Battle between odds, 21 against 10000 - The Incredible Wonders of Saragarhi Battle

                                    The remains of the piquet at Saragarhi. (© Charles Eve)

One after the other,

Saragarhi martyr,

2 and 1, twenty one( Sardar)

"Bole So Nihal...Sat Sri Akal"(21 alphabets)

Royal Salute, twenty one.

Whether from left to right or right to left, top to bottom, or diagonally it is 21, yes to the  exemplary valour of 21 Sikh soldiers we are going to pay tribute with golden letters even though history is replete with their bravery, and all the 21 were posthumously awarded the Indian Order of Merit, at that time the highest gallantry award which an Indian soldier could receive. The corresponding gallantry award was the Victoria Cross. The award is equivalent to today's Param Vir Chakra awarded by the President of India.

On 20 April 1894, the 36th Sikhs of the British Indian Army was created, under the command of Colonel J. Cook. It was entirely composed of Jat Sikhs. In August 1897, five companies of the 36th Sikhs under Lieutenant Colonel John Haughton were sent to the northwest frontier of British India (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and were stationed at Samana Hills, Kurag, Sangar, Sahtop Dhar and Saragarhi, a small village in the border district of Kohat, situated on the Samana Range, in present-day Pakistan .

The British had partially succeeded in getting control of this volatile area, but tribal Pashtuns continued to attack British personnel from time to time. Thus a series of forts, originally built by Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Sikh Empire, were consolidated. Two of the forts were Fort Lockhart (on the Samana Range of the Hindu Kush mountains), and Fort Gulistan (Sulaiman Range), situated a few miles apart were strategically important .As the forts were not visible to each other, Saragarhi was created midway, as a heliographic communication post with a signalling tower.

12th September, 1897.The atmosphere of Saragarhi  all of a sudden filled with sounds of fire arms and echoes  of “Bole So Nihal...Sat Sri Akal”…

Around 09:00, approximately 6,000–10,000 Afghans reached the signalling post at Saragarhi.

Sepoy Gurmukh Singh signaled to Colonel Haughton, situated in Fort Lockhart, that they were under attack.

Haughton stated his inability to send immediate help to Saragarhi.

The soldiers in Saragarhi decided to fight to the last to prevent the enemy from reaching the forts.

Sepoy Bhagwan Singh was the first soldier to be killed and Naik Lal Singh is seriously wounded.

Naik Lal Singh and Sepoy Jiwa Singh reportedly carried the body of Bhagwan Singh back to the inner layer of the post.

The enemy broke  a portion of the wall of the picket.

Haughton signaled that  as per his estimation    there were between 10,000 and 14,000 Pashtuns attacking Saragarhi.

The leaders of the Pashtun forces reportedly made promises to the soldiers to entice them to surrender.

Reportedly two determined attempts were made to rush open the gate, but were unsuccessful.

Later, the wall is breached.

Thereafter, some of the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting occurred.

In an act of outstanding bravery, Havildar Ishar Singh, commanding the company ordered his men to fall back into the inner layer, whilst he remained  to fight. However, this was breached and all but one of the defending soldiers were killed, along with many of the Pashtuns.

The battle culminated at around 3pm when a section of wall under attack from the diggers began to cave in; the enemy gave a final cry to advance and rushed through the new gap. As the enemy crowded over their own dead and injured to get into Saragarhi, the few Sikhs remaining inside put up a stubborn defence but were forced to retreat into the inner defences. Ishar Singh is believed to have covered the retreat and engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Another sepoy secured the guardroom door from the inside and carried on firing, but was burned to death in an ensuing fire. The signaller Gurmukh Singh is said to have asked permission to pack up  his equipment before joining the fight.

        Signaller Gurmukh Singh used a heliograph to message an account of events at Saragarhi

The 21 Sikhs had made a valiant last stand, and the enemy had paid a high price for their victory, with around 180 dead

He was stated to have killed 20 Afghans, the Pashtuns set fire to the post to kill him. As he was dying, he said to have yelled repeatedly the Sikh battle cry ("One will be blessed eternally, who says that God is the ultimate truth!").

The heliograph, the reason why the men fought to defend Saragarhi, would ironically be the source of their fame: details of their heroism were heliographed and then telegraphed back to London by a Times correspondent and then reported in newspapers around the world

On 12th September every year the 4th battalion of the Sikh Regiment of Indian army is reverberated with "Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!"  the last words of the brave of the bravest  sepoy Gurmukh Singh and commemorates Saragarhi Day.

The news of the famous 21 spread like world fire.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 15 September 1897 reported, “ A thousand Orakzais stormed the post of Saragari, which was held by 21 men of the 36th Sikh Regiment.”

The Hobart Mercury of 15 September 1897 added, “This handful heroically defended the position for six hours, but all perished. One gallant fellow defended the guard room singlehanded, killing twenty of his assailants and was finally burnt at his post.”

And the Brisbane Courier published on the same date went on to say, “News from the north-west frontier of India states that the Afridi tribesmen, who to the number of 10,000 had been intercepted by the force under Brigadier General Yeatman-Biggs, are now attacking all the posts on the Samana Range.”

This is where the Australian connection comes in, because a British officer who was second-in-command of the 36th Sikhs, called the fallen sepoys of Saragarhi “men of mine”, adding “they died fighting like demons.” He and his band of soldiers went on to defend the ensuing attack on Fort Gulistan, despite a siege that went on for three days.

Newspaper reports in Australia on 15 September 1897, published in Sydney Morning Herald, Hobart Mercury and Brisbane Courier Mail

To commemorate the men the British built two Saragarhi Gurudwaras: one in Amritsar, very close to the main entrance of the Golden Temple, and another in Ferozpore cantonment  ..

                                 Saragarhi memorial Gurudwara built in 1904

References

1. https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2019/03/12/they-died-fighting-demons-australian-who-witnessed-battle-saragarhi 
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saragarhi

The article is purely for educational purpose, not for any commercial use.                    

[Dr. (Major) B. C. Nayak is an Anaesthetist who did his MBBS from MKCG Medical College, Berhampur, Odisha. He is an MD from the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and an FCCP from the College of Chest Physicians New Delhi. He served in Indian Army for ten years (1975-1985) and had a stint of five years in the Royal Army of Muscat. Since 1993 he is working as the Chief Consultant Anaesthetist, Emergency and Critical Care Medicine at the Indira Gandhi Cooperative Hospital, Cochin]