# The Sikhs (Gordon)/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.
STRUGGLES OF THE KHALSA FOR POSSESSION OF THE PUNJAB.
After Govind's death, the Khalsa was left without any real head. Sucli a body with its turbulent elements could not remain quiet, and unfortunately some of them came under the evil influence of a Hindu ascetic, a late Sikh convert and friend of the deceased Guru, who posed as his successor, intrusted by him with the command to avenge his martyred father's blood and that of his young innocent sons. This false apostle appealed to their feelings of revenge, excited at the moment by the circumstances of Govind's death, and led them in a crusade against the hated Maliomedans when the spirit of the ruthless Goth in them ​flashed out fiercely. They captured Sirhind, the scene of the murder of the Guru's sons, massacred the inhabitants, and then ravaged the country up to Lahore, sparing only those who became Sikhs. The new Emperor, Bahadur Shah, took the field in person against them with a powerful army, called on all Mahomedans to rise in defence of their religion, and gave orders mercilessly to crush the revolt by slaying every Sikh to be found. The death of the Emperor and the usual conflict for the succession among the sons prolonged the anarchy and confusion in the Punjab for six years, during which Mahomedan and Sikh fought with ferocity. At last the Akalis among the Sikhs, a body of fanatical and uncompromising followers of Govind, established by him in the name of his youngest sons, turned against their fiendish leader, alienated by his excesses and attempts to subvert the tenets and commands of their great Guru to suit his Hindu proclivities. His death at the hands of the Moghuls in 1715 ​ended the struggle. He was an undaunted leader: that is all that can be said in his favour. His memory is not revered by the Sikhs, who looked on him latterly as a heretic. As swords are proved when they bend, so in this case the Sikhs, after having swerved for a time from the path marked out for them by Govind, righted themselves and won in the end.
They now scattered, taking refuge in the hills and jungles, where for about twenty years they remained unorganised, only held together by a common faith and cause, patiently waiting for the opportunity, which came in 1738, when Nadir Shah, the Persian, at the head of his wild host of red-capped warriors, swept through the Punjab to the capture of Delhi. The Sikhs then issued from their retreats and, true to their race traditions, attacked the invaders. On the return march of the conquerors laden with the spoils of the Moghul capital, they fell on the rear of the army and secured much plunder, doubly acceptable to them as ​being that of accursed Delhi, the scene of the martyrdom of one of their Gurus. "Whence," demanded the imperious Nadir Shah, "come those long-haired barbarians who dare to molest me? Destroy them and their homes." "Their homes are the saddles on their horses' backs," was the reply.
KHALSA HORSEMEN MAKING A DASH BY NIGHT TO THE SACRED TANK AT AMRITSAR.
​themselves into armed associations and moved about the country, laying towns and villages under contribution. A proclamation was issued by the Lahore Viceroy ordering a general massacre of the long-haired Singhs wherever found. They were hunted like wild beasts, a price being placed on their heads; thousands were put to death, refusing pardon on condition of renouncing their faith and cutting their hair. They were looked on as martyrs to the cause, but, despite all, the Khalsa grew and increased in boldness. Bands of Sikh horsemen were to be seen at dawn riding at full gallop towards Amritsar, running the gantlet of the Mahomedan troops. The message would be sent round the distant villages, "Who will ride to-night?"—the watchword for a dash to be made to bathe in the sacred tank. It is said that no instance was known of a Sikh then captured consenting to abjure his religion. Death was the martyr's crown on such occasions. Henceforth the character of the Sikh ​resistance completely changed. To defend themselves against the Mahomedan invaders they formed organised confederacies of fighting men, each under one head chief. The necessity of fighting, how to resist, how to practise plunder, was the one law recognised.
In 1748 Ahmad Shah, the Afghan king, aspired to found an Indian Empire, invaded the Punjab, and crossed the Sutlej after capturing Lahore. He was repulsed by the Moghuls and recrossed the Indus. He made two other unsuccessful attempts, and finally in 1756 occupied Delhi, which then suffered a repetition of the former pillage and massacre by the Persians eighteen years before. The Punjab was ceded to the conqueror as the price of peace. This completed the ruin of the Moghul power, which was now reduced to the condition of a province and left a prey to the Mahrattas, who were then overrunning Hindostan. Ahmad Shah returned to Kabul, leaving his son Tymur at Lahore as Viceroy of the Punjab. The ​confusion and tumult arising from these repeated invasions enabled the Sikh associations to acquire fresh strength by preying on both Moghul and Afghan. No other course was now left to them but to conquer or be conquered. It was war to the knife between them and their new and more robust masters, the Afghans. No quarter was given or asked. Time after time was Amritsar captured, but after each defeat Sikh enthusiasm rose with unabated vigour. When their temple was razed to the ground and the sacred tank filled up with pollution by the blood and entrails of slaughtered cows, they were roused to such a degree that they gathered in thousands, ravaged the country round Lahore, defeated the Afghan troops there, and forced the Viceroy to retreat.
In 1758 the triumphant Sikhs occupied the capital under the leadership of one Jussa Singh, a carpenter, who declared the Khalsa a state. The Moghuls now attempted to recover their lost province, ​and invited the Mahrattas to aid them in this. They promptly responded with a large force, drove out the Afghans, and occupied the country up to the Indus. All order had now vanished in the Punjab, where Afghans, Moghuls, Mahrattas, and Sikhs were contending for power. The successes of the Mahrattas and Sikhs brought back Ahmad Shah with a numerous army. He drove out the Mahrattas, and following them up, disastrously defeated them at Panipat, near Delhi, in 1761 in one of the most sanguinary battles ever fought in India. He returned to Kabul the same year, leaving a governor shut up in Lahore, the Sikhs having continued active in his rear, swarming round Amritsar and the capital. They now grew more daring, their chiefs appropriating lands and building forts in different parts of the country, which added greatly to their power and resources. Again they restored Amritsar, and assembling there in great force proceeded to ​attack Sirhind and other places held by the Afghans.
