A History of Sikh Flags, Part I - Banda Bahadur
A look into the history of Sikh flags under the Khalsa army led by the general Banda Singh Bahadur
The “Nishan Sahib”, as it is often called, stands out as one of many markers of the Sikh world; dotting village Gurdwaras across rural Punjab, flying high in historic shrines, and now found across the continebnts. In recent years, there has been growing awareness about the historical development of our treasured Nishan Sahib - that the iconic image of the standardized Khanda symbol on bright orange or yellow was not the flag used throughout Sikh history and that there have been evolutions in symbols that led to that place. In many ways, this awareness of the dynamic nature of the Nishan Sahib has led to more interest in the role it played historically, especially in conversations rooted in Sikh sovereignty and precolonial Sikh thinking.
The purpose of this article is to think of the way Sikh flags have evolved, physically and symbolically, and the additional meanings they came to take on at various times. Although Sikh flags (henceforth referred to as “nishans” or “jhande”) saw their usage in the time of the Sikh Gurus and this history is certainly worth diving into at another time, we will begin our exploration after the Gurus’ time. Specifically, I want to take a deeper look at the banners of the Khalsa army under the charismatic Banda Bahadur described in detail within the [Parcheen] Panth Parkash authored by Rattan Singh. (Note: “Singh” is not used in Banda’s name in the text even though it is mentioned he was initiated as a Khalsa Sikh, and so I will be following that naming convention).
The Magical Nishan Sahibs of Banda Bahadur
The Panth Parkash section on Banda Bahadur is an intriguing one. Like the rest of the text, it is impeccably detailed and gives very raw information, much of which would pale modern sanitized tastes. These are what make it valuable as a historical text that can give us a picture as to the procession of Banda’s campaigns and how they were perceived by many of his followers. At the same time, the chapters on Banda depart from the otherwise gritty realism that Rattan Singh uses while describing the misl period (which he was most familiar with as his family was contemporary to it) in the replete usage of miracles - so much so that the section on Banda at times arguably falls into the realms of fantasy. Although this deserves a more in-depth discussion, the main point is to preface the following section with the disclaimer that the history reads almost as magical realism, or a fantasy historical epic that melds historical telling with elements of fantasy.
Coming back to the main point, one recurring motif in the sections on Banda in Panth Parkash are that of the Khalsa banners, and their new symbolic [and yes, magical] role within Sikh history.
The first mention of this is the first Khalsa jhanda planted personally by Banda Bahadur at Panipat. The Khalsa’s first military campaign under Banda was to defeat the Malwai Mughal principalities neighboring Sirhind to avenge the deaths of the Sahibzade. After their victory, the Khalsa formally annexed the formerly Mughal territory into the first Sikh empire/state, and various Sikh governors (mentioned by name) were appointed to collect revenue and manage governance of various cities and provinces. To mark the creation of this freshly created Khalsa state and send a sign to the Mughal (“Turk”) army, Banda is said to have personally planted a jhanda at the iconic Panipat, a battlefield that was the scene of (and would continue to be) many battles that determined the political fate of Dilli and broader India. This Nishan Sahib is said to have not needed any security detail on it as it magically provided its own; any attempt to remove the flagpole from the ground would be met with it digging deeper, anyone who attempted to cut the ropes hoisting the flag would find their own arms suddenly cut off, and any Mughal who came near it with malicious intent would find themselves spontaneously catch on fire.
The flag at Panipat only marks the beginning of Sikh conquest; as the text details Banda’s further conquests into Doaba, Panth Parkash leans further into the idea of the Khalsa flag supplanting the Mughal one with the line “gadd khalse jhande jhulai, turkan ke so patt giraye”; which can be translated as “as the flags of the Khalsa were raised high, those of the Turks were thrown to the side.” The notoriety of the single flag at Panipat marking the eastern boundary of Khalsa territory (which can be seen in the maps on Banda’s conquest) is said to have trickled down to the royal courts of Lahore and nearby Delhi, where fear gripped the Mughals and prevented them from making any strike on said marked territory. Banda is said to have taken strategic advantage of this to construct a rather nice fort at Panipat (“kaim qile”) with connections to other captured and newly constructed forts that helped further consolidate Sikh imperial power.
It is not only the Mughals who have trouble with the magical immovable Khalsa jhande. While describing Banda’s later conquests in the hills ruled by Pahari Rajputs (a campaign initiated by Banda to punish and subjugate the Pahari Rajas who attacked the 10th Guru), the Panth Parkash describes a dialogue Banda tries to broach with some of the Pahari chiefs before engaging in military conflict with them. This dialogue leads to a series of contests, a mix of martial and magical, between the Pahari Rajputs and the Khalsa. The final such challenge starts when Banda claims he will plant a flag (“dhaja”) in neutral territory between the two camps and challenges the Paharis to remove it, even with the use of weapons. The rajas are said to then pray to their gods and goddesses (“dev devi”) and recite several mantras to attempt to remove the flag at night. The Pahari forces attempt to uproot the flagpole, to no avail. A Pahari soldier then tries to make an attempt to cut the flag down with his sword only to find that he misses and the sword nearly slits his own throat. With this, the disgruntled Rajas decide to give up on negotiations and start fortifying and arming themselves for battle with the Khalsa army, and from here the text describes the subsequent battles and victories of the Khalsa military force.
