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Iftikhar Khan | |
|---|---|
| Subahdar | |
 Painting of Iftikhar Khan containing a Perso-Arabic inscription on the border, ca.1650–1675 | |
| Reign | 1671 – 1675 |
| Tenure | Governor of Kashmir province |
Iftikhar Khan (also spelt as Iftikar Khan) was the Mughal governor of the Subah of Kashmir from 1671 to 1675. [1] [2]
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He was appointed as governor of the Kashmir province in 1671 and is said to have enacted discriminatory policies, on the orders of Aurangzeb, against the local Hindus of Kashmir, including destruction of Hindu temples, indiscriminate killings, and forced conversions. [1] [2] [3] Many girls and women from the Kashmiri Hindu community were seized for the Islamic harems during his governorship period. [4] His policies pushed the Kashmiri Pundit community to the brink and made an organized group 500-strong from the community seek divine help from Shiva at the Amarnath shrine. [1] [2] [4] According to traditional lore, after the appeal made to Shiva at Amarnath, one of the participating Kashmiri Pundits had a dream of Shiva instructing the group to seek assistance from the ninth Sikh guru, Tegh Bahadur, to put a stop to the oppression. [1] [2] [4] This was taken by the group as a divine sign from Shiva to seek the assistance of the Sikhs. [1] [2] [4] A delegation of around five hundred Kashmiri Pundits, led by Pundit Kirpa Ram, sought the Guru's help at Anandpur Sahib and detailed the genocidal policies enacted against the Hindus of Kashmir under the governorship of Iftikhar Khan. [1]
The genocidal actions against the Kashmiri Hindus during his reign was noted and documented by the Kashmiri historian, Prithivi Nath Kaul Bamzai, in his works. [5]
His reign as governor of the subah lasted until 1675. [6]
Guru Gobind Singh was the tenth and last human Sikh Guru. He was a warrior, poet, and philosopher. In 1675, at the age of nine he was formally installed as the leader of the Sikhs after his father Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed by Emperor Aurangzeb. His father was the ninth Sikh Guru. His four biological sons died during his lifetime – two in battle and two executed by the Mughal governor Wazir Khan.
Guru Tegh Bahadur was the ninth of ten gurus who founded the Sikh religion and was the leader of Sikhs from 1665 until his beheading in 1675. He was born in Amritsar, Punjab, India in 1621 and was the youngest son of Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh guru. Considered a principled and fearless warrior, he was a learned spiritual scholar and a poet whose 115 hymns are included in the Guru Granth Sahib, which is the main text of Sikhism.
The Sikh Empire was a regional power based in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. It existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, to 1849, when it was defeated and conquered by the British East India Company in the Second Anglo-Sikh War. It was forged on the foundations of the Khalsa from a collection of autonomous misls. At its peak in the 19th century, the empire extended from Gilgit and Tibet in the north to the deserts of Sindh in the south and from the Khyber Pass in the west to the Sutlej in the east as far as Oudh. It was divided into four provinces: Lahore, which became the Sikh capital; Multan; Peshawar; and Kashmir from 1799 to 1849. Religiously diverse, with an estimated population of 4.5 million in 1831, it was the last major region of the Indian subcontinent to be annexed by the British Empire.
Jainism (/ˈdʒeɪnɪzəm/), traditionally known as Jain Dharma, is an ancient Indian religion. Jain dharma traces its spiritual ideas and history through a succession of twenty-four leaders or tirthankaras, with the first in current time cycle being Lord Rishabhanatha, whom the Jain tradition holds to have lived millions of years ago, the twenty-third tirthankara Parshvanatha whom historians date to 8th or 7th century BCE, and the 24th tirthankara, Mahāvīra around 500 BCE. Jains believe that Jainism is an eternal dharma with the tirthankaras guiding every cycle of the Jain cosmology.
Dal Khalsa was the name of the combined military forces of 11 Sikh misls that operated in the 18th century (1748–1799) in the Punjab region. It was established by Nawab Kapur Singh in late 1740s.
