkhars, Jaajuas, Awans, Khattars, and others. His deputy, Milkha Singh, went further; he set up his headquarters at Rawalpindi and later LOok Pindi Gheb, Facehjang, and Attock. Expansion of the Malwa Misls With the assurance that their hinterland was secure, the Malwais began to expand eastwards and became a source of terror to the people living between the Jumna and the Ganges and beyond mercy of the Sicques, who are, 1 think, the plainest dealers in Lhe world. The fon of Sebah, standing pleasamly on the brink of a rilllllet, lay on our road, and in passing iL. I saw two Sicque ca,·aliers suike ten-or into the chief and all his people, though shut up within their fort . They had been sem 10 collect the tribute which the Sicques have imposed on all the mountain chiefs from the Ganges 10 the Jumna' (I, 261).