Guerrilla Warfare-I (indigenous powers)

The regions west of the Jhelum had come firmly under Afghan rule and the inhabitants, whether Pashtun or non-Pashtun, were robbed and ruled with harshness. The local powers thus joined in the campaigns of their new overlords just as their forefathers had joined the Mughal army and administration---even though most of them would have preferred to remain free. Abdus Samad of the Mohmand Pashtun tribe, an inhabitant of Peshawar, acted as Abdali's governor of Sarhind before he was unseated by the Marathas and Adina Beg. In Multan Ahmad Shah settled a large number of Sadduzai Afghans who kept the local rebels in check. The numerous petty states from Hazara to Rajauri aided the Afghan conquest of Kashmir in 1752---Raja Sukh Jiwan, a former Mughal officer, became the Afghan governor of that pristine valley. When Ahmad Shah was involved in the contest with the Marathas this Sukh Jiwan declared his independence. In 1762 Ahmad Shah again had to conquer Kashmir---in this expedition military aid came from the state of Jammu.

Raja Ranjit Dev of Jammu considered it wise to maintain good relations with Ahmad Shah because by that time Jammu had become the richest state in that war-devastated region. In fact the states lying in the eastern hills had all become wealthy and militarily strong---this came about due to two reasons. Firstly with the foreign invasions and the plundering of the Sikh bands the traditional trade route between India and Asia had become unsafe---traders, envoys, travelers now preferred to pass through the hill states of Jammu and Kangra where they paid custom duties and taxes. Secondly merchant families from Punjab and Delhi settled down in these states with all their wealth, while in times of danger powerful chiefs (Mughals, Afghans, and Sikhs) in the plains would entrust their property and children to the care of the Rajputs.

Some of this wealth was spent in building palaces, forts, and temples but these were after all warlike states and an increase in military resources and power projection was a natural consequence of increased prosperity. As explained above these Rajput states had always been deficient in artillery, but now they hired mercenaries from the plains to bolster their traditional clan-armies. These mercenaries were Mughalias, Afghans, and Purbias, formerly of the Delhi and Nadir Shah armies left unemployed by the death or defeat of their patrons---they had been offering their services to any local chief who could pay them. Some had been hired by Safdar Jang and others by Muin-ul-mulk and his deputy Adina Beg; Ranjit Dev of Jammu also had such men in his pay while Ghammand Chand Katoch of Kangra had hired about 4000 such mercenaries---with all their guns and munitions.

Ghammand Chand Katoch on the right with his son Tegh Chand, a falcon is perched on the cushion between them

These two Rajas thus acquired dominance in their respective regions and their power was recognized by Ahmad Shah Abdali after he had annexed Punjab. The Afghan monarch considered it politic to maintain these Rajas as allies instead of attacking them because his more immediate enemies were on the plains.

After the execution of Banda Bahadur in 1714 the Sikhs did not have the resources or the leadership to make an impact on the geo-politics of the Punjab. The original followers of the Gurus, men and women from all castes, clustered around the numerous holy places of their religion but a new element was injected into this body---these were the Jat headmen of the Punjab villages and their followers. Some had been initiated as Sikhs by Guru Govind and Banda while others embraced Sikhism to seek allies against the oppressions of Mir Mannu.

As explained above Punjab was a poor province in the medieval era and was covered with jungle and scrub. Sturdy horses were bred in these tracts[25] and the local tribes began their careers by raiding and robbing on horseback---as described earlier successful chiefs attracted more mercenaries around them and became a threat to the government, which would either induct such chiefs into their administration or would crush them outright. Unlike these chieftains the Jat Sikhs had been given a sense of direction and unity by their Gurus---which in a delicious irony were unknowingly strengthened by the Mughal governor of Lahore!

The position of Guru and the institution of the masands were utilized by the Mughal government to control the Sikhs---these had been wisely abolished by Govind Singh. However, Zakariya Khan the Lahore governor ennobled one Kapur Singh with the title of Nawab, granted him an estate, and bade him to act as the leader of the Sikhs. In 1727 Nawab Kapur Singh persuaded the different Sikh bands (misl) to gather as a united group (dal) at Amritsar and pay taxes for their villages---this annual gathering came to be called the Dal Khalsa. When the Persian and Afghan invasions shook Mughal authority in Punjab the Dal Khalsa began planning military campaigns and plundering raids at these very gatherings! Jassa Singh of the Ahluwalia misl emerged as the head of the Dal Khalsa.

[25] One such tract from the Sutlej River south up to Karnal was called the Lakhi Jangal, forest of hundred thousand trees and brush, even in the 18th Century. It was a center for horse breeding until canals were dug and the land was opened for cultivation under the British.

As already pointed out, the Sarhind region was not part of Punjab, but here too there were some small Sikh bands controlling a few villages. In 1741 the Mughal faujdar of Sarhind was challenged by the growing power of the Muslim landlord of Raikot---the Sikh chief Ala Singh of Patiala fought loyally under the Mughal banners and was rewarded with an estate and a title. Other Phulkian[26] Sikh chiefs came into some prominence at this time but none of these were counted among the leading powers of that time. In fact the Sikhs and Jats of the region were still classed as small-time rebels. In 1740, a year after Nadir Shah's army had devastated the Sarhind region on their way home, the Sikhs and Jats gathered together under a chief named Daranat Shah and tried to capture Sarhind but were defeated by a Mughal army sent up from Delhi.

In 1757, Ala Singh and other Sikh warriors looted the baggage train of Abdali's son Timur, but dispersed to their hiding places when Ahmad Shah with the main army passed through Sarhind. Later that year Abdus Samad Mohmand, governor of Sarhind, attacked Ala Singh and forced him to pay a fine. The next year the Marathas, allied with the Sikhs and Adina Beg, attacked Sarhind with the results described above---Ala Singh and other Phulkia chiefs utilized this period to further increase their power. Foreign invasions had enabled the Sikhs to come into prominence and it would be continuing foreign invasions, and consequent Maratha weakness, which would elevate their power over all others.

[26] So named because they were descendants of Baba Phul Singh

Figure 4 The old fort of Patiala

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Guerrilla Warfare-I (firearms)

a 16th century Mughal musketeer

The Mughals were superior to the other Indian powers in the artillery arm---but on the international stage they were considered inferior in the handling of this artillery---especially in marksmanship and fire control. This became glaringly evident in the three sieges of the massive Kandahar Fort[16](from 1649 to 1653) in Afghanistan---the Mughals with all their collection of guns and mortars, twice under the command of Aurangzeb and once under Dara Shikoh, failed to dislodge the Persians from that fort, and failed even to cause any harm to the garrison.

The first two sieges were marked only by the futile attempts of the Rajputs from the Jammu and Kangra hills to take sections of the fort by surprise and escalade. Aurangzeb as Emperor tried to rectify this deficiency in Mughal gunnery by appointing only Persians and Ottoman Turks to the post of artillery commander (mir-e-atish)---but to no effect. Worse, as will be seen in part II of this series, this Mughal artillery failed to stop the triumph of the Maratha light cavalry in the Deccan wars. And while the Mughals were still reeling from the Maratha advance into North India, the great conqueror Nadir Shah of Persia, entered the Punjab, crushed all resistance and faced the Mughal army at the Battle of Karnal. Such was the impact of Persian firepower, and of the reputation of Nadir, that after some fighting the Mughals submitted and agreed to pay a huge ransom to the invader. Most of Nadir's army was inherited by his lieutenant Ahmad Khan Abdali[17]. This Afghan attempted to repeat his master's success against the Mughals; he invaded Punjab in 1748 and encountering little resistance went on to battle the Mughal army marching up from Delhi. The two armies faced off at the village of Manupur.

[16] The initial loss of the fort by the Mughals has a close link to the area of study in this paper. The Persians had captured it from a Mughal commandant named Daulat Khan Bhatti, a chieftain from the Punjab.

[17] Ahmad Khan Abdali was crowned King with the title durr-e-durrani (pearl among pearls) hence he was called the Durrani Shah and his descendants formed the Durrani family. But in this paper he and his descendants will be called by the tribal name Abdali to avoid confusion.

Battle of Manupur, March 1748

The army of 60,000 souls that had set off from Delhi camped in a vast area of thirty square kilometers; artillery protected the tents of its important leaders[18] and at every place mud ramparts and musket-towers (sangar) were built to break any incursion of the enemy cavalry. The Abdali commanded a force of 12,000 Qizilbash, Uzbek, and Afghan horsemen each armed with long flintlocks (jizail); his artillery was inferior in range and caliber but far more mobile than the Mughal, comprising swivel guns mounted on camels.

