The nation is commemorating 300th year
of the martyrdom of the great Sikh warrior Baba Banda Singh Bahadur.
There is a famous saying that those who don’t learn from the mistakes of
the history, are condemned to repeat it. In this context, for the
present generation, there is lot to learn from the life of Baba Banda
Singh Bahadur. No doubt, his exemplary feats are going to inspire the
youngsters extensively and failure of the then society to consolidate on
the gains made by the great warrior will spur today’s generation to
remain united in its response to the challenges posed by the terrorist
ideologies.
Baba Banda Singh was born as Lachhman
Dev on 27th October 1670 in Rajauri, in present Jammu & Kashmir, in a
peasant Rajput family. It is said that once on a hunting mission, he
killed a doe that was pregnant with two cubs; the incident filled him
with so much remorse that he renounced the family life, became a Bairagi
(Sanyasi) and set out for a search of inner peace.
He had become Madhav Das from Lachhman
Dev and established a hermitage in Nanded town on the banks of river
Godavari in Maharashtra. Guru Gobind Singh too was staying in the same
town at that time. There are various accounts of the meeting between the
two, but one thing which clearly emerged out was: Madhav Das became
a devout disciple of Guru Gobind Singh and submitted himself as his
“Banda” to the Guru. Then onwards Madhav Das Bairagi was known as Baba
Banda Singh Bahadur.
The tyrannical rule of the Mughals and
the atrocities committed by their generals on Guru Gobind Singh’s family
had shaken the Baba deep from within. With blessings from the great
Guru and a council of five Sikhs, he set out on the journey to North
India where he intended to organise the oppressed people against the
Mughals.
The distance of Hissar from Nanded is
approximately 1600 kilometres which should have been finished in 2 to 3
months time but it took him more than a year because the news of him
coming to the north had reached Bahadur Shah’s durbar and he had issued
instructions to his chieftains and generals to arrest or kill him.
He had to hide at many places in order
to deceive the Mughal forces and eventually he reached Hissar and
started bringing the Sikhs of the Guru under one umbrella. His plans
were clear; he wanted to organise people who were under the constant
threat of the brute forces of the Mughals and their Sardars.
Masses from the cross sections of the
society started joining ranks with him and soon Baba Banda Singh Bahadur
became a force to reckon with in that part of northern India which at
present lies in the state of Haryana. In order to uproot the rule of the
Mughals, which had started weakening with so many uprisings against it
throughout India he needed to raise an army of the nationalist people.
He needed money to buy arms and armaments for his army, therefore, he
started raiding the Mughal treasuries. The news of the atrocities by the
Mughal Sardars were pouring in from all the directions and it was
necessary to punish the perpetrators.
In a place called Narnaul, Satnamis (a
religious sect) were massacred by the Jihadi zealots and in order to
stop their further brutality, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur decided to teach
them a lasting lesson. He engaged them in Narnaul and killed the
perpetrators.
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur wanted to
organise and equip his army so immaculately that when he attacks
Sirhind, which was his next goal, nothing should come between him and
the victory. He attacked the territories of Samana and Sadhaura and
registered comprehensive victories. He punished Ranghars, who in unison
with the Mughal forces had been tormenting Non-Muslims, on his way to
Mukhlispur. He captured the said town, fortified it and gave it the name
of Lohgadh.
Among the first steps Baba took to set
up Khalsa rule was to abolish the Zamindari system. He took away the
ownership rights from the Zagirdars and Zamindars and distributed the
land among the farmers. Guru Gobind Singh had given a clarion call to
end the scourge of caste system from the society and Banda Singh Bahadur
started implementing the same.
He not only recruited people from
backwards castes into the army, he started giving them places of high
status in his court too. The social impact of the move was very
positive; those, who used to look down upon their own brethren belonging
to the lower sections of the society, started respecting them and
Jihadi elements who used to take benefits of the dissensions in the
Hindu society started feeling that their days of oppressing the said
society were numbered and Hindus had started fighting back with
vengeance.
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur had started
minting his currency also and Lohgadh had become the crucible of the
nationalist forces determined to uproot the Mughal rule from the soil of
this country.
