BANDA BAHADUR

Veer Vairagi alias Banda Bahadur was a great warrior and liberator
of the Hindus in Panjab, during the cruel and fanatical rule of the
Muslim rulers in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Some say he
was a Rajput, others say that he was a Brahmin, but whether Rajput or
Brahmin, he was a Hindu named Lachhman Dev, born in 1670 A.D. in
Rajouri in the present J & K state.
As a youth, he was very fond of hunting. One day his arrow struck a
pregnant doe who alongwith her aborted fawn died, writhing with pain,
before his eyes. Seeing this, he was so overwhelmed with remorse that

he renounced the world and became a vairagi (ascetic) and his guru
changed his name to Madho Das. In the company of other sadhus, Madho
Das went to the south and began to live in a hut in Nander on the bank
of river Godhavri. There he became very famous as a man of miracles.
After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh
went to the south in the company of Bahadur Shah, the new Emperor.
There Guru Gobind Singh met Madho Das and narrated the incidents of his
life—how his two younger sons were bricked alive by the Nawab of
Sirhind. He also described the pitiable plight of the Hindus in Panjab
under the cruel and oppressive rule of the Muslim rulers. He was so
enraged by the account given by Guru Gobind Singh that he decided to
take arms again and go to Panjab to take revenge on Guru’s behalf
there. It is said that he told the Guru that he was his Banda; so
thereafter the Sikhs began to call him Banda. Later on when he showed
his valour in the battle field, the appellation ‘Bahadur’ was added to
it and he came to be known as Banda Bahadur.
Accompanied by a number of trusted Sikhs of the Guru, Banda came to
Panjab and started his campaign against the Muslim rulers. He inflictd
crushing defeats on them and won spectacular victories in the battles
he fought, the most glorious one being at Sirhind. The Mughal armies
failed to contain him. At last in 1716, Farukhsiyar, the then Mughal
Emperor approached Guru Gobind Singh’s widow Mata Sundri with the
request that she should restrain Banda from further bloodshed. Mata
Sundri was living in Delhi.Thus at the behest of the Mughal Emperor,she
sent orders to Banda Bahadur to stop his campaign and fight no more
battles. But Banda did not comply with the orders,because he could not
trust the Mughals that they would do him no harm. Perhaps he was right.
But this non-comliance on his part caused a split in the Khalsa army.
The Sikhs owing allegiance to Mata Sundri separated themselves from
Banda and were called ‘tatt’ Khalsa and the followers of Banda were
called ‘Bandai’ Khalsa. The ‘tatt’ Khalsa under the leadership of Baba
Vinoda Singh deserted Banda Bahadur. This considerably weakened Banda’s
position and he could not cope with the mighty Mughal armies. He was
captured alongwith his 740 companions. They were taken to Delhi and
humiliated and ridiculed publicly. Then all his companions were
executed one by one and when his turn came, he was asked to convert to
Islam or face death. On his refusal, he was subjected to untold inhuman
tortures and then alongwith his 4 year old son, was put to death. Thus
Farukhsiyar achieved with diplomacy what he could not in the battle
field.
However, the martyrdom of Banda did not go in vain. It lit the flame
of freedom which later engulfed the whole of Panjab, led to the
formation of Sikh Misls and ultimately to the establishment of an
independent kingdom by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Banda was perhaps the
first Indian who fought open battles against the Mughal armies and
anflicted humiliating defeats on them.He was definitely the first
Indian who paid the Muslim rulers in their own coin.
Was Banda a Sikh ? is an interesting question. According to Prachin
Panth Parkash, when Mata Sundri, as requested by the Mughal Emperor,
sent a message to Banda to stop further bloodshed, Banda gave a blunt
reply, ” I am not your Sikh; I am a Vaishnav, a Bairagi. I shall now
substitute the war-cry ‘Wahiguru-ji-ki-Fateh ‘with ‘ Fateh Darshan
‘…” This reply has ever since provoked the Sikh writers and
historians to level all sorts of accusations against Banda and spread
lies and confusion about him; so much so that Sardar Balwant Singh
Bahoru had to write a book to rebutt these charges. In the preface to
his book’Baba Banda Singh Bahadur da Britant te Dukhant’ in Panjabi,
the writer says, ” The two parts of the book have shown the reality and
exposed those Sikh historians, scholars, thinkers and especially the
highest Sikh organisation, Shromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee
Amritsar, who have spread confusion and ignored the great achievements
of Baba Banda Singh, and the way in which they have denounced and
slandered the great General and Reformer.” Then again the question: Was
Banda Bahadur a Hindu or a Sikh ? Banda’s own reply to Mata Sundri
makes it amply clear who he was.

H.L.Kandhari
hiralalkandhari@hotmail.com