The Mughal strategy was defeatist; secure in their defenses they incited the local landlords to disrupt the enemy communications and supplies with their rustic levies while relying on their own superior artillery to eventually destroy the small enemy force. But after a week it were the food and water supply in the Mughal camp that were nearing exhaustion while a large gun brought by the Afghans from Lahore was killing men and animals of the Mughal army---the same gun by a lucky shot killed the Mughal commander Qamr-ud-din while he was praying in his tent[19].

On the morning of March 11^th the various Mughal divisions deployed for battle and formed into a vanguard, left and right wings, center, and rearguard, each roughly separated by a kilometer. Ahmad Shah Abdali did not have the numbers to match this long front---opposite the Mughal right wing stood a small hillock where he sent 700 camel-mounted swivel guns to bombard the Qizilbash and Purbia soldiers of Safdar Jang[20]. The vanguard comprised mostly Central Asian Turks led by their clansman, Muin-ul-mulk (the dead Wazir's son)---against them Abdali sent 3000 Qizilbash horsemen who made repeated charges, fired their jizails, and as quickly fell back. But using his artillery to good effect Muin came up to close quarters and delivered a counter-charge; a dust-enveloped melee ensued.

On the left wing was Raja Ishwari Singh of Jaipur and his Rajput cavaliers, who had advanced with drawn swords towards the enemy leaving their infantry and artillery in the trenches. Here too the Afghan horsemen rode within range, fired their jizails and galloped away, only to be replaced by another division that repeated these tactics. Their fire was intensified by swivel-guns mounted on the camels that cantered back and forth with the cavalry.

[18]Nominally under the command of the Mughal Prince Ahmad but actually commanded by the Mughal Wazir, Qamr-ud-din (cousin of the Hyderabad Nizam). Next in importance were Safdar Jang, Subahdar of Awadh, and Raja Ishwari Singh of Jaipur commanding a large force of Rajput cavalry. Last came Nasir Khan, the Mughal governor of Kabul who had been ejected by Abdali.

[19] It is said that the Afghans while holding diplomatic parleys had measured the distance to that tent; another story says that Afghan spies posing as deserters had gained the confidence of the Wazir and they supplied the relevant information to the Abdali's gunners.

[20] The Qizilbash were Persian Turks of Nadir's army who had stayed on in India and had joined Safdar Jang's army. The Purbias were mostly Rajput infantrymen from his province of Awadh. His later descendants came to rely solely on the Purbias for their military power.

Ishwari Singh did not have adequate artillery to respond and as his horsemen fell in the hundreds without touching the enemy the Raja's followers began to waver---not knowing whether to charge or retreat. The Afghans pressed their advantage and cut into the mass of Rajput cavalry scattering them left and right---their Raja saved the rest of his men by fleeing from the field[21]. Thus ended the 200-year military career of the Kachhawa Rajputs, which had laid low enemies from Kabul to the Deccan and from Sind to Bengal---their Rajas, even more accomplished in diplomacy, had filled the pages of history in the "Mughal" Empire. The beginning of the Kachhawa career was their conquest of the Pashtun tribes and their administration of Kabul in the 16^th Century, the first Hindus in 500 years to do so, and it was thus fitting that their decline should have commenced at the hands of those same Afghans.

[21] On the day of the battle Raja Ishwari Singh received the alarming news that his step-brother Madho Singh had appeared on the border of Jaipur with a large Maratha army to wrest the throne for himself. This news played a prominent part in Ishwari Singh's decision to leave the field.

The Afghans now threatened the Mughal center and the rear of Muin's vanguard but that chief continued to press forward against the Qizilbash enemy. On the right wing Safdar Jang had captured the hill feature using his own dismounted Qizilbash musketeers---on reaching the base of the hillock these men fired their jizails to kill the Afghan gunners and then ran up to capture their camel-swivels. With this tactical advantage Safdar Jang pulled his entire army out of the trenches and advanced on the enemy. On the Afghan side a large store of gunpowder caught fire accidentally and exploded killing 1000 soldiers in one blow. The Abdali army broke and fled.

Mir Mannu

Safdar Jang was rewarded for this victory by being appointed the Wazir while Muin-ul-mulk was made the Subahdar of Lahore, with the task of chasing the broken Abdali army and settling the local administration. The rivalries among the Delhi nobility had been hardened by racial and religious differences---its fallout occurred in the Punjab too. Hayatullah, the son of former Lahore governor Zakariya Khan, though a Turk like Muin had become a Shia and now sought the patronage of Safdar Jang, the Shia champion. The latter had him appointed governor of Multan and secretly told him to increase his army and wrest Lahore from Muin---however Hayatullah was defeated by Muin's deputy, Raja Kuramal, who now occupied Multan. In this way Multan province was joined to Lahore and thus became a part of Punjab.

Muin's army comprised of 2000 Central Asian horsemen---survivors from Manupur---but these were bolstered by former soldiers of the Nadir Shah and Abdali armies wandering about in search of employment. He armed some of them with 990 jizails, manufactured at the Lahore armory---but they were not enough to fight the returned hordes of Ahmad Shah. In February 1750 Muin agreed to pay the Abdali 15 Lakh Rupees annually from his province.

This sum, in addition to the expenses of Muin's newly raised army, far exceeded the revenue of the Punjab, which had shrunk to a small amount in all those years of war and mayhem. The only way out was to squeeze as much as possible from the peasants. The Sikh bands that robbed Mughal caravans on the highways, and thus sucked away another important source of revenue, were a special target for Muin. He campaigned ceaselessly against them, each time breaking up their cavalry with his Mughalia musketeers. Meanwhile his revenue collectors mercilessly beat the peasants to extract revenue---the result was that wherever the peasants or landowners experienced such oppression they embraced the Sikh religion and called on their brethren to aid them militarily. Thus in the five years that Muin ruled Punjab the Sikh religion spread far and wide---Muin himself is reviled in Sikh tradition, where he is called Mir Mannu[22].

With all this fighting Mir Mannu couldn't pay a single rupee to Abdali in two years and the Afghan once again invaded Punjab in 1752. Muin and Kuramal sent their families and property to the Raja of Jammu; some of the merchants migrated to that town and to other safe places in the eastern hills. The fighting took place in the environs of Lahore; Kuramal was shot dead and after a few days Muin surrendered to Abdali. This time the Afghan monarch formally annexed Punjab but left it to be governed by Muin. The latter continued his failing campaigns against the spirited Sikhs[23] until his death in November 1753.

[22] In the reign of Maharaja Sher Singh of Lahore, the Sikhs broke into Mir Mannu's tomb and dug up his grave.

[23]"When the Nawab Sahib was out on an administrative tour, in the Batala district, he heard that a large body of Sikhs were causing disturbances in that neighborhood, stopping the roads and ruining the cultivators...his officers marched to the scene, fought the Sikhs and put them to flight. Nine hundred of the Sikh infantry threw themselves into the small fort of Ramrauni, close to Chak Guru Hargovind, which Jamiluddin immediately invested. After a few days the garrison rushed out sword in hand, fell upon the besiegers and were all slain." Miskin.

Adina Beg

Muin's Mughalia officers squabbled among themselves to wrest his heritage, some of them gained recruits from among the Sikhs---however the most successful was Adina Beg, the Faujdar of Jalandhar, who had been holding that post since the days of Abdus Samad and who had formed a very good understanding with the Sikhs. He had even recruited many Sikhs in his army, which was now the strongest in Punjab---but not strong enough to face the Abdali.

The Afghan monarch had suppressed numerous rebellions in his empire and was now badly in need of money to pay his army——nothing had come to him from his Punjab possessions all these years. So this time he decided to invade the Delhi Empire. Once again all people of note in the Punjab fled away to the safety of the Jammu and Kangra hills and there was no armed opposition to the Abdali's advance towards Delhi. Apart from the loot of that region Ahmad Shah also married his son Timur to Muhammadi Begam, the daughter of the Mughal Emperor Alamgir II---to save Alamgir's face he annexed Sarhind as the dowry of this princess. In this way the Sarhind division, formerly of the Delhi province, became a part of the Punjab.