In 1762 Ahmad Shah reappeared, and by rapid marches reached Sirhind, where he routed with great slaughter the Sikh force of 50,000 men besieging that city; then returning by Amritsar, utterly destroyed it. The Sikhs reeled at the blow struck at them, but were strong and confident enough to stand it. Extraordinary vitality was shown by them at this crisis. The prime necessity was to preserve their cause by renewed unremitting effort, and to regain what had been lost. They soon rallied, and once more emerged from the wreckage, beginning life again at Amritsar, and restoring their temple and sacred tank. They then showed what a powerful force character is in the formation of a nation—character moulded by religious persecution and the unflinching courage of the true Sikh, instilled by Govind, "who never fears though oft overcome," which engendered vitality under all conditions, the ​more adverse the better, with a determination to struggle for the triumph of the Khalsa at all costs.
Thirsting for revenge, they convened a General Assembly and Council, formed a still more compact and formidable confederation, and decided on their plan of campaign. Having assembled a force of 40,000 men, they captured the Pathan strongholds in their neighbourhood, marched to Sirhind, defeated the Afghan troops there, and destroyed that accursed city. They then partitioned out among themselves the country between the Sutlej and the Jumna. This brought back Ahmad Shah with his army; but they retired before him, as they knew they were no match in the open for the better armed Afghans with their artillery.
Sirhind being devastated by Pathan and Sikh alike, the Durrani king now adopted the policy of acknowledging the diplomatic Sikh chief of Patiala as his governor of that province. Disturbances having broken ​out in Kabul, he, after leaving garrisons in Lahore and Rhotas on the Jhelum, hurriedly departed, the Sikhs as usual harassing his rear. They then captured Lahore, placed three of their chiefs in it as joint governors, and seized all the country between the Sutlej and the Jhelum, exacting fierce retribution from the Mahomedans. A General Assembly was now held at Amritsar, and by a decree the Khalsa was proclaimed the dominant Power in the Punjab and the Sikh religion supreme. This assumption of sovereignty was marked by striking a coin with the inscription, "Guru Govind received from Nanak degh, tegh, and futteh—hospitality, valour, and victory." They had now become masters of the plains from the Jhelum to the Jumna.
In 1767 Ahmad Shah made a final attempt to crush the Sikhs (his eighth invasion), and marching down at the head of his invincible army, engaged them on the banks of the Sutlej and forced them ​to fall back on their retreats. Failing health now induced him to adopt a policy of conciliation, so he invested the Patiala chief as independent ruler of Sirhind, with the title of Raja of Rajas, with colours and drum, the insignia of royalty, and the right to strike coins; while he confirmed a Sikh chief, who had been one of the joint governors of Lahore, in his possessions in the neighbourhood of that capital, in the vain hope of securing his aid for the Afghan governor he left there. He gave the inch, and the Sikhs soon took the ell: as the powerful Ahmad Shah had commenced to cede, they saw he felt his hold of the Punjab was receding. They cut off the baggage train of his army on its retirement north, and no sooner had he crossed the Indus than they captured Lahore and Rhotas.
Not even the semblance of Afghan dominion now remained in the country between the Indus and the Jumna. The Sikh chiefs spread themselves over it and ​occupied it as a permanent inheritance, every one of them according to his strength seizing what fell in his way and making himself independent. After a quarter of a century of fierce contest the Sikhs were now relieved from religious persecution. They had survived many a stricken field. Their dogged faith in themselves and in Govind's prophecy that they would become a nation was brought out strongly in the long years of adversity which determined and developed the character of their resistance. The tide had turned at last, and taken at the flood it carried them on to the success which they never doubted would be theirs. They were left undisturbed by their mortal foes the Afghans for the next thirty years, during which time they built up a strong body of clan confederacies, with Amritsar as their central headquarters.
The redoubtable Ahmad Shah of Kabul died in 1773 and was succeeded by his son Tymur, who, deeming it beyond his power ​to force his way to Lahore, deterred by the wild daring Sikh leaders who had risen, turned his attention to the Lower Punjab, and sent an army of Durranis and Kazalbashes to expel the Sikhs from Multan, which they had seized. After repeated attacks he drove them out with severe loss. Shah Zaman, who became King of Kabul in 1793, determined to recover Lahore. After several false starts and some fighting north of the Jhelum he occupied it in 1797, and again in 1798, without opposition; but each time was compelled to return hurriedly to Afghanistan to quell rebellion there. The Sikhs, though powerful for guerilla fighting, were not the equal of the Afghans in training, armament, and disciplined warfare, and retired on the Shah's approach, only to return as he departed and attack and cut off the Afghan posts left behind. During his last invasion he was conciliatory, and his army committed no outrages. Most of the Sikh Sardars accordingly came in and paid homage to him as an honoured guest,— ​among them Ranjit Singh, the young chief of a powerful clan, who, by his military ability, address, and tact, attracted the Shah's attention. When his army was returning to Kabul in 1798, for the time unmolested, twelve of his guns stuck in the bed of the Jhelum river. He sent an order to Ranjit Singh to recover them for him, in which case he would consider his wish to be appointed Governor of Lahore. He recovered eight, sent them to Kabul, and as a reward received what he aspired to, a royal investiture as Governor of the capital of the Punjab. The joint Sikh Governors belonging to other clans having reoccupied Lahore on the departure of the Shah, Ranjit Singh in 1799, by combined diplomacy and force, ousted them, and established himself there with his own clan and allies.