Jahangir’s death in 1627 AD opened a new chapter in the career of Guru Hargobind. The death was an important event with which we enter into a new phase of relations of Guru Hargobind with the Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan. The relations between them grew so worst that battles between them became evident. The estrangement between them was caused due to the following factors:
- Guru
Hargobind’s New Policy was an important cause for this estrangement. When
Shah Jahan became the emperor, the Guru had given due shape to his New Policy. The
Akal Takhat had been constructed upto this time and the fortification of
Amritsar had also been completed. The Guru had established his well-organized
Sikh army and had even formed a contingent of the Pathan troops under Painda
Khan. He had himself started wearing royal dress and adopted royal-symbols,
besides being called the Saccha Padshah.
In this way, he was forming an imperium-in-imperio. “Thus the Guru was becoming
a potential source of danger to the established order,” states Dr. I. B.
Banerjee, and it was possible for Shah Jahan to take action against him.
- The fanatic
policy of Shah Jahan was another factor. The repair of old temples or the
construction of new temples was not allowed to the Hindus. At Banaras and
certain other places, the Hindu temples were demolished. While he was returning
home from Kashmir, he got the news about the marriage of Hindu boys with Muslim
girls at Rajouri, Bhimber and Gujarat. Shah Jahan not only declared such
marriages illegal, but also forcibly seized the Muslim girls from their Hindu
husbands.
- In the case of Punjab, three temples were
destroyed and mosques were constructed over there. The Baoli of Lahore was
filled with mud and dirt, and the Langar Bhawan was converted into the mosque.
The Sikhs were stunned at it and stood against the fanatic rule.
- As Jahangir had in his early days of accession
come under the influence of the
Naqshabandis, he was responsible for the martyrdom of Guru Arjan. Since
then, it is stated that he had come under the influence of Mian Mir and adopted
the policy of Sulah-i-Kul. Soon the relations between Jahangir and Guru
Hargobind became friendly. On the accession of Shah Jahan, the situation had
changed. Masud, the son of Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindi, led the Naqshabandis and the
number of fanatic Muslims increased under him. Shah Jahan was also highly
influenced by him. As these people were full of hatred against the non-Muslims,
especially against the Hindus and the Sikhs in Punjab, they poisoned the ears
of Shah Jahan against the Sikhs.
- The Kaulan
affair also strained the relations between the two. Kaulan was the daughter
of the Qazi of Lahore. She was a religious minded girl and was a follower of
Mian Mir. Being a staunch Sunni, the Qazi could not tolerate the religious
sentiments of his daughter. Therefore, he started inflicting atrocities on her.
Mian Mir sent her in the shelter of Guru Hargobind. When Shah Jahan came to
know about it, he flared up against the Guru.
The above are some of the fundamental factors
responsible for the warfare between the two. Though the writers differ on the
number and places of the battles fought, the view of Macauliffe is the most
acceptable, that Guru Hargobind fought the following three battles against the
Mughals.
1. Battle of Amritsar,
(1628 A.D.): The battle of Amritsar “was the first combat between the
Muhammedans and the Sikhs.” Shah Jahan was on a hunting trip in the forests
near Amritsar. Guru Hargobind was also on a similar mission in the same forest.
It so happened that the Mughals started pursuing a very beautiful hawk. After
some time, Shah Jahan returned to Lahore leaving his men to accomplish the
task. As fortune has it, the Sikhs also met with the same hawk and captured it
for their Guru. However, the Mughals claimed their authority over the bird,
because they were the first to pursue it. When the Mughals resisted, they were
driven out with slaughter, and as Dr. I. B. Banerjee states, it “was too great
an offence to be lightly passed over.”
The Mughals in the command of Mukhlis
Khan made an attack against the Guru. The Mughals were 7,000 in number. Though
all the records unanimously agree with the Sikh victory, the writer of Dabistan
narrates, “At Ramdaspur, Hargobind sustained an attack of the army, which Shah
Jahan, the Shadow of God, sent against him, and the Guru’s property was then
plundered.” The statement of the author of Dabistan may indeed be true, but
what happened was that the invaders had taken possession of the Guru’s palace.