Abdali left Timur at Lahore as his viceroy of Punjab, which now included Multan and Sarhind, with 10,000 Qizilbash and Afghan horsemen. Sardar Jahan Khan, his wazir, bolstered this force by hiring the former soldiers of Muin and reduced their total area of responsibility by leaving Adina Beg to administer Jalandhar---that Mughal officer was further excused from attending Timur's court at Lahore. However fighting with the Sikhs intensified after their annual gathering at Amritsar was targeted by the Afghans---the harshness of Abdali rule spread the fighting all along the highway to Sarhind. Timur now asked Adina Beg to join him at Lahore for a campaign against the Sikhs but that Mughal refused and on being attacked offered to join the Maratha side.

By this time a vast Maratha army had driven away all the local agents of the Abdali from Delhi and had pushed on into Saharanpur and Thaneshwar. Under Raghunath Rao and Malhar Holkar the Marathas besieged Sarhind while Adina Beg with his army and hired Sikh bands hurried south to join his allies. The Marathas and Sikhs thoroughly looted Sarhind and then pushed on towards Lahore. Timur and his men abandoned Lahore without resisting this force---in trying to cross the flooded Chenab many of his Qizilbash and Uzbek soldiers were left behind. These were immediately hired by Adina Beg's officers, some of whom were of those same races.

Adina Beg was left to govern Punjab for an annual tribute of 75 lakh rupees but he died in October 1758. A fresh Maratha army under the Sindhias entered Punjab and sent columns to occupy Multan and Lahore; the border with the Abdali possessions was the Jhelum River. From that side Afghans and Gakkhars and from the south Marathas, Mughals and Sikhs fought several skirmishes. In late 1759 Ahmad Shah Abdali, now free from all internal troubles, advanced into the Punjab with a vast army---the scattered Maratha detachments dispersed without a contest. As the result of a two year campaign (1759-61) the Marathas were defeated at Panipat, Delhi came under Najib Khan Ruhela, while Punjab became the battleground between the Sikhs and the Afghans.
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Guerrilla Warfare-I (the Sikhs)

The Sikhs

The history of the Sikh Gurus and their faith is not relevant to this post---all that needs to be said is that their conflict with the Mughals rose on political grounds and developed into a military conflict. After a spirited resistance and a series of victories the Sikhs were defeated and sought shelter in the eastern hills where the Mughal power could not touch them---the Raja of Kahlur gave the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, a grant[7] of land (the modern Anandpur Sahib). Subsequently Tegh Bahadur received recognition from the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb and even fought under the Mughal banners in the train of Raja Ram Singh Kachhawa. Tegh Bahadur resisted Aurangzeb's policy of religious persecution; he was tortured and was asked to embrace Islam---the Guru instead embraced death.

His son Govind Rai[8] tried to rouse the Punjabis against the Mughal power but he had to retire to the hills in 1676. At Anandpur Guru Govind began enlisting men and arranged for their training in military exercises---he received swords, spears, and firearms as offerings from his followers. One source for their military exercises were the local Rajputs, the only people who had managed to preserve unbroken their warrior traditions from ancient times. Guru Govind continued building up an army as long as relations with the Rajputs were good---this soon changed.

The small tract of Anandpur did not produce enough revenue to sustain the hordes of followers and mercenaries collected around the Guru, and the offerings of the devotees in Punjab were appropriated by the corrupt masands[9]. Naturally men laced with arms will soon find an outlet for their energy and hunger---the Pathan mercenaries looted the nearby villages of Kahlur state and terrorized the gentle hill-people. These acts roused the Raja's wrath and he demanded an explanation from the Guru. Apprehensive of what the Raja might do Guru Govind decided to leave Anandpur---at this time the nearby Raja of Sirmaur invited the Guru to reside in his territory and gave him a grant of land (the modern Paonta Sahib).

The Sirmaur Raja was eager to have such a spiritual and military ally against his hereditary enemies, the Rajas of Kahlur and Garhwal who by that time had cemented an alliance by a marriage connection between their families. Their allied armies invaded Sirmaur in 1688---at Bhangani they were defeated by the forces of the Sirmaur Raja and Guru Govind. In this manner the Guru became involved in the local wars and skirmishes of the Rajput chiefs---some of these involved the Mughal officers based in the Punjab who had begun fighting for their personal gain during the long absence of Emperor Aurangzeb in the Deccan. When faced by such external enemies the Rajas formed military coalitions and opposed the invaders. All this time the Guru moved from place to place in the hills building up his military following and seeking aid from the Rajput chiefs; some helped him but others opposed the presence of his armed followers in their lands. Govind's aims were limited to regaining the Guruship from the control of the Sikh masands, who had Mughal support.

Although the modern Khalistani distortion of history tries to portray the Rajas as a joint concern subservient to the Mughals, they were in fact independent of the Mughals and not really allied among themselves. The Khulassat-ut-Tawarikh from the 17th century describes some of these hill-states and their defiance of the Mughal empire under Aurangzeb:

• The King of Kahlur by reason of the strength afforded by this river (Sutlej), the inaccessibility of the hills, and the security of his residence — the city of Bilaspur is his seat of government — swerves from obedience to the imperial officers.
• Though Gualiar [Guler] is a small country, yet its Raja has often defied the imperial officers by reason of the strength of the river (Beas) and inaccessibility of the hills.
• The Ravi issues from the mountains of Mani Mahesh, a dependency of the country of Chamba, which is a place sacred to Mahadev and has the snow and climate of Kashmir and Kabul, and produces many sweet and delicious fruits. The Kings of this place breathe the spirit of independence on account of the extent of their country, its large population, the inaccessibility of the hills, and the strength of their fastnesses, as this river forms a barrier to the imperial army.

[7]In the manner of his ancestors who had given such grants to Hindu and Muslim holy men. However this is disputed by the Sikh sources, which state that this was a sale of land. There is no document to support either view.
[8]Govind Rai initially showed anathema for the creed of Aurangzeb and would fine his followers 125 Rupees for bowing before the tomb of any Muslim saint!
[9]Masands were appointed by the Gurus to collect offerings of devotees from different towns and villages; the posts soon became hereditary. The word is a corruption of the Persian title Masnad-e-ala, which was given to nobles under the Delhi Sultans---the Gurus themselves were called Sacche Padishah (true emperors) by their devoted followers.

A portrait of Guru Gobind Singh from the Rajput hill-state of Guler

In 1699 Guru Govind returned to Anandpur and baptized his followers as the Khalsa, another title of Muslim origin[10]. Men of all castes and creeds were fused into a military brotherhood, to bear arms and the surname of Singh in the manner of the Rajputs, but without their minute divisions of clan and sub-clan. Once again the Raja of Kahlur opposed the presence of armed men and mercenaries in his lands and laid siege to Anandpur. The Kahluria[11] Rajputs could not capture Anandpur while the Sikhs too could not decisively defeat the Rajputs because the siege continued for five years. At last this deadlock was broken when the Kahlur Raja purchased the aid of the Mughal Faujdar of Sarhind---apparently raiders from Anandpur had also been disturbing some villages in the Sarhind division. That Mughal chief brought reliable siege materials and good artillery.

This siege of 1704 was successful---the Guru's Pathan, Ranghar, and Gujjar mercenaries immediately switched loyalties and joined in the siege. Guru Govind Singh, after being deserted by most of his Sikh followers, was chased by a Mughal force into the Punjab. At Chamkaur he fought the Mughals with only forty Sikhs and again managed to escape---two of his sons were killed in this skirmish and two others were cruelly and unnecessarily executed by the Faujdar of Sarhind, Wazir Khan. Subsequently Govind sought shelter in Rajputana. Emperor Aurangzeb[12] died in 1707 and his sons fought each other in the war of succession---Guru Govind submitted to Bahadur Shah and took part in this conflict as his follower. Govind Singh pressed the new Emperor to punish Wazir Khan but was himself murdered by agents of the Sarhind faujdar in 1708.

Thus even after creating the Khalsa the Guru accepted the authority of the Mughal Emperors and fought under their banners as his father had done[13]. This Sikh collaboration with the Mughal emperors did not end with the Guru; many of the Sikh principalities served under the later Mughals and gained from them titles and the right to strike coins. A religious movement that had Muslim influence, and accepted the political authority of the Mughal emperor, had no chance of spreading in the Rajput hill kingdoms which had resisted and defied the alien rule for centuries. As for the conflict between the Guru and the Raja of Bilaspur, the pre-eminent historian Jadunath Sarkar records that without any provocation, "He had a big war-drum made in imitation of the Mughal imperial band, while his troops insulted and robbed the subjects of his host, the Bilaspur hill-Rajah..."

