History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c44.s7: §7. Khush-hal Khan Khatak, the enemy of Aurangzib.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c44.s7
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§7. Khush-hal Khan Khatak, the enemy of Aurangzib.
v3.c44.s7.1
Khush-hal Khan,† the chieftain of the Khataks, seems to have taken up arms against the Mughals at this time. This large and warlike clan occupies the southern part of the Peshawar district and much of Kohat and Banu. Khush-hal had years ago inspired defiance of the imperial Government. But an Afghan's kinsmen are his greatest foes. The Khatak chieftain was invited to a *darbar* at Peshawar, treacherously arrested in concert with his uncles, fettered with shackles weighing 10 lbs. each, and sent off to Hindustan as a prisoner. The viceroy of Kabul objecting to the release of this turbulent man, the Emperor kept him in prison at Delhi (April 1664) and Rantambhor. The poet solaced his captive hours by writing spirited verses in Pushtu, denouncing Aurangzib's injustice and cruelty. and cursing the Indian climate. But he evidently made terms with the Government, for he returned to Delhi in December 1666, and three months later we find him and his son Ashraf in the Mughal force that invaded the Yusufzai country. The Yusufzais were the hereditary enemies of the Khataks, as the boundaries of the two clans met in the middle of the Peshawar district, and a wedge of Khatak settlement was also inserted in the body of the Yusufzai territory north of the Indus. Khush-hal's father had been slain by the Yusufzais. Prompted either by love of revenge or by the wish to secure release from prison, he readily accepted a command in the Mughal service, and fought in the Yusufzai campaign at the head of his clansmen.
v3.c44.s7.2
∗ Disaster to M. Amin Khan: M.A., 117-118; Ishwardas, 63a-65a (best account); K. K. ii. 232-233; Storia, ii. 199-201.
v3.c44.s7.3
† My account of Khush-hal Khan is based on Biddulph's *Afghan Poetry in the 17th Century*, supplemented by A.N. 1042, (he joins the Mughal force sent against the Yusufzais), *Akhbarat*, year 10, sheet 9, year 17, sheet 2, (his son at Court,) and Elphinstone's *Caubul*, 193-197. Selections from Khush-hal's poems have been also translated by Elphinstone (*Caubul*, 196-197) and by Raverty in his *Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans*, (London, 1862). I quote Biddulph.
v3.c44.s7.4
But his heart yearned for the free life of a mountain chief, and now, joining Acmal, he became the leading spirit of the national opposition, inspiring the tribesmen with his pen no less than his sword, and winning many a victory over the Mughals.
v3.c44.s7.5
The danger to the empire was very great. Not only was the rising a national one, affecting the whole Pathan land "from Qandahar to Attock," but its leaders were also men who had served in the Mughal army in Hindustan* and the Deccan, and knew the organization efficiency and tactics of the imperialists. The two sides had the same arms, and except that the Afghans lacked heavy artillery, the superiority lay with them, as they were hardy hillmen fighting in their own rugged country, while the Indian troops have always had a horror of mountain war and aversion to facing privation and cold.