A History of Agriculture in India v2.c87.s4: Banda Bahadur (1708-1716)—His Land Reforms
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c87.s4
- Language
- English
Banda Bahadur (1708-1716)—His Land Reforms
v2.c87.s4.1
Lachhman Das, who came to be known as Banda Bahadur, was a Dogra Rajput. He was born on 27 October 1670 at Rajori, a village in the Poonch District of Jammu and Kashmir. His father, Ram Dev, was a cultivator. Stricken with remorse on the death of a pregnant doe he had shot, he became a Bairagi, assumed the name of Madho Das, and wandered about in the Deccan. After a stay at Nasik, he shifted to Nander. It was here that he met Guru Gobind Singh in 1708. He was so impressed by the Guru's personality that he declared himself as his *banda* or slave. The Guru gave him a sword and five arrows, a drum and a banner. The Guru also gave him *hukamnamas*, letters of authority, addressed to the Sikhs of the Punjab, exhorting them to rally round his banner and avenge the death of his father and his innocent children.
v2.c87.s4.2
As Banda Bahadur entered Haryana, the Sikhs joined him in large numbers. He looted Sonepat, Kaithal, Samana, Ghuram, Shahabad, Mustafabad, Kapuri and Sadhaura. In the mean time, the armed peasants from the central districts of the Punjab converged towards Sarhind. On 24 May 1710 Sarhind was sacked and thus the murder of Guru Gobind Singh's sons avenged. By the autumn of 1710 the whole of Jalandhar Doab was liberated by Banda's followers. The peasant revolt then spread from Doaba to Majha, the central Punjab.
v2.c87.s4.3
One of the greatest achievements of Banda Bahadur was the abolition of the *zamindari* system in East Punjab. The *zamindars* (landlords) were mostly government officials responsible for paying to the Mughal Government fixed land revenue of the villages entrusted to them. They had arrogated to themselves the position of absolute proprietors who could turn out the actual cultivators at their sweet will. The Mughal authorities did not interfere in their internal arrangements so long as they paid their dues. They were free to extort any amount from the peasants who were practically reduced to the position of serfs. 'Once, says a local tradition, people from the neighbourhood of Sadhaura came to Banda complaining of the iniquities practised by their landlords. He ordered Baj Singh to open fire on them. They were astonished at the strange reply to their representation, and asked him what it meant. He told them that they deserved no better treatment when being thousands in number they still allowed themselves to be cowed down by a handful of zamindars. "Why should not the Khalsa of the Guru feel strong enough to redress his own wrongs?" The remedy suggested was successfully applied.³
v2.c87.s4.4
³ Teja Singh and Ganda Singh: *A Short History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, 1469-1765, pp. 87, 88
v2.c87.s4.5
'The revolt spread across the Sutlej over the whole of the Majha country,' states Khushwant Singh. 'Starting from Amritsar, the peasant armies marched northwards towards the hills, taking Kalanaur, Batala, and Pathankot. Then they overran the tract between the Sutlej and the Ravi. The Punjab became like a surging sea of free peasantry with only two small islands of Mughal authority in its midst—the capital city of Lahore and the Afghan town of Kasur. From the Jumna to the Ravi and beyond, the only person who mattered was Banda, and the only power that commanded respect was that of the peasant armies.'⁴
v2.c87.s4.6
⁴ Khushwant Singh, *A History of the Sikhs*, Vol. I, 1469-1839, p. 109
v2.c87.s4.7
It was a true peasant revolt led by Banda Bahadur, who himself came from a poor peasant family. His army was mostly composed of cultivators. This revolt had a far-reaching impact on the socio-economic life of East Punjab. It became a land of yeomen who owned their lands and became the best farmers of India.