Chhota Ghallughara 1746: the lesser massacre in the marshes of Kahnuwan

The Chhota Ghallughara, the lesser holocaust, was a massacre of Sikhs in the spring of 1746 in the marshy forests around Kahnuwan, near Gurdaspur, carried out by the forces of the Mughal administration of Lahore. Sikh sources say about seven thousand were killed in the fighting and three thousand more taken prisoner and executed in Lahore.

Lakhpat Rai's revenge

In those years the Sikhs lived as fugitives in the forests and hills, with a price on their heads. In early 1746 a band of Sikhs killed Jaspat Rai, the faujdar of Eminabad, in a skirmish. His brother, Lakhpat Rai, a powerful minister at the court of Yahiya Khan, the governor of Lahore, swore to wipe out the Sikhs. He had Sikhs living in Lahore rounded up and executed, banned the reading of Gurmukhi, and ordered the destruction of Sikh places.

The marshes of Kahnuwan

He then marched out with a large army, cannon and local levies. About fifteen thousand Sikhs, among them many families, took refuge in the swampy forests of Kahnuwan near the Ravi. The army surrounded the area and burned the forest. Trapped between the soldiers, the swamp, the river and the hills, where the hill rajas refused them shelter, the Sikhs fought their way out over several days, suffering terrible losses. The leaders who survived, among them Nawab Kapur Singh and Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, broke through and reached the Malwa.

How it is remembered

The prisoners were taken to Lahore and executed at the Nakhas, where Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj stands. Within two years the Khalsa had regrouped into the Dal Khalsa. Sikhs remember the shaheeds with Akhand Paath, kirtan and Ardas, and at a memorial near Kahnuwan.