[10]In Persian the word Khalis means pure...but in the Indian context Khalsa referred to anything associated with the Mughal Emperors. The Sikh Gurus were termed true emperors and it is in this context that the name Khalsa was adopted by them.
[11]Kahlur was the name of the state, of which Bilaspur was the capital. The ruling clan took its name from the state and was thus called Kahluria.
[12]There is only a fleeting acknowledgement of the Sikhs in the documents of Aurangzeb's reign. One of his letters to his son Bahadur Shah, governor of Kabul, reads, "I learn...that nearly 20,000 Hindus, who call themselves the Khalsa of Govind the follower of Nanak, had assembled and gone to the country of the Barakzai (modern NWFP in Pakistan)...and that the Afghans of the neighborhood had fallen on them, so that the party had been killed or drowned. The Emperor orders that the prince (Bahadur Shah) should imprison these misbelievers, and expel them from that district.
[13]In a letter (Zafarnama) sent to Aurangzeb the Guru, while maintaining a spirited tone, does not talk of overthrowing the Mughals. He taxes Aurangzeb for lacking a sense of justice and complains of the treachery and cruelty of Wazir Khan. The Guru is at pains to point out that his religion is different from that of the Rajas and that he himself was not an idol-worshipper. This could have been a tactical move to gain Aurangzeb's sympathy the Guru's primary objective was to ensure the safety of his own followers. In the same manner the first duty of the Kahlur Raja was to protect his subjects from the violence and depredations of outsiders.

The Guru's follower Banda Singh Bahadur however openly defied the authority of the Mughal Emperor. He collected the dispersed Sikh bands and attacked Sarhind in 1710 to take revenge on Wazir Khan---Banda was eventually defeated and was forced to take shelter in Sirmaur. Guru Govind's widow and many other Sikhs remained on the side of the Mughals, even ex-communicating Banda on the charge of violating the basic edicts of Guru Govind Singh. He moved from place to place in the hills seeking military aid and reemerged at Pathankot and Gurdaspur, collected more fighters, and once again attacked Sarhind. Banda was finally overcome in 1716 by the Punjab Subahdar[14] Abdus Samad Khan---his followers formed a separate sect of their own called the Bandai Sikhs.

But, as explained above, the Sikhs were not the only unruly element in the population of the Punjab. A Ranghar chief named Isa Khan had collected wealth and power through raids and highway robbery---he maintained his position by bribing the Mughal officers at Delhi. He was finally killed in a battle fought in 1718. Another notorious chief, Hussain Khan Keshgi of Kasur, was also defeated and killed by the governor Abdus Samad Khan. Zakariya Khan who succeeded his father to the governor's post defeated marauders like Panah Bhatti and Mir Mar in other parts of Punjab.

The states of the Jammu and Kangra hills had always been internally independent but now they were completely free of Mughal influence. The Raja of Jammu subdued his neighbors in the hills and obtained recognition for his gains by bribing the Mughal court[15]. Similarly the Raja of Kangra recovered some of his territories from the Mughal Kiladar of Kangra fort and subjugated Chamba, Kulu and other states. These Rajas also raided the neighboring districts of the Punjab where they competed with ambitious Mughal officers and the numerous Sikh bands---the activities of these powers were completely overshadowed in 1739 by the appearance of a dangerous new enemy.

[14]That is, the Governor of Punjab, or the Lahore subah. A province was termed Subah and the military governor was called the Subahdar. This term became the rank of JCOs in the British Indian Army.
[15]This was recorded in a document still preserved in the State Archival Depository at Jammu wherein Muhammad Shah, Emperor of Delhi, in 1724 recognized Raja Dhruv Dev, on payment of nazrana and other conditions, as Raja of the Dogra Ilaqa (Dogra region).

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Guerrilla Warfare-I (northern geography)

In 1807 the armies of the Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, passed through the allied Kingdom of Spain on their way to annex Portugal. The armies that quietly entered the kingdom never left---instead when the conquest of Portugal had been completed they began pouncing on Spanish forts. The ruling Bourbon family was now compelled to abdicate and the Spanish field armies were defeated and scattered. In 1809 Napoleon left Spain, satisfied that his work was done---he never returned again. However the Spanish guerilleros fought a long and savage war of resistance that so drained the occupying Frenchmen that on his deathbed Napoleon was forced to acknowledge, "The Spanish ulcer ruined me!"

After the Spanish state, as represented by the King and his court, had been extinguished and the Spanish army as an organized force had been broken, the Spanish people took on the onus of resistance. Bands of former soldiers and peasants, armed with muskets, swords, knives, and pitchforks, spread out throughout the Spanish countryside. They ambushed isolated French pickets, murdered every courier and looted every supply train, and by way of reprisal tortured, blinded, and boiled alive French prisoners! These actions isolated the different French armies from each other and allowed the English under the Duke of Wellington to fight their way from the Portuguese coast right up to the Pyrenees.

This people's resistance came to be called guerrilla warfare---named after the Spanish guerilleros (bands of fighters). In the Indian context the closest parallel to the war in Spain is the thirty years war in the Kingdom of Jodhpur, which began in 1678 with the death of its ruler and the usurpation of that country by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. The Rajput clan of that Kingdom, under its numerous sub-sections, fought a guerrilla war against the occupiers of their country---their war-bands cut down isolated Mughal outposts, plundered their supply caravans, and dominated the roads passing through the Kingdom. On Aurangzeb's death in 1707 the Mughal garrisons were evicted from the numerous forts and Jodhpur at last came under its hereditary rulers. However since this guerrilla warfare was restricted to the ruling clan of Jodhpur it will not be covered in this series---the aims of the Rajputs were specific and the war ended when they were achieved.

This war overlapped with the general Rajput discontent across Rajputana, Malwa, and Bundelkhand---but even all these together were secondary to Aurangzeb's life or death campaign against the Marathas, which forever altered the course of Indian History. That campaign also involved guerrilla warfare by the Marathas and will be covered in part-II of this series. In a third category, and in the same Emperor's reign, were the risings that streaked across limited areas for brief periods of time---one such rising was that of the Sikhs in the Punjab and the neighboring hills.

Northern Geography

The dominating feature of northern India is the chain of mountain ranges that protect the continent from the cold of Tibet and from the dry winds of Central Asia. In the west these ranges are barren and merge into the highlands of Afghanistan---several gaps in these mountains lead into the green lower hills that receive moisture from the annual monsoon. In the geography of the Mughal Empire these lower hills were part of the province of Kabul.

South and east of the Jhelum River stretch the plains of the Punjab (five rivers) crossed at intervals by the Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej Rivers. On the banks of the Ravi stood the city of Lahore, the capital of the province, by which name the Mughal Punjab was also known. The population and the fertility of the land increased towards the east but the region as a whole remained on the fringes of Indo-Persian civilization throughout the medieval era. The lands south of the Sutlej River were included within the Delhi province. The five rivers converge and fall into the Indus near Multan, which was the capital of a separate province peopled by speakers of the Seraiki language.

To the north and east of Punjab tower the mighty Himalayas, from whose snows and glaciers the five rivers originate. Between the Himalayas and the Punjab plains are numerous hill ranges and valleys, each forming a separate Rajput Kingdom throughout the medieval era. This region was known as either the Jammu hills or the Kangra hills in Mughal records---from the leading Rajput Kingdoms of those names. In this paper the region will be referred to as the eastern hills or the Jammu and Kangra hills for the sake of convenience.

The inhabitants of these eastern hills protected their identity and ancient heritage to a greater extent than the people of the plains. The republics (janapad) of Ancient India survived in these hills centuries after their counterparts in the plains had been swallowed by the newly rising monarchies[1]---the ruling system of the republics broke up into segments called Rajas, Ranas, and Thakkars (these communities still exist in Himachal Pradesh to this day; the first two being classed as Rajputs[2]). Contact with Islamic powers really came with the Mughals and their artillery but even this contact was limited in its effects to the rulers of the region. Throughout history these hilly tracts afforded security to merchants and common people of the plains from outside invaders and local oppressors, while their rulers gave sanctuary to kings and adventurers of the plains who had been dispossessed by rivals. The economies of these states were based on forestry, revenue from agriculture in the fertile valleys, and trade.

