The Age of Survival

No capital. No permanent refuge. No defeat that could prevent their return.

After the execution of Banda Singh Bahadur in 1716, punjabi military power appeared to have been destroyed. Its leaders were dead or scattered, its forts had fallen and its brief control of territory had ended. Mughal authorities reclaimed Punjab’s cities, roads and administrative centres.

Yet they did not eliminate the movement itself.

For the next half-century, punjabi warfare was shaped less by holding territory than by surviving without it. Small bands disappeared into forests, crossed rivers, moved through the dry country of southern Punjab and relied upon villages for food, information and fresh horses. When stronger armies approached, they dispersed. When pressure weakened, they assembled again.

This was the age in which guerrilla warfare became central to the Sikh struggle.

An Army Without Territory

Banda Singh Bahadur had attempted to establish permanent rule. He captured towns, occupied forts and created an administration. These achievements gave the Sikh movement unprecedented power, but they also created positions that could be surrounded and destroyed.

The siege of Gurdas Nangal exposed the danger. Once Banda Singh and his remaining forces were enclosed, Mughal troops did not need to defeat them in open battle. They only had to prevent food and reinforcements from entering.

The Sikh bands that survived his fall adopted a different military existence. They possessed no capital whose capture could end their resistance and no single army whose destruction would remove them from Punjab. Fighters organised themselves into mobile jathas which could act independently, join together for a larger operation and separate again before an enemy concentrated against them.

These bands were generally too small to confront a provincial army in a conventional battle. Instead, they watched roads, attacked isolated detachments, intercepted supplies and struck officials or positions that could not be reinforced quickly. Horses allowed them to cover long distances, while the absence of heavy artillery and large baggage trains made them difficult to pursue.

Their objective was not always to defeat an enemy where he stood. Often, it was to remain beyond his control until he became vulnerable.

Dispersal as a Military System

To an imperial commander, a dispersed enemy could appear broken.

In reality, dispersal became one of the forces’ greatest protections. A large body of troops required grain, fodder, water and a secure camp. Its movement produced visible tracks and could be reported by local officials. Smaller groups were harder to locate and could obtain supplies without exhausting one area.

When danger approached, a jatha could divide into even smaller parties and move towards different forests, villages or river crossings. Some fighters remained in central Punjab, while others withdrew towards the hills, Malwa or the country beyond the Sutlej. Once the campaign against them weakened, messages travelled through the same landscape and the scattered groups assembled again.

This did not mean they could vanish without consequence. Separation made communication difficult and left individual bands vulnerable to betrayal or surprise. Wounded fighters could not easily be protected, while families and non-combatants could not move at the same speed as mounted warriors.

Dispersal preserved the fighting force, but it could not always protect the wider community around it.

Living in the Forests

The forests and uncultivated tracts of eighteenth-century Punjab became temporary military bases - these were not necessarily continuous forests of tall trees. They included thorn scrub, reeds, grassland, riverine woodland and stretches of wilderness beyond close administrative control.

For a mobile band, such terrain offered concealment. Trees and tall growth restricted the view of cavalry scouts. Narrow paths made large formations difficult to coordinate. Camps could be moved before an approaching army knew their exact location, while hidden routes connected the wilderness to cultivated villages nearby.

Yet the forest was never complete protection.

Men and horses still needed water, grain and fodder. Fires produced smoke. Hoofprints revealed movement. Informers could identify a camp, while an army could occupy wells, cut paths through vegetation or surround the entire tract. Once a large population gathered in one refuge, concealment became harder and supplies disappeared rapidly.

The forest worked best when it allowed movement. When it became a fixed sanctuary, it could become a trap.

The Chhota Ghallughara

In 1746, this danger became clear.

After Jaspat Rai, an official at Eminabad, was killed during a clash with Sikh fighters, his brother Lakhpat Rai led a major campaign against the Sikh population with the support of the Mughal government at Lahore. Sikh groups and families concentrated within the Kahnuwan wetlands and forests, hoping that the difficult terrain would protect them.

Lakhpat Rai’s forces surrounded the area and began forcing their way through it. Paths were cut into the vegetation, troops searched the forest and pressure was maintained upon the people inside. With provisions becoming scarce and the available routes closing, the Sikhs attempted to break out towards the Ravi and the hills.

Thousands were killed during the fighting and pursuit. Many others were captured and later executed at Lahore. Exact figures differ between historical accounts, but the scale of the destruction gave the event its name: the Chhota Ghallughara - Lesser Massacre.

Militarily, the campaign demonstrated that difficult terrain alone could not protect a concentrated population. The forest had concealed the Sikhs, but once their location was known, the same wetlands and vegetation restricted their escape. A large community, including those unable to move quickly, could not operate like a mounted jatha.

Survival required more than hiding. It required warning, supplies and several routes of retreat.

Beyond the Forests

When pressure intensified in central Punjab, Sikh bands also moved southwards into Malwa and towards the margins of Rajasthan. Much of this was dry, semi-arid country: scrubland, sparse cultivation, grazing tracts and settlements separated by long distances. Water was limited and control depended heavily upon knowledge of wells, tracks and local communities.

This country created different difficulties from the forests. There was less vegetation in which to hide, but also fewer roads and settlements through which a pursuing army could support itself. A light mounted band familiar with the wells could cross ground that was dangerous for a larger force carrying infantry, artillery and baggage.

The dry country therefore offered distance rather than concealment.

