Peer Waris Shah, of heer ranja, insults Afghans
"Wang Kabuli kuttian gird hoyan dow dow alalhisab laga gayyan.”
Waris Shah was under the impression that Afghans got defeated in 1761 by Mughals and express his happiness over defeat of Afghans in his poetry
"
Yey, ya Rab toon mehrban hoyon, tadey pher Choghatian da raj hoya, Toen diti shikast Qandharian noon, Dilli walian day sir taj hoya."
While describing the historic events I shall only quote and refer to non-Afghan writers and scholars to have an unbiased view of the events.
1-The Afghans played a very important role in the medieval history of India. The poverty of the soil, lack of economic and sustenance resources and the struggle for existence made the Afghans to leave their home-land and descend into the plains to sustain themselves. They made their first expedition into India in 705 AD, when their contingent from Khurasan, then under the rule of Abdul Malik Hijjaj bin Yousuf joined Muhammad bin Qasim to Sind (Henry Priestly, “Inhabitants of Afghanistan” p- 25.). In the Punjab the Afghan settlements can be traced as early as 10th century. Most of the Afghans who accompanied Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna and Sultan Shahab-ud-Din Ghori remained behind on the newly acquired land and founded their settlements all over the Punjab and Sirhind (Denzil Ibbetson, “Tribes and Castes of the Punjab" Vol-II & III., also see Rita Joshi “The Role of Afghan Nobles during the Reign of Jahangir”). The country between River Beas and Sutlej was once called the Afghanistan of Punjab (Afghana-i-Hoshiarpur). Subsequently, the Mughals used the Afghans to neutralise the refractory Rajputs.
2. Ahmad Shah Abdali, except for his invasion of Punjab when he came to punish the debauch, licentious, and carousal Shah Nawaz Khan who had killed his religious mentor Pir Sabir Shah, had been asked time and again by the local Muslims of the Punjab and Sirhind to protect the latter from the atrocities of the Marhattas and Sikhs. Throughout his life he had been fighting against the latter’s menace to the Muslims of the Punjab. After him even his grandsons had been invited by Tipu Sultan to come to the rescue of the Muslims of Hind. (Mir Hussain Ali Khan Kirmani, “History of Tipu Sultan”, 1864, translated by Colonel W. Miles, p-182). Lack of money and the local intrigues were the main causes why they did not respond to such calls in time. I shall quote two instances out of many of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s struggle against the Sikhs and Marhattas.
a. In 1762, Ahmad Shah Abdali arrived first in Jandialah and then Lahore. The Sikhs fled to Sirhind. With Shah’s presence at Lahore, the Sikhs got slack, thinking that he had no intentions of their pursuit. His sudden withdrawal to Lahore and the rumours that this time he wanted to advance beyond Delhi had made the Sikhs complacent. They did not speedily march into Malwa hills as usual. The Shah soon made them repent their blunder. He had come to know about their presence near Maler Kotla. He sallied out from Lahore at the head of his troops with utmost precaution and secrecy. He, covering a distance of 150 miles in about 36 hours, caught the Sikhs unaware and unprepared near Kot Rohera. Joined by the Afghan chiefs of Maler Kotla, Ahmad Shah on 5th May 1762 cut their route of retreat and surrounded them from all sides. Suddenly a panic seized them and general stampede followed. In the evening when Afghans stopped at a pond to water their horses, the Sikhs availed the opportunity. They fled towards Hariana and Barnala leaving behind about thirty thousands dead. Historians variously estimate the Sikh’s casualties from 12000 to 30,000. The survivors were wounded to a man. Tahmas Khan a servant to Mir Mannu and author of “Tahmas Nama,” who took part in the battle, places the Sikh dead at 25000 while Rattan Singh was told by his father a figure of 30,000. 5th May 1762 is remembered as `Bada Ghallughara' or the biggest holocaust in the Sikh History. Views of various non-Afghan writers are given below:-
i. “Tarikh-i-Ahmadi”, as quoted by S M Lateef, the Sikhs suffered 30,000 killed.
ii. Captain Murray, it did not exceed 12,000.
iii. Rai Kanhia Lal, the Sikhs killed numbered about 24,000 men.
iv. Sir John Malcolm, the Sikhs lost more than 24,000 men.
v. Arjan Das Malik, places the Sikh dead at 25000.