[1] From the 6^th Century BCE onwards, monarchies like Magadha, Anga and Kaushambhi came to dominate the Indo-Gangetic plains. The republics in the hills were only ended by the Guptas eight hundred years later.

[2] The word Rajput is used only by the Hindu warriors in these hills. Although nowadays some Punjabi Muslims also lay claim to being Rajputs, the evolution of that word through the period of Islamic invasions does not allow for such a claim. Because as far as the Mughals were concerned the word Rajput could not be applied to those who had converted to Islam, since they were now members of the ummah.

The inhabitants of the western hills have been vulnerable to aggression and cultural influence from two sides---from the lands across the Afghan mountains and from powers based in the Punjab plains---the more dominating influence coming from the plains. In ancient times these hills were home to a splendid and rich culture but in the medieval era small states abounded whose inhabitants eked out a living from subsistence agriculture and trade. Added to these difficulties was the incursion of Pasthun tribes from Afghanistan into these tracts, who carved up these valleys among themselves and fought the original Gakhar, Awan, Janjua and Gujjar inhabitants to a standstill---whenever invaders from mainland India or Central Asia marched through these hills, or a powerful chief rose in the Punjab plains, all these people would join such armies as mercenaries. The Pashtuns themselves came in the wake of Turk invaders who targeted the richer cities of the fertile plains and obtained only a nominal allegiance from these hilly tracts.

Figure 1 http://www.rolandziegler.de/Railtours/pakistan96/malakwal2/salt_range.jpg the Punjab plains north of River Jhelum. In the distance are the hills of the Salt Range

Over the years the Turks in the plains eliminated all resistance to their rule from the local warriors who were either exterminated or converted to Islam. The remainder of the population, unlike in the hilly regions, thus had a higher proportion of Jats (pronounced Jatts in Punjabi). These people were mostly farmers who could take to arms if provoked---but as long as the Turk power was strong they remained quiet revenue-paying cultivators. When the power of the Turks declined in the 14^th Century it were the states based in the surrounding hills, the Gakhars of the Salt Range, the Raja of Kangra, and even the Sultan of Kashmir, who came to plunder and dominate the Punjab plains with their cavalry.

Muskets were introduced by the Mughals (and by the Portuguese in South India) in the 16^th Century and improvements in their design and accuracy by the close of the 17^th Century would lead to the rise of infantry groups like the Berads, Telegus, Ruhelas, Jats, and Purbias (see RMA I, II, III). Before that time the powers of the north had been absorbed into the Mughal military system, prompted mostly by Akbar's enlightened policy of recruiting and promoting capable men from all communities, and also by a new spirit of toleration infused by this young Emperor.

This enlightened and pragmatic policy was opposed by Akbar's brother, Mirza Muhammad Hakim of Kabul, and by several Muslim mansabdars who conspired to overthrow Akbar in 1580. The attempt was defeated on the Indus River by Akbar's valued allies, the Kachhawa Rajputs under Kunwar Man Singh. These Rajputs next defeated the Yusufzai Pathans, recent immigrants to the lower hills, who had been oppressing and robbing the original inhabitants[3]. This region then remained quiet over the next century and was witness to the march of Mughal armies to and from Afghanistan. The local inhabitants, whether they were Janjuas from the Potohar plateau or Gakhars and Kambohs[4] from Rawalpindi, served with distinction in the Mughal army and administration. Increased populations of Pashtun tribes in the late 17^th Century again caused an eruption of their lawless activities, led by Afridis, Yusufzais, and Khattaks---these tribesmen used their matchlocks to harass the Mughal armies marching through the rocky defiles and valleys. However in the pitched battles the Mughal artillery devastated the Pathan ranks while the cavalry, under the best Rajput and Muslim mansabdars, scattered the enemy formations and thus crushed their resistance.

The Rajas of the Jammu and Kangra hills joined in the campaigns of the Mughal armies. In the Mughal records these Rajputs are credited with excellence in hill fighting and for good marksmanship with their matchlocks[5]. But on the whole the Mughals could not control the eastern hills from the Punjab---the reason for that lay in geography. The Kangra fort commands the approach into an undulating plain called the Kangra valley (the ancient Trigartta), which is the largest and richest piece of arable land in the hills.

[3] These were early days for the muskets, which were no match for the talwars and the charging cavalry of the Rajputs.

[4] The word Kamboh is believed to be derived from Kamboja, the name of an ancient Hindu Kingdom.

[5] For this reason they were prominent in the Mughal campaign to conquer Central Asia in 1645, where the army was led by Raja Jagat Singh Pathania of Nurpur, and in the attempts to take the fort of Kandahar from the Persians, where Raja Rajrup Patahania and Raja Man Singh Guleria were noted for their attempts to surprise the garrison by an infantry assault.

Figure 2 the fertile valley of Kangra between the snow-clad Dhaul Dhar and the Shivalik lower hills. From http://www.hpkangra.nic.in/

Whoever held that fort would also command the wealth of the valley and would thus have the resources to dominate the entire hilly region---even though the Raja of Kangra had submitted to Akbar and had become a mansabdar the hills could only be under Mughal rule once Kangra fort was captured. This fact prompted even the local rivals of the Kangra Rajas to hinder the Mughals in their attempts to take the fort[6]. But victory came to the Mughals finally in 1620; the Raja of Kangra retired to the Dhaula Dhar Range and began a guerrilla war that would last three generations.

In the plains of Punjab much of the population was concentrated in the major towns while a belt of land around each such town flourished with cultivation. The rest of the province remained poor and vast areas were covered with jungle and scrub. Apart from the Jats, pastoral tribes like the Gujjars, and the wild Ranghars made their homes in these desolate tracts and sustained themselves through highway robbery and raids. Whenever the Mughal power was weakened by a campaign against a great Raja or by the rebellion of a Mughal prince, these robber-bands would crawl out of their hiding places and increase their raids---only to make a humble submission when the power of the government was restored. But a new set of enemies emerged in the 17^th Century---their leaders acquired wealth and power not by raids but through the offerings of their devoted followers. The guerrilla warfare by these Sikhs eventually transformed the history of the northern regions.

[6] In Akbar's failed attempt of 1572, Raja Govind Chand Jaswal defended the fort for his kinsman Raja Jai Chand Katoch, while in Jahangir's siege of 1615-20, Raja Suraj Mal Pathania blocked the progress of the Mughals and eventually went into rebellion. The Raja of Guler however remained on the Mughal side.

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Baluchistan and East Pakistan

By Samuel Baid

Can Baluchistan go the East Pakistan way? That is the question being asked increasingly, from every quarter. To, begin with let us compare the two. First of all the literacy aspect. Before its liberation in 1971 East Pakistan had the highest literacy rate in all the provinces of united Pakistan in addition. Political leadership in East Pakistan rose from middle classes whereas West Pakistan's political leadership was rooted in an obscurantist feudalistic system where the middle class were absent. Thus the masses in East Pakistan were more politically alive and focused than was the case in West Pakistan.

The current anger of Sardars is against the Chinese funded Gwadar Project which has been launched without taking even the Provincial Assembly into confidence. The Federal Government leaders have proudly announced that Gwadar area would become a rival to Dubai. As a result, the land prices have risen many times. The poor Baluch have been selling their land. The Baluch Sardars see it as a threat to the Baluch community in this development.

They also complain that Baluch youths do not get jobs in the Gwadar Project while thousands of fishermen have been deprived of their livelihood. Sardars have been able to unite the Baluch community against this project. Then, as said earlier, Sardars resent the control of Province's natural resources by outsides and the construction of military posts and cantonments.

In Baluchistan, a unified leadership to press the people's demands has not yet emerged. The alliance of four nationalist parties did not lead to a unified command. The Kalat grand Jirga in September had called for a single Baluch Party, but it is not known what followup steps are being taken.

The Marri Tribe is the largest followed by Bugti and Mengal tribes. The three Sardars, who have always been in limelight, are Kher Bux Marri, Nawab Akbar Bugti (now no more) and Nawab Ataullah Mengal. They have shown unity in different degrees at different time's vis-a-vis the Federal Government. Kher Bux Marri, Nawab Bugti and Nawab Mengal have been very bitter critics of the Pakistan Establishment for its shoddy treatment of Baluchistan and usurpation of its resources. But all three of them showed different stands on relations with Pakistan as under :-

Akbar Bugti-
He had favoured Baluchistan's merger with Pakistan. He was basically responsible for the dismissal of the Baluchistan Government and the subsequent military crackdown on Baluch in 1973. The dismissal of the Government resulted from Bugti's charge to the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that the Baluchistan Government was smuggling arms through the Iraq embassy. This charge was never proved or sought to be proved by Bhutto or Bugti but the latter was made the Governor of Baluchistan as a reward.