Time had come to teach Wazir Khan, the
Nawab of Sirhind, a lesson; he had buried two younger sons of Guru
Gobind Singh alive in a brick wall when the brave souls declined to
accept Islam. He had terrified the entire non-Muslim population of the
northern belt and used to carry on the Jihadist agenda of the Mughal
rulers with fanatic zeal. News of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur’s plan of
attacking Sirhind had reached Wazir Khan. He summoned the Nawabs of the
neighbouring Muslim states to join ranks with him and gave the call of
Jihad against the forces of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur.
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur’s forces met
Wazir Khan’s army in a place called Chappar Chiri around 20 km away from
the town of Sirhind. A fierce battle took place but numerically strong
forces of Wazir Khan could not stay for long in front of chivalrous Sikh
army. The whole battlefield was resounding with the war cries like
“Fateh Darshan” and “Bole so Nihal, Sat Sri Akal.” Wazir Khan was killed
and the victorious Sikh army captured the town of Sirhind; the rule of
tyranny had ended and the rightful revenge for the atrocities on Hindus
had been taken.
It is noteworthy that the transformation
of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur from a peasant Lachhman Dev to Madhav Das
Bairagi and finally to great warrior “Sant Sipahi” had one phenomenon in
manifestation and that was the factor of Dharma.
An individual, who once was filled with
an emotion of renunciation on the killing of a doe, was mercilessly
killing the enemy in battle after battle. He obviously had realised that
while the killing of an innocent doe was an act of Adharma, killing of
the tyrannical Jihadi forces was an act of Dharma. Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur continued his tirade against the oppressors throughout the
northern belt of India till the year 1715.
Meanwhile, Bahadur Shah, the Mughal
ruler of Delhi started summoning other Muslim Sardars from surrounding
states and sent an army of one lakh soldiers to capture Baba Banda Singh
Bahadur. Eventually, Baba was cornered with a handful of Sikh soldiers
in the fortress of Gurdas Nangal. The historians have recorded facts
that for months together the Mughal forces had surrounded the fortress
but could not force the Sikhs out of the garhi. The gallant Sikh
warriors were coming in batches out of the fortress and were inflicting
heavy losses on the enemy. It seemed as if the saying of Guru Gobind
Singh, “Sawa Lakh se ek ladaoon, tabhai Gobind Singh naam dharaoon” was
coming true outside the garhi of Gurdas Nangal.
After a long seizure of 8 months when
not even a straw of grass was left inside the fortress for the Sikh
forces to eat, Mughal army was able to capture Baba Banda Singh Bahadur
with his remaining companions.
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur was chained put
in a cage atop an Elephant and was brought to Delhi in a procession
with other Sikh soldiers in tow. He was ridiculed and humiliated and
made to wear the clothes of a clown.
Meanwhile, in Delhi Farrukhsiar had
succeeded Bahadur Shah on Mughal throne and had surpassed his
predecessor in the oppression of the Hindus. Three Mughal Sardars,
Mohammed Amin Khan, Kamaruddin Khan and Zakariya Khan who had been
accompanying the Sikh prisoners brought them to Delhi in the month of
February 1716.
For three months, those who wanted to
get this country rid of the tyrannical rule of the Mughals were paraded
in the streets of Delhi. Heads of the Sikhs were perched on the spears
and displayed in a procession to terrorise the people. Eventually, on
9th June 1716, Baba Banda Singh Bahadur was told to accept Islam to
escape the execution. On refusal, his body parts were chopped off one by
one; still, he remained undeterred and kept on meditating on Akal
Purakh.
The height of savagery was attained by
the Jihadis when his four-year-old son was killed in front of him. His
liver was ripped out by the Jallad and was thrust in Baba Banda Singh’s
mouth and he was asked for the last time to accept Islam. Sant Sipahi
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur who had taken upon himself the cudgels to
protect the Dharma, didn’t budge and merged his Atma in almighty
Parmatma.
Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, by sacrificing
his life, had infused a new kind of energy in the masses, the onslaught
of the Jihadis was ebbed and the process of forcible conversion of
Hindus was stopped. Today, if the events, which took place in that
period of history of India are revisited, one will discover that only
the regimes and times have changed; the barbaric mindset of the Jihadis
remains the same; then there were hordes of marauders who were
converting the “Kafirs” to “Momins” and today there are groups like
ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed who are terrorising the
world.
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