Battle of Manupur
The only time Abdali was beaten in a pitched battle in India. Sikh bands attacked his retreating columns.
In 1748 Ahmad Shah Abdali, newly crowned king of the Afghans, invaded India for the first time, took Lahore and marched towards Delhi. The Mughal emperor sent his wazir Qamar-ud-din Khan and his son Mir Mannu with a large army to stop him.
The armies met at Manupur near Sirhind on 11 March 1748. Qamar-ud-din was killed by a cannon ball while at prayer, but Mir Mannu rallied the army and, helped by an explosion in Abdali's own rockets, defeated the Afghans.
It was the only time Abdali was beaten in a pitched battle in India. As he retreated across the Punjab, Sikh bands attacked his rearguard and baggage. That same year, at Amritsar, the misls were organised into the Dal Khalsa.
Ahmad Shah Abdali's nine invasions
1748 – 1769- 1
- 21749–50
Forces the governor of Lahore to pay tribute
- 31751–52
Besieges Lahore four months; takes Kashmir
- 41756–57
Sacks Delhi, Mathura and Agra
- 5
- 6
- 71764
Attacks Amritsar; harried home by the Sikhs
- 81766–67
Cannot pin down the Sikhs; withdraws
- 91769
Turns back at Gujrat; his last campaign
Each time Abdali went home, the Sikhs came back out of the hills and forests and took the country again. By 1765 the misls held Lahore; Abdali's Afghan empire never kept the Punjab.
Same era
Misls, Mughals and Afghans, 1709 – 1799
Banda Singh's first great strike, on a wealthy town that was home to the executioners of Guru Tegh Bahadur and the younger Sahibzade.
Banda Singh avenged Pir Budhu Shah, who had been killed by Sadhaura's governor for helping Guru Gobind Singh.
The peasant army of Banda Singh routed the Sirhind army and killed Wazir Khan, the man who had executed the Guru's younger sons. Sirhind fell two days later.
The emperor himself marched against the Sikh capital. A Sikh named Gulab Singh put on Banda Singh's clothes and was captured in his place while Banda slipped away.
Banda Singh and his followers held out in a walled compound for eight months, eating grass and bark, before surrendering. They were marched to Delhi and executed.
Nadir Shah crushed the Mughal army in a few hours, then sacked Delhi and carried off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor.
Chhota GhallugharaMay – June 1746 · About 7,000 Sikhs killed and 3,000 executed (traditional figures)The 'Lesser Holocaust'. To avenge his brother's death, Lakhpat Rai hunted down Sikhs in the Kahnuwan swamps. Thousands were killed and captives were beheaded in Lahore.
Baba Deep Singh, in his seventies, marched from Damdama to free the desecrated Harmandir Sahib and was killed near its precinct.