When he left governorship he was quite disillusioned about Pakistan Establishment. He refused to speak Pakistan's national language Urdu for some months. Strictly speaking, his fight with the Establishment was confined to his rights over the Sui gas royalty. Two years ago when he had bitter verbal dual with the Establishment, he told other Sadars that he was fighting his own fight. That disappointed Nawab Marri and Nawab Mangal. However, since last year he had been fighting for Baluch cultural traditions and their rights to Baluchistan's Sahil (coast) and wasael (natural resources). He had allowed Bugti young people to join Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA). But it should be noted that even when his armed war with the Pakistan Army had become bloody and ferocious and he had become convinced that the Army wanted to kill him, he did not give a call for liberation of Baluchistan.

Ataullah Mengal- He stood somewhere between Nawab Bugti and Kher Bux Marri. Between 1972 and 1973 he was the Chief Minister of Baluchistan. Then ZA Bhutto sacked him and jailed him. After his release from jail by Gen Ziaul Itaq in Deeenhe 1977, he went away to London where he said he would not return till Baluchistan was liberated. However, he returned but has not accepted Baluchistan's ‘‘forcible’’ inclusion in Pakistan. He fully supported Bugti's protest against usurping of Baluchistan's land and its resources.

Khair Bux Marri- He is very decidedly for independence of Baluchistan. He had trained an army of Baluch young people in Afghanistan to liberate their province from Pakistan. However, Bhutto's removed by Gen. Ziaul Haq in 1977 and the Soviet troops entry into Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent United States led war in that country had changed the scenario. The core of the BLA is veterans who had fought the US-led forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In other words, though there is enough anger and sense of alienation in Baluchistan there has been no unified leadership so far to canalize this mood into a freedom struggle as did Sheikh Mujib in East Pakistan. In the case of Baluchistan, Pakistan's opposition parties strongly supported Baluch before and after the killing of Nawab Bugti on August 25. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Press stood by them. The World Sindh Institute (WSI) sent a strong appeal to the Chairman of US International Relations Committee drawing his attention to the Government's atrocities in Baluchistan. The Institute also organised demonstrations against the killing of Nawab Bugti at Capitol Hill in Washington D C Pakistan political Parties support must have given Baluch some sense of belonging to Pakistani political system- something that was missing in East Pakistan.

What should make a Baluch decision to separate from Pakistan morally difficult. One less known fact about the liberation of East Pakistan is that the Bengali separation came about as a result of Ayub Khan's conspiracy in the 1960s. Ayub saw no point in keeping Bengalis with Pakistan after synthetic jute came in the international market thus affecting Pakistan's Jute export earning. The Jute produced in East Pakistan was the main foreign exchange earner for Pakistan.

Late Khan Abdul Wali Khan revealed in an interview with Lahore's Urdu Weekly Chatan (December 21, 1981) that once Ayub Khan invited him and some other politicians to seek their support to his plan to let east Pakistan go.Lt Gen AAK Nlazi who surrendered to Lt Gen Jagjit Singh in Dhakei on December 16, 1971, wrote in his auto biography ‘‘The Betrayal of East Pakistan’’ that he was made a scapegoat in East Pakistan for the diabolic conspiracies hatched in West Pakistan. According to him, it was not the intention of the High Command in Rawalpindi to keep East Pakistan with Pakistan. Baluchistan, on the other hand, is very important for Pakistan which will go all out to prevent its separate from it. - CNF

Links to in-depth Baluchistan facts and figure:

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/ethnic-tensions-in-baluchistan-and.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/foreign-interests-in-baluchistan.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/baluchistan-economy-and-infrastructure.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/administrative-control-over.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/armed-groups-in-baluchistan.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/baluchistans-political-leadership.html

http://horsesandswords.blogspot.com/2006/03/baluchistan-struggle-for-identity.html

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Language development and history – II

Continual churn and evolution of languages is a feature of all dynamic civilizations. Such has always been the case in India. As described earlier, the administrative and literary language of a particular age has to become standardized and resistant to change to serve these twin purposes. After some time it becomes archaic and loses touch with the common people among whom the spoken language continues to evolve with changes in pronunciations, lengthening or shortening of vowels, dropping of consonants, development of new words, etc.

Apabhramsa, which became a pan-Indian link language and replaced the regional Prakrits by 900 CE, lost that status by 1300 CE. On this occasion there was no spoken language ready to take its place because that loss of status was a result of the Islamic invasions.

Beginning at the close of the 10^th Century and reaching a peak in the 13^th Century, the Turk conquest damaged the Hindu civilization by the bloodshed and enslavement of its people, and the destruction of its cities and temples. In the 14^th Century a great effort made by these invaders to subjugate the whole of India ended in failure by the losses they suffered in Rajputana and South India—these setbacks inspired the various Muslim satraps to revolt and set up their own petty sultanates in regions like Gujarat, Bengal, and Maharashtra. This fragmented political condition lasted till the formation of the Mughal Empire in the 16^th Century.

Political effect on language

After the initial bloodshed and chaos, when the Turks settled down to govern the conquered areas, they used Persian and the local languages for the purpose of administration. Apabhramsa, the old pan-Indian language was of no use to them since they had no pan-Indian control. So the effect of the Muslim conquest was a breakdown of the old cultural unity of India and the development of regional chauvinism. This chauvinism became evident in the language splits that occurred in this period and in the competition between these new languages for claiming the cultural and literary themes of the past.

The areas that were not conquered also had no use for a link language that wasn’t used in the economic and cultural centers of the Ganga plains. So here too the local languages came to the fore. However the Rajput courts continued to patronize Apabhramsa as a literary language till the 16^th Century. The Jains of western India, living under protection of the same Rajput Kingdoms, also rendered their religious and secular literature into Apabhramsa and produced works in that language till a late period.

The various regional Apabhramsas split along the following lines:

Magadhi: covering the eastern parts of India, Magadhi Apabhramsa split up into two great streams that divided further into the modern Indian languages. The first consisted of Oriya-Bengali-Assamese…out of the three Bengal came under Muslim rule while Orissa and Assam maintained their independence and developed as separate languages. The other stream was of Bihari-Bhojpuri-Maithili. Out of these the tiny state of Mithila, at the foot of the Himalayas, alone maintained its independence until the late 14^th Century and made a great contribution to the preservation of Hindu culture. The literature produced in Maithili was eventually absorbed into Hindi, while later Bihari and Bhojpuri also came to be looked upon as dialects of the national language.

Ardh-Magadhi: further west the languages spoken in Awadh (which came under Muslim rule), Baghelkhand, and Chhatisgarh (which remained independent) were all sister languages derived from Ardh-Magadhi Apabhramsa. All of these were absorbed into Hindi in a later period.

Sauraseni: the area covered by this Apabhramsa gave birth to Hindi (i.e. Khariboli), as will be described later. The other languages of this group in fact developed closely together and shared their literary output—these were Brajbhasha and Kanauji. Of this group only the Bundeli language area remained independent from foreign rule but it too was ultimately absorbed by Hindi. The Jaipuri language, on the other hand, seceded from this group and joined Rajasthani as will be shown later.

Saindhavi: the Apabhramsa of Punjab was alternatively termed Gandhari and Madra. It broke up into Western and Eastern Punjabi—of these the former region remained on the fringes of Indo-Muslim civilization and split very early into Lahndi, Hindko, and Potohari. Eastern Punjabi on the other hand was under the domination of the Delhi Sultans and even earlier had been under the influence of Sauraseni languages. This can be seen clearly in the Adi Granth, the Sikh text, which has a surfeit of Brajbhasha and Awadhi peppered by only a few Punjabi phrases.

Western Apabhramsa: the land of the original and definitive Apabhramsa also saw language splits occurring in Gujarati-Marwari, and Mewari-Malavi. Of these, Gujarat and Malwa came under Muslim rule, while Mewar and Marwar fought and won independence under their own rulers. Here again regional chauvinism between Marwari and Gujarati became evident with the Turk conquest of the latter. Both claimed the old Apabhramsa literature as their own heritage and describing the other as a mere dialect. When the Rajput saint-princess Mira Bai composed poems and songs in her native Marwari, these were quickly rendered into Gujarati and were claimed as the literary compositions of that language!