The sweets had been stored there in plenty, because the marriage date of the
Guru’s daughter, Viro, had been fixed, which was in the near future. The
Mughals ate plenty of sweets and could not help sleeping. Consequently they
could not cope with the surprise attack of the Sikhs in the command of their
Guru. The Sikhs came out victorious in the battle. The Mughals were killed in a
great number, including their commander, Mukhlis Khan.
The battle of Amritsar is
considered an important landmark in the Sikh history. Dr. A.C. Banerjee
comments, “It marks the beginning of their armed resistance to the Mughal
Empire, a process which reached its culmination in the early years of the
eighteenth century.” The victory popularized the Guru among the non-Muslim
masses, who were fed up by the fanatic rule. Sir Jadu Nath Sarkar has also
believed that “many men came to enlist under the Guru’s banner. They said that
no one else had power to contend with the Emperor.”
Although the Guru had won the
battle, yet he retreated from Amritsar to Kartarpur and here thrashed a small
contingent of the Subahdar of Jullundur, sent against him.
2. Battle of Lahira,
(1631 A.D.): Guru Hargobind was not interested to lead a life of warfare, but
wanted to live in peace. He had been living a peaceful life for three years
since his first encounter with the Mughals, and the process would have longed
when suddenly an event occurred.
It is said that two Masands, Bakht
Mal and Tara Chand, were bringing two horses of extreme beauty and fleetness
for their revered Guru. On the way, the Mughal officials seized both these
horses. Bidhi Chand, a notorious dacoit of his times, but now an ardent
follower of Guru Hargobind, succeeded in recovering these horses from the royal
stable at Lahore. This act of Bidhi Chand annoyed the emperor and he sent an
expedition under Lala Beg and Qamar Beg against the Sikhs. The news alarmed the
Guru and he thought it wise on his part “to seek shelter in some advantageous
position and retired to the wastes of Bhatinda, south of Sutlej, where it might
be useless or dangerous to follow him.” When the Mughal commanders got
information of the reaction of the Guru, they foolishly ordered their troops to
advance to the area where the Sikhs had settled. Here the Mughals attacked the
Sikhs for the second time, but could not cope with the natural difficulties.
Hence the Sikhs under Guru Hargobind defeated the Mughals very easily at
Lahira. A good number of the Mughals were killed in the battle and the Sikh
soldiers also were either badly injured or killed in great number.
The victory at Lahira made the Guru
and the Sikhs feel themselves so powerful that without convincing any danger
they returned in the plains. According to S. M. Latif, “Hargobind having twice
beaten the Mughal army in the open field, now began to entertain some degree of
confidence in his own power and in the prowess of his followers.”
3. Battle of Kartarpur,
(1634 A.D.): The Guru had settled down along with his Sikhs at Kartarpur and
was leading a peaceful life. But Painda Khan, in the service of the Guru as a
Pathan commander, made the battle inevitable for the third time. It so happened
that Painda Khan, on being pressurized by his son-in-law, Asman Khan, stole the
favorite hawk of Bhai Gurditta, a son of Guru Hargobind. The Sikhs recovered
the hawk from Painda Khan’s house, but he denied that it was in his house. In
order to punish him, the Guru drove him out.
Munshi Sohan Lal in his monumental
work, Umdat-ut-Tawarikh, has narrated
a different story. According to him, Painda Khan incurred the Guru’s
displeasure by making over to his son-in-law the horse and Khillat the Guru had
given him for his personal use.
Be whatsoever it may, Painda was
ousted and in order to avenge his humiliation, he approached Shah Jahan and
offered to destroy the Sikhs this time, if he was given sufficient troops.
Hence the Guru was attacked at Kartarpur in April, 1634 A.D. A desperate battle
was fought here. Macauliffe writes, “The Pathans were powerless against the
brave Sikhs fighting for their religion and their Guru.” The Mughal army was
repulsed with great slaughter, Painda Khan, Asman Khan and Chandu’s son being
among the slain.
Sir Gokul Chand Narang observes,
“Victorious as the Guru was, he did not think it safe to live any longer in the
plains.” After his victory at Kartarpur, he had left this place and reached
Phagwara, but as Macauliffe states and the Guru himself would have been
convinced, the town of Phagwara was on the road to Lahore, and the Mughal
government could very easily send reinforcements against him. Consequently, he
retired to Kiratpur, where he spent the remaining years of his life in peace
and working for his spiritual mission, being alienated at all to the acts of
warfare.