Anandpur Sahib, also referred simply as Anandpur, is a city in Rupnagar district (Ropar), on the edge of Shivalik Hills, in the Indian state of Punjab. Located near the Sutlej River, the city is one of the most sacred religious places in Sikhism, being the place where the last two Sikh Gurus, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, lived. It is also the place where Guru Gobind Singh founded the Khalsa Panth in 1699. The city is home to Takhat Sri Kesgarh Sahib, the third of the five Takhts in Sikhism.
The Takht Sri Darbar Sahib Damdama Sahib, is one of the five takhts or Seat of Temporal Authority of Sikhism, located in Talwandi Sabo, near the city of Bathinda in Bathinda district of Punjab, India. At this place Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, prepared the full version of the Sikh scriptures called Sri Guru Granth Sahib in 1705. The other four Takhts are the Akal Takht, Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, Takht Sri Patna Sahib and Takht Sri Hazur Sahib.
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Bhai Mati Das, along with his younger brother Bhai Sati Das were martyrs of early Sikh history. Bhai Mati Das, Bhai Dayala, and Bhai Sati Das were executed at a kotwali (police-station) in the Chandni Chowk area of Delhi, under the express orders of Emperor Aurangzeb just before the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur. Bhai Mati Das was executed by being bound between two pillars and cut in two.
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'During the forty-nine years of Aurangzeb's reign Kashmir was administered by no less than fourteen governors sent from Delhi. Most of them were broad-minded and efficient. They dispensed justice and carried on the administration well. In times of unforeseen calamities like famines, floods, and fires they gave succour, and relief to the suffering people.' Unfortunately a bigoted, and cruel administrator, Iftikar Khan, was appointed governor in 1671 A.D., one who tyrannised over the Brahmins to such an extent that it is said that he sent to the Emperor bundles of sacred-threads of Brahmins, he had either converted or forcibly killed.
He gave orders that no Hindu should be allowed to wear janeu or tilak (the marks of a devout Hindu) in Kashmir and those who refused to give them up should be put to death. Iftikhar Khan, the governor of Kashmir (1671-75), as bigoted as his emperor, set out to implement Aurangzeb's orders with a vengeance. (In his book, The Sikh Religion, Max Arthur Macauliffe refers to the governor of Kashmir as Sher Afghan Khan but most historians including Kirpal Singh and Kharak Singh call him Iftikhar Khan.) Thousands of Brahmins were thrown into jail and the process of a systematic genocide was launched. Those who had not yet been arrested sought safety by fleeing from the state. Only a handful of Brahmins had converted to Islam, it was obvious that soon the rest would either have been exterminated or would have fled the state.
History is a witness that under the commands of Aurangzeb, Iftikhar Khan was using torture towards the Pandits in Kashmir, and was forcibly converting them to Islam. He also used to seize pretty Panditani girls and make them over as gifts to the Musalmans for their harems. Some pious men among the Pandits met and decided to go to AmarNath and invoke mercy of Siva there for deliverance from the tyrannies of this bigot. At the Amar nath Cave one of the pandits saw Siva in a dream who told him to go to Teg Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru in the Punjab and ask for his help to save the Hindu religion. He spoke to his companions about this revelation.
How Guru Tegh Bahadur took up cudgels on behalf of the pandits of Kashmir is best explained by a contemporary Kashmiri historian, P.N.K. Bamzai, in his History of Kashmir: 'Iftikhar Khan ... was using force to convert the Pandits in Kashmir to Islam. Some pious men among the Pandits then met and decided to go to Amarnath and invoke the mercy of Siva there for deliverance from the tyrannies of the bigot. At the Amarnath cave, one of the Pandits saw Lord Siva in a dream who told him to go to Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, in the Punjab, and ask for his help to save the Hindu religion. He spoke to his companions about the revelation [and] about 500 [then] proceeded to Anandpur where Tegh Bahadur lived.'
Iftikhar Khan (1671-1675) won a lot of notoriety by unnecessarily torturing Hindus and the following account will throw light on his policy.