Apart from these the Sindhi language developed from the old Vrachhada Apabhramsa and Marathi from the Maharashtri Apabhramsa. The various Himalayan languages from Dogri in the west to Gharwali and Nepali in the east had their own independent development. (Nowadays Gharwali and Kumaoni are wrongly regarded as dialects by Hindi chauvinists while Dogri, Bilaspuri, and Kangri are claimed as dialects by Punjabi chauvinists. In the same way Bengali chauvinists in Bangladesh, in their ignorance, claim Assamese to be a mere dialect of their language.)

Rajasthani

The Rajasthani language is being discussed separately—not for its literary output, which is meager, nor for its status, which is abysmal (Rajasthani is not even recognized as a separate national language by the Government of India to this day). But while the other modern Indian languages developed by splitting from larger groups, Rajasthani is a unique case of the union of separate languages into one.

Geographically Rajasthan is made up of four distinct regions: the dry plain of Marwar, the fertile Jaipur plains, the Mewar hills, and the plateau region of Hadoti. The quintessential Rajasthani is Marwari (the old Dingal), which produced a mass of literature under the powerful Chauhan clan that ruled that region for a long period. Mewar, on the other hand, first came into prominence only during the Islamic invasions when the fort of Chittor was repeatedly attacked by those invaders. The mass of literature in Mewar was produced much later under the Sesodia Ranas who expelled the Muslims from Rajputana in the 14^th Century.

In that same period the Hada Chauhans, under the tutelage of the Mewar Ranas, annexed a portion of the Malwa plateau (from the Muslims) into Rajasthan, bringing yet another language (Malavi now called Hadoti after the conquering clan) into Rajasthani. The expansion of the Kachawa clan into the area north of Ajmer, and the conquests of their important branch the Shekhawats, brought the Dhundhar region (modern Jaipur) from the Delhi Sultanate into Rajputana. The Sauraseni spoken here now became part of Rajasthani.

All these states formed a close alliance centered on the accepted leadership of Mewar, and all their languages were after all descended from a common source (Sanskrit>>>Prakrit>>>Western Apabhramsa). If this alliance had prevailed, Rajasthani would have been like the old Apabhramsa, which was propelled to a pan-Indian status by the 8^th Century Imperial Pratiharas from the same region. But the alliance was short-lived, and in the Mughal period each Rajput state promoted it’s local speech and a commonly accepted Rajasthani did not emerge until the 20^th Century. By that time it had already been outstripped by the more prolific language of the Ganga plains.

The rise of Hindi

The Turk conquerors of the Indo-Gangetic plain almost immediately lost control of northwestern India to the mighty Mongols, and of the plains southwest of Delhi to the Chauhan Rajaputras. Their effective rule was over eastern Punjab and western UP, roughly the area where offshoots of Sauraseni Apabhramsa were spoken. This speech was given the generic name Hindui/Hindawi (the language of the Hindus) by the Turks who used it for administrative purposes along with Farsi (Persian). With passage of time the pronunciation evolved to Hindi, which took the identity of the Khariboli spoken around Delhi, with Devnagari as its script.

This Hindi, even though a spoken language, could not become a pan-Indian language (in the place of Apabhramsa) in that early period because the Delhi Turks failed to conquer the whole of India, and failed even to keep the conquered regions united under a single ruler. But where political causes could not elevate this language, cultural reasons propelled it to a national status. For it was in this very period of political vacuum (14^th-16^th centuries) that the flow of literary themes and devotional songs helped in the rise of Hindi.

First the heroic stories of Rajputana (Prithviraj Raso, Alha-Udal, Khuman Raso, etc.), which were a source of inspiration to the subject people of the Ganga plains, were re-written in Hindi. Then the romance themes from Rajputana and other provinces were also subject to such translations. The devotional songs of the numerous saints of that age (Kabir, Mira Bai, Chaitanya, Vallabhacharya, etc.) were all rendered into Hindi and now form part of its vast literature.

The formation of the Mughal Empire (16^th century) placed some hurdles before the development of a pan-Indian language due to the confusion between Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani. Essentially these are forms of the same language, the oldest of which is Hindi. Urdu was formed by the admixture of Hindi with the languages of the (foreign) Muslim soldiers in the Mughal army camp (ordu). Hindustani was the spoken form of Urdu—the latter is specifically a literary language written in the Persian script.

Hindustani/Urdu never became pan-Indian languages because their prose was too elaborate, and their speech too sophisticated for the masses. The other important elements of the Mughal army, namely the Rajput cavaliers, the mostly Hindu infantry, and the mostly Hindu camp followers did not have any use for Hindustani in their own homes and stuck to their native languages. Instead Hindustani became the lingua franca of cities in the Indo-Gangetic plains (and also some cities in the Deccan) because the foreign Muslims settled down in these places. Even today every such city has a Mughalpura, an Afghan mohalla, a Sayyidganj, or a Sheikhupura, where these soldiers settled down with their extended families.

The fall of the Mughals (early 18^th Century) signaled the death of Hindustani, which was eventually absorbed into Hindi. Urdu had a great rebirth and became the language of poetry and music—however the continued use of the Persian script made it inaccessible for the masses. With the establishment of the British Raj in the 19^th Century Hindi began producing prolific amounts of literature and captured the popular imagination.

It acquired a pan-Indian status because:

The brand name "Hindi" was not provincial but national unlike Awadhi or Bundeli.

In Devanagari it had the best and most legible script.

Having already absorbed Brajbhasha, Awadhi, Bundeli, and numerous hill dialects, it went on to swallow Rajasthani, Bagheli, Chhatisgarhi, Malavi, Bihari, and Maithili. More importantly the speakers of these languages freely adopted Hindi as their language, even if they used elements of their own local speech in pronouncing it.

The freedom-fighters campaigning against the British chose to address public meetings in different parts of the country, in Hindi. Later the Government of India accepted Hindi (Khariboli form) as its national language, but made it very Sanskritized to find some common ground with languages like Marathi and Telegu.

In modern times Hindi has acquired an Apabhramsa like status with varying regional pronunciations for the same language. But it has surpassed Apabhramsa in reach, covering almost the whole of the Indian continent, and being taken overseas by immigrant populations. Ironically the decision of the founders of Pakistan, to make Urdu its national language, has only furthered the influence of Hindi. Since Urdu is based largely on Hindi, and an Urdu-speaker can understand Hindi better than he understands Pushto, Baluchi, or Bengali, the impact of Indian cultural themes is widespread in Pakistan and beyond. Bangladesh on the other hand chose Bengali as its national language, after that country became independent of West Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pak war, but the early impact of Urdu and the latter-day influence of Indian cultural themes have still made Hindi knowledgeable in that country.

The future of languages in India

All through the period that saw the rise of Hindi, there was the sad spectacle of the headlong decline of Sanskrit. The status of the literary, scientific, and intellectual language was taken by English, and is maintained to this day. Original works in Sanskrit are no longer produced, and even reproductions and re-interpretations of earlier works are not happening.

But Sanskrit is still alive in religious hymns (mantras), devotional songs, ceremonies, and of course in the hearts of most Indians. In the old days royal patronage aided in the study of Sanskrit, but at least there were scholars in those times eager to express their ideas in this ancient language. The greatest contribution to Sanskirt came from individuals in every age, from Patanjali (2^nd century BCE) to Vachaspati Misra (15^th century CE). The availability of numerous technological tools makes the preservation and propagation of Sanskrit today a comparatively easy task if any inspired individual chooses to make such an effort.

Hindi continues to expand worldwide and, if the Government of India wills it, could become one of the many international languages. The preservation of regional languages also continues—most Indians are multi-lingual, speaking their parents’ language at home, English at work, and Hindi on the streets.

It will be interesting to see which region produces the next pan-Indian language....and when!
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Language development and history

The historical evolution of languages helps scholars in writing socio-political history—this is especially true for the Indian continent where the numerous literary and archaeological sources of history were destroyed in the tumultuous Islamic invasions. Additionally language development is important in studying the migrations of tribes and warrior clans, which provide clues to the changes brought about in military tactics and technologies by these movements.

