Harking Back: Sikh triumvirate and how Lahore was captured

Before Ranjit Singh captured Lahore on the 7th of July, 1799, the city was ruled by a Sikh triumvirate for over three decades. They were by all accounts a most talented, yet colourful trio. Just how they managed to enter the Lahore Fort and the city is a bizarre story.

To put the triumvirate in context, a bit of history is essential. After the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 AD, we see the Afghans return to the Punjab time and again. The only people to resist these invasions were the Sikhs, who gradually formed ‘misls’ in their areas, those number grew to 13. It was on the back of these ‘misls’ that the Sikh Khalsa Army ultimately emerged, a force that was, by 1802, capable of taking on both the Afghans from the West and the growing British from the East.

The Sikhs around Lahore were particularly fierce and when Ahmed Shah Abdali returned for the seventh time in 1762, he stopped at Rohtas to meet a ‘rogue guru’ by the name of Aqil Das, whom the Lahore Sikhs considered a traitor and a fraud. Abdali was told that the Lahore Sikhs had killed the Lahore governor Khawaja Ubaid Khan.

On this an enraged Abdali reached Lahore and the Sikhs from around the city fled and headed towards Gujjarwal near Raipur. Abdali reached there swiftly and massacred nearly 30,000 Sikhs in a tragedy known in Sikh history as the “Vada Ghallughara”. He brought back to Lahore 50 cartloads of heads of Sikhs. Abdali continued to harass the Sikhs and moved to Amritsar and for the second time blew up the Harmandir Sahib, filling its tank with dead cows. It was the ultimate insult.

The Sikhs responded by forming ‘misls’ in their own areas and were a highly mobile collection of guerrilla bands. The idea being that they should not be all together at one time, and that the chances of complete defeat be eliminated. From this tactic of hit-and-run, of withdrawal only to attack time and again, emerged a force that just could not be defeated. “A thousand small blows is better than a strong punch”. From this emerged the triumvirate of the Lahore Sikhs.

Ahmad Shah left Lahore in 1763 for Kandahar and appointed Kabuli Mal as the governor. No sooner had he left that hundreds of Sikh horsemen belonging to different ‘misls’ appeared and surrounded Lahore. The entire countryside was searched and all Afghan collaborators that led to the ‘ghallughara’ were killed. In the countryside around Lahore all buildings of such people were flattened and Afghans captured were put in chains and, as G. Forester was to comment, made to “wash the foundations of flattened premises in hog blood”.

By 1765 Kabuli Mal had lost complete control of Lahore and it was then that Hari Singh Bhangi and other Sikh chiefs rode up outside Delhi Gate and demanded that the butchers living in ‘Mohallah Qasaban’, which today is the first lane to the left as you enter the gateway, be put to death for helping Abdali actually slaughter Sikh women and children by the hundreds. They were thrown in a well opposite Delhi Gate, now in Landa Bazaar and known as ‘shaheedi khoo’. Kabuli Mal managed to avert another bloodbath by cutting off the noses of just three butchers.

On hearing of this the Afghan ruler sent his general Jahan Khan with 10,000 horsemen to quickly reach Lahore and punish the Sikhs. The Sikh network was efficient and they quickly vacated the city and headed towards Sialkot. Jahan Khan on reaching Gujranwala appointed Daud Khan as the new Lahore governor. When the appointment letter was shown to Kabuli Mal, he tried to force out Daud Khan, but was imprisoned. Kabuli Mal wrote from prison to the Sikhs for help, who then attacked the forces of Jahan Khan and defeated him. The ‘misl’ tactic of hit-and-run was doing wonders with the Afghans wondering just where to attack. In the end Jahan Khan retreated to Rohtas and the Sikhs returned to Lahore.

But Ahmad Shah decided to immediately return and punish Kabuli Mal and his Sikh supporters. The slippery Kabuli Mal managed, with the help of ‘paid mullahs’, to convince Abdali that he was the best man to kill off the Sikhs. But news of an approaching Afghan army saw thousands of Sikh horsemen disappear overnight towards the hills about 150 miles to the northeast. Ahmad Shah decided that he had more to lose chasing “the invisible” Sikhs and in 1765 decided to return with as much loot as was possible to carry back to Afghanistan.

On this the Sikh ‘misls’ returned and an army of 2,000 horsemen camped outside Lahore at Baghbanpura. They secretly negotiated with the ‘purabias’ employed in the Lahore Fort to let them in. These talks failed so then a group of gardeners who worked during the day inside the fort, but lived in Baghbanpura, were contacted. Allauddin’s narration in ‘Ibratnama’ tells us their names as being Nuqra Jat, Mir Sultan, Ghulam Rasool, Ashraf, Channan and Baqir, all of Baghbanpura. The plan was for them to dig a small hole through the fort’s eastern wall, just enough for a human to enter with ease. For this they were paid handsomely.

So it was that the daring Gujjar Singh of the Bhangi Misl, after whom Qila Gujjar Singh is named, entered the Lahore Fort with his daring band of men at night. They eliminated all resistance and set on fire a wooden pavilion. This was a signal for Lehna Singh Bhangi and his men to enter the ‘Hathipul Gate’, which had been secured by Gujjar Singh’s men. So it was that the Lahore Fort fell to the Bhangi Sikhs. But the city was still in the hands of the Qazi, who called on Amir Singh Bakhshi to immediately rush in 5,000 riflemen.

Early the next morning these riflemen appeared along with a small cannon to blow away the Fort and eliminate the Bhangi threat. But then Tara Singh from nearby Mozang rode in and these hired riflemen ran away. So on April 16, 1765, the Bhangis, namely led by Gujjar Singh and Lehna Singh, and the Kanhaya ‘misl’ led by Sobha Singh, took over Lahore. They collected the people and declared that Lahore was the ‘the guru’s cradle’, meaning that Guru Ram Das, the fourth guru, was born in Lahore at Chuna Mandi.

The triumvirate divided Lahore into three parts. Lehna Singh took control over the fort and the walled city. Gujjar Singh took control over the eastern part right up to the Shalimar Gardens, and Sobha Singh the western part right up to Niaz Beg. It might surprise many that they proved to be very able and enlightened rulers. They attended every Muslim and Hindu festival and made offerings at shrines. Descriptions of them by later-day historians, quite incorrectly, paint them as drunks and opium addicts.

When Abdali returned in 1766 and entered Lahore on December 22, the Sikh rulers left. Ahmad Shah was surprised that the population of Lahore praised “their kind Sikh rulers”. Ahmad Shah tried to negotiate with Lehna Singh and sent him a basket of Afghan dry fruit as a sign of friendship. Lehna Singh returned the compliment with a basket of dry gram (channay), meaning that they would resist forever.