It also demanded endurance. Horses could not be kept indefinitely without fodder and water. Weapons and supplies had to be carried or obtained from sympathetic settlements. Heat, dust and exhaustion could destroy a force without a battle taking place.

Sikh survival across these regions was possible because forests, deserts and villages were not isolated from one another. Together they formed a wider landscape through which fighters, information and provisions could move.

The Intelligence Behind the Warfare

Guerrilla warfare depended upon knowing where the enemy was before the enemy knew where the Sikhs were.

The Sikh bands had no formal intelligence department comparable to that of an imperial state. Their network was dispersed through the population. Villagers, travellers, traders, herders, religious visitors and local supporters could observe the movement of troops and pass information onwards. Messages travelled between jathas, warning them of an approaching detachment or identifying a road along which revenue, supplies or officials would pass.

Support did not always take the form of fighting. A family that provided grain, concealed a rider or remained silent when questioned participated in the survival of the movement. Local knowledge identified usable wells, hidden paths, river crossings and places where horses could rest.

This network also had limits. Information could arrive late, become distorted or be deliberately given to the authorities. Mughal and Afghan officials employed their own scouts and informers, offered rewards and punished communities suspected of assisting Sikh fighters.

The struggle was therefore fought partly through control of information. A large army could dominate the ground it occupied; a dispersed network could know what was happening beyond it.

From Survival to Recovery

By the 1750s, Sikh forces were no longer merely fugitives. Periods of persecution alternated with moments in which Mughal authority weakened, Afghan invasions disrupted the province and rival officials competed for allies and revenue.

The Sikh bands used these openings to return to the central districts. They raided hostile positions, collected resources, acquired horses and weapons and expanded their influence across the countryside. Temporary losses of territory did not destroy them because their strength was not held entirely within territory.

Their organisation could contract under pressure and expand when conditions changed.

This created a recurring pattern. An army entered Punjab and forced the Sikh bands to withdraw. Officials reported that they had been scattered. The invaders then moved away, their supplies declined or their attention shifted towards another campaign. Sikh riders returned from forests, dry tracts and distant villages, re-established contact and began attacking exposed positions once again.

Each return also brought experience. Survivors remembered which routes had failed, which settlements could be trusted and how quickly an enemy could move. Defeat did not automatically make the forces stronger, but those who escaped carried its lessons into the next campaign.

The Vadda Ghallughara

By 1761, Sikh power had grown dramatically. Sikh forces attacked Afghan-held territories, interfered with communications and briefly occupied Lahore. Ahmad Shah Durrani returned to Punjab determined to break them before their influence became permanent.

In early February 1762, he advanced with exceptional speed and caught a large Sikh body near Malerkotla.

This was not only a gathering of warriors. The moving column included women, children, elderly people, animals and possessions. The presence of the wider community removed the advantage upon which Sikh warfare usually depended. The fighters could neither scatter freely nor abandon those travelling with them. Instead, they formed a moving defensive position around the group and attempted to continue towards the comparatively safer country around Barnala. Afghan and allied cavalry repeatedly attacked the formation, breaking through its outer protection and reaching the non-combatants inside. Sikh fighters counter-attacked, closed gaps and kept the column moving, but they were fighting while protecting a slow and exposed population.

Thousands were killed over the course of the pursuit. Estimates vary considerably, preventing a precise total, but the losses were so severe that the day became remembered as the Vadda Ghallughara - the Greater Massacre.

Even within this disaster, the Sikh forces avoided complete encirclement. The defensive formation preserved part of the moving column and carried survivors towards Malwa. Durrani had inflicted enormous losses, but he had not captured one capital, eliminated one government or destroyed every independent fighting band.

There was still no single centre from which the movement could be erased.

Why the Sikh Forces Kept Returning

The Sikh forces repeatedly reappeared because they were not sustained by one fortress, one commander or one supply centre.

Their jathas could operate independently. Their horses allowed them to cross Punjab quickly. Forests and dry tracts offered places of withdrawal. Villages provided food, intelligence, guides and recruits. Their enemies could capture towns and patrol roads, but they could not permanently occupy every river crossing, settlement and stretch of wilderness across the region.

The political disorder of Punjab in the 1700s also worked in their favour. Mughal governors, Afghan commanders, local chiefs and neighbouring powers competed for the same territory. An army sent to destroy the Sikhs could rarely remain concentrated upon that task indefinitely. When it withdrew to defend a city, collect revenue or confront another rival, space reopened.

Most importantly, Sikh military organisation was built to survive interruption. A defeated band did not need to wait for orders from a fallen capital. Its survivors could join another leader, form a new group or return when the next assembly was called.

The movement could lose battles, territory and thousands of lives without losing the ability to continue.

Survival as a Form of Warfare

The Age of Survival was not a story of uninterrupted victories.

The Chhota and Vadda Ghallugharas revealed the terrible limits of mobility. Forests could be surrounded. Intelligence could fail. Families could slow an army that otherwise depended upon speed. Guerrilla warfare could preserve a resistance movement, but it could not protect everyone caught within the violence surrounding it.

Yet the Sikh forces achieved something that repeated Mughal and Afghan campaigns could not prevent: continuity.

They learned to treat distance as protection, information as a weapon and dispersal as a form of organisation. They accepted that territory might be abandoned today and contested again tomorrow. Instead of allowing one defeat to become final, they preserved enough strength to return.

By the end of this period, survival was no longer the only objective. The scattered jathas were becoming larger, more coordinated and increasingly capable of controlling the countryside from which they had once been driven.

They had learned how to disappear.

The next stage would show how they learned to rule.