Unfortunately the study of Indian languages so far has been dominated by the colonial historians who followed their own racist agenda in making interpretations. Their views have influenced the minds of generations of Indians for the past 200 years.(Note that this article will look only at the dominant language of the times: from ancient Vedic to modern Hindi. The detailed metrics, grammar, and lexicon of these languages are of use only to linguists and can be studied elsewhere. In any case most of the intervening languages, like the Prakrits and the Apabhramsas, are today extinct. But beyond linguistics, their rise to prominence parallels the politico-military movements in India through the ages, as will be shown here.)

Vedic and Samskrit

There is no name given to the earliest language of India, but for the sake of convenience it is called Vedic, since the oldest recorded examples of this language are in the ancient Vedic texts[1]. These records are not literal but oral, and it is a great achievement of the ancient Indians and the Brahman families that the exact pronunciation of the language was passed down the generations and preserved over thousands of years.

The time period of the Vedic language covers the growth of urban settlements along the Gujarat coast (3000 BCE), on the banks of great rivers like the Sindhu and the Saraswati, and up to the rise of historic kingdoms (1200 BCE) further east. In such a long period there are bound to be variations in the spoken language and these are evident even in the four books of the Vedas—the Rig Veda having the most archaic form of the language. These variations have fortunately been preserved in an oral form to this day, which means that such preservation of the Vedic language was begun in this later period. Traditional history confirms this finding—it was at the close of the Mahabharat War (fought near Delhi) that Rishi Veda Vyas compiled the Vedic hymns into texts and commanded their preservation down the generations.

After 600 BCE the administrative language in a large part of India was called Prakrit (natural or spoken), which was closely related to Vedic and was considered its spoken form—it may have emerged much earlier since regional variants were apparent even in that Magadhan age. The age of the Prakrits as administrative and literary languages lasts till 800 CE—an almost as long a period as Vedic.

In these fast changing times a need was felt for preserving[2] the original language of the Vedas—it was given the name Samskrit (Sanskrit[3]), which means perfect. A distinct grammar for this language was provided by the ancient grammarian Patanjali in 150 BCE—all subsequent works produced in this perfected language are denoted as Classical Sanskrit by modern linguists. This preservation through the centuries and millennia of turmoil was a monumental feat. It kept Sanskrit alive while the other spoken languages changed in form and even in name—the provision of a scientific grammar made Sanskrit the language of literature, philosophy, science, and the arts. It continued to influence every period of Indian History through the ages.

Prakrit

The period of the Prakrit languages covers the Maurya, Kushan, Satvahan, and Gupta Empires. The geographical variants of this Prakrit were Magadhi (Bihar and Bengal), Ardh-Magadhi (Eastern UP, MP, and Chhatisgarh), Sauraseni (Western UP, Eastern Punjab, and Eastern Rajasthan), a Himalayan Prakrit, Saindhavi (Western Punjab and Sindh), the Maharashtri Prakrit, and a Prakrit covering Western Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The rise of the monarchies in the east of the country propelled the language of that region to the position of a literary language—this was Pali. Closely related to the Ardh-Magadhi Prakrit, Pali emerged as a literary language for the Buddhist teachers and monks of that region. In fact the word Pali was originally just the name of the Buddhist texts—it was only after the 4^th Century BCE that it became known as the name of the language in which those texts were written. With the ascendancy of Buddhism Pali acquired the status of a literary language across India, and went with its faith to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Siam.

The Jain religion, which also rose to prominence in the Ardh-Magadh region, adopted that Prakrit for its religious and literary texts. In the manner of Pali, the Ardh-Magadhi of the Jain texts eventually acquired the name of Jain Prakrit and developed separately from the former.

Throughout this period Sanskrit maintained its ascendancy over the spoken and literary languages. Royal patronage was extended to Sanskrit even by avowedly Buddhist or Jain rulers and reached astronomical heights under the Gupta Empire. Its recognized status as the language of the ancient texts, its popular status as the language of the Gods, and its continued preservation and study by the Brahmans, ensured the ascendancy of Sanskrit.

Both the Jains and Buddhists felt the need to connect with the intellectual pulse of the land by studying and debating in Sanskrit—from the earliest times Sanskrit phrases were freely used in Prakrit and Pali texts. They were also compelled to render their texts into Sanskrit because in this long time the spoken languages had seen the rise of another monumental change.

Apabhramsa

For the sake of administrative uniformity and scholarly needs, the Prakrits that were once the spoken languages, became conservative and unchanging. In the mouths of the masses though, the spoken language continued to evolve, by changing pronunciations and from the constant migrations of the Indian peoples.

Such changes were subtle and differed according to the province and even according to the profession of the speakers. As far back as 150 BCE, the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Patanjali in his great work Mahabhashyam, first uses Apabhramsa as a term for any corrupt pronunciations of Sanskrit. But in later periods, while the spoken languages of the upper classes (many of them Buddhists and Jains) were the Prakrits, this term Apabhramsa came to be used for the speech of the commoners.

In every age the language of the commoners becomes the language of the saints, poets, and gurus, who move among the people. This was how the Prakrits were first adopted by the Buddhist and Jain monks of the past. A particular Apabhramsa of the northern Punjab came into notice as a language increasingly being used by poets across North India. In the early centuries of the Common Era the foreign invasions and formation of the Kushan Empire caused the movement of some Indian warrior clans to Rajasthan, which became a base for resisting the foreigners.

The roots of a new Apabhramsa were thus established here. In that period the pastoral Abhiras were noted as vassals of the Sakas in Gujarat and Sindh. The peculiarities of their Apabhramsa mingled with the local variants and ultimately with the Apabhramsa of Rajasthan—this mixed Apabhramsa language acquired the status of a literary language even as the Gupta Empire united most of the Indian continent under its rule (4^th century). In the 6^th Century CE King Dharasena of Vallabhi (Gujarat) recorded an inscription where he mentions his father Guhasena's proficiency in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa poetry.

Already a literary language, this particular Apabhramsa of Rajasthan-Gujarat was raised to the level of an administrative language first by the Pratihar chieftains of Gurjara province and subsequently by the other clans of the Rajput period. For the sake of convenience this language is termed Western Apabhramsa by modern scholars. With the formation of the Pratihar Empire[5](750-1000 CE), Western Apabhramsa[6] became a pan-Indian language and its use also spread east into Bengal and south into Maharashtra.

In fact every regional Prakrit was transformed into a regional Apabhramsa with the changed influences coming from Western Apabhramsa[7]. This change of term does not mean a change in language, since the early Prakrit forms of each region were still maintained. It were these Apabhramsas that eventually gave rise to the modern North Indian languages, including Hindi.

The Jain writers rendered their texts into Apabhramsa since they flourished mostly in the western parts of India. Among the most famous of these was Hemachandra, the 11^th Century grammarian, who wrote in a period when the Prakrits were no longer spoken and were even dying out as literary languages. In a later age these Jains continued to produce works in Apabhramsa, which also received patronage from the Rajput Kings till the 16^th Century. Throughout this period Sanskrit continued to exercise its dominance and every Apabhramsa work contained references to, and lengthy quotes from, that ancient language.

The Rajput period thus saw a continued cultural unification with Western Apabhramsa as a pan-Indian link language and Sanskrit as the universal language of intellectuals. In the next period, along with other calamities, this linguistic unity is broken and another pan-Indian language does not emerge till the middle of the 19^th Century!

part-II

[1]The oldest of which was the Rigveda, followed by the Samveda, the Yajurveda, and the Atharvaveda.
[2]The Vedic texts contained mantras that were chanted in sacrificial prayers and for meditation. It was believed that mispronunciation of these words would deprive the worshipper of the full benefits—this was another reason for preserving the language of the Vedic texts.
[3]In modern English the word was written as Sanskrit—but in fact it is nasal sound that is neither close to n or m of English.
[4]The Abhiras fill the gap between the fall of the Kushan Empire and the rise of the Gupta Empire.
[5]Even though the Pratihars faced stiff competition from the Palas and Rashtrakutas, it was their language that succeeded in gaining a pan-Indian status.
[6]In fact Apabhramsa of that age was like Hindi of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries….their rise to pan-Indian status has some interesting parallels, which will be described later.
[7]With the fall of the Pratihars, Western Apabhramsa also sees the development of some regional variants, with the Jaipuri group joining Sauraseni Apabhramsa, while the Gujarati, Marwari, Malvi, and Mewari form their separate identities. But these changes became evident only in the next period of Indian History.
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