The land of five waters gave the world its first cities, its saints and its songs. Broken by every empire that crossed it, it is still ours to remember, and to make whole again.
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The 'Great Holocaust'. Abdali's cavalry caught the Sikh convoy of families moving south near Kup and Rahira. The fighters formed a moving ring around the families and fought all day.
Early in 1762 Ahmad Shah Abdali returned to the Punjab determined to crush the Sikhs. The Dal Khalsa, with its families, was moving south through the Malwa towards the safety of the deserts, a great convoy of perhaps thirty to fifty thousand people.
On 5 February 1762, near the villages of Kup and Rahira near Malerkotla, Abdali's army, which had marched at great speed, caught the convoy. The Sikhs formed a moving square, the fighting men around the women, children and old people, and fought their way forward for miles under constant attack. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia was wounded many times.
By the end of the day perhaps twenty to thirty thousand Sikhs had been killed. It was the Vadda Ghallughara, the Great Holocaust, the worst single day in Sikh history before 1984. Abdali went on to Amritsar and blew up the Harmandir Sahib. Yet within months the Sikhs were back in the field, and in October they faced him again at Amritsar.
'Ghallughara' means a holocaust or wholesale massacre. Sikhs gave the name to the two great killings of the 18th century, and in 1984 many called the army's attack on the Harmandir Sahib the third.
Forces the governor of Lahore to pay tribute
Besieges Lahore four months; takes Kashmir
Sacks Delhi, Mathura and Agra
Attacks Amritsar; harried home by the Sikhs
Cannot pin down the Sikhs; withdraws
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.
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.
The only time Abdali was beaten in a pitched battle in India. Sikh bands attacked his retreating columns.