The last mention of these magic banner at Panipat is a peculiar example of what most fiction writers would praise as maintaining the “internal logic” of how magic works in the text. Upon Bahadur Shah’s return to Delhi of hearing about the Khalsa campaigns, the fear of Banda’s infamous Panipat jhande trickles down from his troops. There is even mention of the emperor finally mustering the courage to order an army which was led with fakirs and mullahs reciting the kalma, thousands of Qurans, and the Islamic (“haideri”) flag into Sikh territory - only to be scared and lead it back to Agra again. Finally, it is said that Bahadur Shah and Banda reach a strategic agreement to go half-and-half on Banda’s possessions in Punjab in exchange for unfettered control of the hill states, after which Banda orders the removal of the magic Khalsa flags at Panipat, only after which the relieved Mughal troops can pass and reclaim some of their holdings.
Meaning Behind the Magic
As mentioned earlier, the sections on Banda Bahadur are unique within the otherwise very realistic historical accounting of Panth Parkash in that they fall within the realm of magical realism. Indeed, Rattan Singh’s narration is not entirely fantasy, but it will sometimes choose to switch and use a magical elements over actual historical details. For example, when we look at contemporary evidence, we see that upon Bahadur Shah’s return there was no such negotiation with Banda - he immediately mounted an aggressive Mughal military pushback recapturing Sikh territory accompanied with outlawing Sikh beliefs across the Mughal imperial bureaucracy. Yet interestingly, when we look at the map, Rattan Singh captures the end result very accurately; Sikh possessions in the hill states remained stable while their holdings in Punjab were halved. Yet he forwent (or misinterpreted) the story of the Mughal military campaign to instead focus on an explanation centering around the Panipat magical jhande. A cynic may write this off as mystical nonsense, but as a reader of literature, we can applaud Rattan Singh as an author for maintaining consistent world-building with how magic is used in his text. However, the fixation on the Panipat flag, among others, suggests that although the magical aspects were spiced up its existence was very much real; like with other miraculous motifs with the section on Banda Bahadur in Panth Parkash, what is the fixation on flags trying to tell its readers?
Within the Panth Parkash section on the Gurus, “nishans” are mentioned as being part of the royal procession accompanying the arrival of the 10th Guru. It is implied that at Anandpur and as he traveled, the Guru took on emblems of sovereignty and engaged with other polities (the Mughals, Pahari Rajas) as such. We can imply here that though the Guru’s nishans would fly over areas under his domain, they would coexist with neighboring polities.
With the campaign against Sirhind, the Khalsa army assumed a new political objective — one of military conquest. Although Banda Bahadur’s objective was to “punish” the state of Sirhind and its collaborators, the state was not just punished, but was entirely liquidated and replaced with a brand new Sikh state with provinces of which the first flag in Panipat was a marker. Even the addition of magical details to this nishan is not done at random but consistent with the narrative structure of the surrounding chapters on Banda; used to symbolize a “new age” of the Khalsa supplanting that of the Turks with military might, and one that accordingly caused fear and despair in the Turks and their regional allies. The magic of the flag is also used here to emphasize how it cannot at all coexist with other political entities; thus why objectors to the Nishan in the narrative can only attempt to take it down with their own mystical symbols (like the Rajas with their mantras and the mullahs with their kalmas).
The fear of the flag’s magical attributes is best read as an analogy to the historical reality as borne out by contemporary sources of how Banda Bahadur was perceived in many Mughal darbars; a fearful force that seemed to have a rapid rise from nowhere and with intent to annihilate the Mughal regime and all its collaborators. Indeed, this genuine fear of him is borne out in contemporary evidence even from the Mughal side and a large part of why Bahadur Shah set out with such haste from his other campaigns to stop Banda in Punjab immediately as he was encroaching on the Mughal capitals. Indeed, as we see from his contemporary hukamnamas to the Sikh sangat, Banda says “we have brought Satyug”, attributing it to the blessings of the Sikh Gurus and exalting new members of the Khalsa to come armed with five weapons and to keep their faith in the Guru and Khalsa. This written word of Banda meshes well with the understanding of Sikh military banners as presented in Panth Parkash; an ominous sign to enemies of a new and bold era.
Physical Features of the Flag
Unfortunately, as of now there is not much evidence to suggest what the design of this Sikh flag would be. Even if Banda were to have directly taken the flag of Guru Gobind Singh (the most likely possibility), there are multiple artistic depictions of the color and types of symbols on such a flag; though the most likely possibilities is a triangular banner with a red, orange, blue, or yellow background with either nothing or some arrangement of weapons on them.
The idea of a red flag is tempting due to how common it was in 18th century Sikh paintings of the Gurus, and Banda’s personal affinity for red dress. However, even these paintings vary widely and cannot always be seen as reliable for historically depicting what a Sikh flag was. For example, many Sikh paintings depict the Gurdwaras in the Gurus’ time having red flags with a green border as such:
However, the problem is that this flag seems to be a generic placeholder design that is also common in Pahari artwork, where it is often seen in paintings of mythology. For example, here the same placeholder flag is seen often in depictions of Durga slaying demons; sometimes on Durga’s side, and sometimes on the demons:
Yet even Pahari painting is not the origin of this placeholder flag color; one of its earlier appearances still in a different artwork style is in a 17th century folio of the Padshahnama, where it is painted in a rendition the Mughal siege of Kandahar. Although the flag has the Mughal imperial symbol of a lion on it, the color is distinctly red with a green border (unlike the green banners otherwise employed by the Mughals with some in the back):
This all goes to give somewhat of a broader context for the usage of flags/banners in India and to show that although they had significant meaning, they were not always standardized to the extent we think of now. Similarly, although the Khlasa banners under Banda Bahadur were probably visually unique to capture the aforementioned spirit of the newly minted and vigorous Sikhs creating their first state, the same principle of them not being perfectly standardized and even evolving could apply to them, even if they contained immense religious, political, and military meaning.
Beautiful informative clarifying article we need such articles to clear the clouds of misunderstanding