Khalsa Fauj


The Khalsa Fauj were the military forces of the Khalsa order of the Sikhs, established by the tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh, in 1699. It replaced the Akal Sena that had been established by the sixth guru, Guru Hargobind.

History

Origin

Guru Gobind Singh succeeded his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, as guru in 1675. He felt that the Akal Sena was not living up to the challenge and sought to reform the Sikh military forces. Therefore, it was replaced by the Khalsa Fauj after the formalization of the Khalsa order into the sanctified framework of Sikhism at Anandpur on 13 April 1699. Guru Gobind Singh had an ultimate vision of Sikh sovereignty.
The precedence and authority for establishing the Khalsa Fauj was traced back to the teachings of Guru Nanak. It was committed to freeing the Punjab of foreign domination. The army followed the principle of violence only when all other means to address an issue have been exhausted, a principle of dharamyudh.

Guru Gobind Singh

The Khalsa Fauj frequently warred with the Mughal Empire and Rajas belonging to various Hill States of the Shivalik Hills. The army had to relocate from Anandpur in 1704. A short-lived reconciliation between the Mughals and Sikhs occurred in 1707, when Gobind Singh and his Khalsa Fauj spent around 10 months encamped alongside the Imperial Mughal Army of Bahadur Shah whilst the latter was campaigning in Rajasthan. However, Gobind Singh felt that the Mughal emperor was avoiding having discussions with him on the issue of Punjab and therefore he sent Banda Singh Bahadur to the northwest to place pressure on the Mughals.

Banda Singh Bahadur

Banda Singh Bahadur had been given the mantle of leadership by the Guru himself when he was blessed with five arrows from the Guru's own quiver as a symbol of victory. The Guru saw potential in Banda as a warrior against tyranny and injustice, therefore he prepared him for future missions and assigned a group of Panj Pyare, consisting of Binod Singh, Kahan Singh, Baj Singh, Daya Singh, and Ram Singh, to assist the newly converted Sikh in his affairs, alongside 20 other Sikh warriors. Banda Singh was promoted to Jathedar of the Panth on 5 October 1708 by the Guru. Banda and his retinue were instructed to go to Sirhind to take revenge for the tyranny of the local Mughal governor of the area. After the passing of Guru Gobind Singh at Nanded in the Deccan, Banda Singh Bahadur became the caretaker of the Khalsa Fauj. He would go on to rebel against the Mughal empire and form the first sovereign Sikh republican state, ruling over parts of the Punjab, especially in the southeastern regions, albeit the polity was a short-lived one. Most of the recruits into the Khalsa Fauj during the years of Banda's reign drew from the Jat peasantry. The headquarters at this time was Lohgarh. Banda and 2,000 of his followers were captured and publicly executed in 1716 by the Mughals.

Post-Banda

After the death of Banda Singh Bahadur, the Khalsa Fauj divided into various jathas. Since the Sikh community had dispersed to the jungles, deserts, and mountains to avoid state persecution, the focus of the Khalsa Fauj turned to plunder for the time being. There was no clear leader during this period. Small groups of bands of Sikh horsemen still carried out guerilla ambushes on the enemy when the opportunity arose. The period between the death of Banda Singh Bahadur and the hegemony of the Sikh Confederacy is one of the darkest annals in Sikh history, with the Khalsa Fauj fighting for the very survival of the Sikh community faced with certain elimination by genocide perpetrated by Emperor Farrukhsiyar. By the 1720s, the rebellion of the Sikhs had been extinguished. During this time, Abdus Samad Khan, a Turani official and commander of the Mughal military stationed in Punjab, had a very harsh policy against the Sikhs. Any Sikh which was found was given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. When Zakaria Khan, son of Abdus Saman Khan, became the subahdar of Lahore subah in 1726, he wanted the Sikhs to join the Mughal cause against the Afghan invaders or at the very least remain neutral but things did not work out that way.

Army details

Tactics

Significance was heavily placed on cavalry and hand-to-hand combat on horseback. The Khalsa Fauj used guerrilla warfare tactics.

Equipment

Horses for the army were sourced from small zamindars located between the Ravi and Beas rivers. Some warriors possessed matchlock guns whilst others still used bows and arrows.

Organization

Various village chieftains made-up the ranks of the Khalsa Fauj under Guru Gobind Singh. Some chiefs had a larger group of warriors under them whilst others only had a few. The base-of-operations for these chiefs was usually their native village, which were often fortified.

Pay

There was no regular salary for soldiers in the Khalsa Fauj during the period of Guru Gobind Singh. Rather, they had the chance to plunder their enemies' estates under a religious cause.

Symbols

Coiled snake

Guru Gobind Singh compared the Khalsa Fauj to a coiled snake ready to pounce, which he calls the pechida maar, in his Zafarnama letter addressed to Aurangzeb:

Colour

The uniform and colours of the Khalsa Fauj were blue due to Guru Gobind Singh witnessing his youngest son, Fateh Singh, donning such garbs in this colour. Thereafter he standardized them in his army.

Successor

It was succeeded by the Dal Khalsa of the Sikh Confederacy, established by Nawab Kapur Singh in the 1730s. The Sarbat Khalsa united the various jathas of the Khalsa Fauj into more organized and streamlined formations. This reform would lead to the Sikh Confederacy, ruled by various misls.

Legacy

Sikh armies in later periods up till the present are sometimes called "Khalsa Fauj", including the military forces of the Sikh Empire, the Sikh Khalsa Army. During the 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest, songs were made that compared the victorious protesting farmers to the Khalsa Fauj of Guru Gobind Singh.

Timeline