In the absence of Ahmad Shah Abdali from the Punjab, whenever the Sikhs got an opportunity they literally devastated the whole country, subjected the Muslims to many outrages, indignities, and hardships. They committed sacrilegious outrages to the Muslim mosques and shrines. On one occasion they chopped off ears and noses of all Muslim butchers of Lahore and expelled them from there. (See S. M. Lateef, “History of the Punjab”, 1891, p- 285-6).
b. As for the Marhattas are concerned the Third Battle of Panipat is the biggest proof of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s desire to liberate the Muslims of
Sirhind and Punjab from the Marhatta’s clutches. The incident on which Waris Shah rejoices is the massacre of a small Afghan contingent at Delhi at the hands of Sooraj Mal Jat and not the Mughals. The Marhattas army easily occupied Delhi where the small Durrani contingent that held it was cut to pieces after a spirited defence. Kanjpura on the banks of Jamuna River, sixty miles to the north of Delhi, was next besieged and the whole Afghan garrison was killed (Also see Syed Altaf Ali Brelvi, Life of Hafiz Rahmat Khan p-108-9). Ahmad Shah was encamped on the left bank of the Jamuna River, which was swollen by rains. The massacre of the Kanjpura garrison, within the sight of the Durrani camp, exasperated him to such an extent that he ordered crossing of the river at all costs. S M Lateef, “History of the Punjab”, p-235, quotes "Tarikh-i-Ahmadi", and writes:
“The Shah is said to have recited some verses of the Holy Quran, and, having blown them on an arrow, discharged from his quiver into the river. Raising then the cry “Bismillah-i-Allah-o- Akbar” meaning, ‘in the name of God the great God’ he plunged into the river, followed by his bodyguards and the troops.”
The Durranis crossed the Jamuna on 23rd October. Ahmad Shah, along with other Afghan chiefs of Hind, rushed to punish Marhattas. The Afghans caught the advance guard of Marhatta army at Sarai Sanbhalak (For more detail see S. Altaf Ali Brelvi “Life of Hafiz Rahmat Khan”,p-107-28). The Marhattas retired to Panipat. The Marhatta force consisted of 300,000 men, including 55,000 Marhatta Cavalry, and had three hundred pieces of cannon The “Gul-i-Rahmat” and the “Tarikh-i-Najibabad” by Akbar Shah Khan give the number of the Marhatta forces at three lacs. In local tales common among the people of Panipat the number is raised to nine lacs, which seems an exaggeration.
Ahmad Shah had 40,000 Afghans and Persians, 13,000 Indian Afghan cavalry and 38,000 Indian Afghan infantry, with 70 pieces of cannon borrowed from the Indian allies. According to the best accounts the number of Marhattas slain numbered to about 200,000, while 22,000 prisoners, 50,000 horses and an immense booty fell into the hands of the victors. News of the defeat flashed throughout India, couched in this code: “Two pearls have been dissolved, twenty-seven gold ‘mohurs’ have been lost, and of the silver and copper total cannot be cast up”.(Lieutenant General Sir G. Macmunn, “Afghanistan –From Darius to Amanullah, p-70.)
The Marhatta Peshwa or the king died of despondency. They retired beyond Narbada, never to recover their power. Rudyard Kipling in poem “With Scindia to Delhi” wrote:
“The children of the hills of the Khost before our lances ran,
We drove the black Rohillas back as cattle to pen.
It was then we needed Mulhar Rao to end what we began,
A thousand men had saved the charge; he fled the field with ten,
I held by Scindia, my lord, as close as man might be;
A Soobah of the Deccan asks no aid to guard its life;
But Holkar’s horse were flying and our chiefest chiefs were cold,
And like a flame among us leaped the long lean Northern knife.”
3. About Ahmad Shah Durrani, S M Lateef writes,
“After the victory at Panipat, the whole of Hindustan lay at the mercy of the Abdali conqueror. But he had no wish to ascend the vacant throne of the Mughals; so after remaining at Delhi for a few days and arranging the affairs of India, he returned to Punjab, which had already been ceded to him, and with which he appeared contented.”
