Baba Banda Singh Bahadur: from Nanded to Sirhind and his shaheedi in Delhi

This day remembers the martyrdom of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in Delhi in June 1716. In the eight years after he met Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, he led the Khalsa to its first great victories and set up the first Sikh rule in Punjab.

From Madho Das to Banda Singh

Born Lachhman Dev in 1670 in Rajouri, he became an ascetic called Madho Das and kept a hermitage at Nanded on the Godavari. In 1708 Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji came to Nanded; tradition remembers that Madho Das tried to overawe the Guru with his powers and failed, and fell at his feet saying he was the Guru's banda, his servant. He took Amrit as Banda Singh, and the Guru sent him to Punjab with five arrows, a nishan sahib, a drum and a council of five Singhs.

The victories

Sikhs rallied to him across Punjab. In 1709 he took Samana, and in May 1710 he defeated Wazir Khan, the governor responsible for the death of the younger Sahibzade, at Chappar Chiri, and took Sirhind. He made Lohgarh, near Sadhaura, his capital, struck coins in the name of Guru Nanak Dev Ji and Guru Gobind Singh Ji, and abolished the zamindari system, giving land to those who tilled it.

Capture and martyrdom

In 1715 a huge Mughal army besieged him at Gurdas Nangal for eight months until the starving garrison was overrun. He was taken to Delhi in an iron cage with hundreds of Sikhs, who were executed day after day, not one accepting the offer of life for conversion. On the day, his young son Ajai Singh was killed before his eyes, and Banda Singh was tortured and put to death. Gurdwaras hold kirtan and Ardas in his memory.