Lehal Library

176 The Agrarian Uprising could be equally shared by the Sikh leaders and the Sikh-phobia of the Persian and Afghan conquerors and their Mughal collaborators. In these trying years, the Sikhs led the resistance against the invaders and huilt up (perhaps unconsciously) the notion that the Punjab would be helter off if it were m)ed by Punjabis rather than remain a part of the kingdom of Kabul or the Mughal Empire. On the debit side of the balance-sheet would be the degradation of the misls from contingents of freedom fighters to bands of robbers and the anarchy they let loose when they turned against each other. ll was quite clear that the mists had seen their day and, if the Punjab was to remain free, it would have to be united under one mau who had both the power to abolish the misls and the vision to create a state which all Punjabis, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs could call their own. This was the analysis made by the English traveller, Forster, when he wrote in 1783: 'We may see some ambitious chief, led on by his genius and success absorbing the power of bis associates, display from the ruins of their commonwealth the standard of monarchy.· These prophetic words were written when Ranjit Singh of I.he Su.kerchakia mis I was only three years old.