4. Abdul Karim Alvi, the historian, narrates an interesting conversation here. When Mir Mannu presented himself before Ahmad Shah, the latter sarcastically asked him, “How is it that you did not present yourself before the threshold of your lord before this to do him homage?” “Because”, replied Mir Mannu, “I had another lord to serve.” “And why,” rejoined the Shah satirically, “ did not your lord and master succour you at this moment of your distress?” “Because,” answered Mannu boldly, “he was sure that his servant would take care of himself”. “And supposing,” continued the Shah, “I had fallen in your hands, what treatment would you have shown to me?” “I should have severed your majesty’s head from your body and sent it to my king”, was the reply. “And now that you are at my mercy, what do you expect of me”? “If you are a merchant,” said Mannu,” sell me: if executioner and tyrant, cut off my head: but if you are a king show me kingly generosity and pardon my life.” The Shah was pleased with the dauntless spirit of the youth, and conferred upon him the title of ‘Farzand Khan Bahadur Rustam-i- Hind’.
5. Mountstuart Elphinstone wrote about Ahmad Shah Abdali:
"His military courage and activity are spoken of with admiration, both by his own subjects and the nations with whom he was engaged, either in wars or alliances. He seems to have been naturally disposed to mildness and clemency and though it is impossible to acquire sovereign power and perhaps, in Asia, to maintain it, without crimes; yet the memory of no eastern prince is stained with fewer acts of cruelty and injustice."
"… He treated Moollahs and holy men with great respect, both from policy and inclination. He was himself a divine and an author and was always ambitious of the character of a saint. (“Account of the Kingdom of Caubul” 1815)
7. Ahmad Shah Abdali was a distinguished warrior, religious, generous and a kind-hearted king. He was a true Muslim and never believed in pomp and show of the royal courts. Unlike his contemporary kings and rajas, he did not even have a crown. His devotion to Islam further added to his simplicity and service to God. Being an accomplished poet and writer himself, he once wrote:
“I capture every province with the aid of God; It is with his help that I go everywhere without failure. Yet I, Ahmad, consider the world worthless and unimportant. I shall leave the world behind and go the next, armed only with my faith.”
Verdict
1. Surprisingly waris shah does not say any thing about the brutalities of the Sikhs and Marhattas on the Muslims of the Punjab, rather rejoice over the massacre of a small Muslim Afghan garrison in the Delhi Fort and Kanjpura. Furthermore, they are ignorant of the complete victory of the Afghans over the Marhattas, which is worldwide accepted and appreciated as a classic strategy of the Afghans against a force many time superior to them in men and material.
2. The pages of history bear out that Ahmad Shah Abdali was a kind-hearted person, prone to clemency and forgiveness. He spent his life in chasing the
Sikhs and the Marhattas so that Muslims of the Punjab and Sirhind could live in peace.
3. There is no evidence that Ahmad Shah Abdali ever looted the Muslims of Punjab or elsewhere for whose protection he used to come from Kabul and Kandahar.
4. There was no dearth of Muslims in the Punjab and Sirhind, yet they looked for the Afghans to shield them against the Sikhs. Certainly the Afghans were not super human beings, nevertheless, the trust reposed in them by the former clearly shows the Afghans’ gallantry, chivalry, the will to fight for their co-religionists, the acumen to administer the conquered territories, and perseverance and steadfastness to bear the hardships of war and weather for their Muslim brothers in the Punjab.
5. I have not been able to find the answers as to why:
a. Waris Shah should rejoice on the massacre of the Afghans who had been invited by Shah Waliullah of Delhi and fought for the Muslims.
6. Waris Shah should call the Afghans ‘the thieves’; a thief steals, while the Afghans were the conquerors and could get any thing by force if they wanted to.
c. Waris Shah should close their eyes to the Sikhs’ ‘Satnami Movement’, their atrocities committed on the Muslims in Lahore and elsewhere and as reported by many historians of the time.
d. Waris Shah should abuse the proud race of the Afghans as ‘Kabuli Kuttian’
e. Waris Shah should join a debauch, who had Hindu and Sikh keeps, a licentious and a pervert, a killer of a religious and pious man, and fight a Muslim who came to punish such an enemy of Islam.
Note that Waris Shah was born in Jandiala Sher Khan, Sheikhupura, a small town about 40 kilometers from Lahore. The town was dominated by Afghan Pathans who were the major landowners.
Waris Shah (1722-1798) This wanting world
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