7/25/2019 Bandi Veer

1/5

Captured heroes

Pancanadira shore

Shire queue muff

Seeing Guru Mantra

Sikhadda is awake

Fearless brutal.

Gurujira voice of Joy

Dhbaniya took part.

Sikh new watch

At the dawn of a new Sun

Asked steadfast.

"Alakha Niranjan '

Maharaba gone, then ties up

Bhayabhanjana it.

Dark side of the chest in joy

Aussie punk resounding.

Garaji Punjab was today,

"Niranjan alakha!"

He arrived one day

Fear of not knowing parane

Does not loan anyone.

Life Death foot servant,

7/25/2019 Bandi Veer

2/5

Carefree heart.

Ten banks pancanadira ghiri

One day he arrived.

Dilliprasadakute

Hotha repeatedly badasajadara

Yeteche running nap.

Who's Gagan churning,

Compact midnight tute

Who masale nice sky

The fire has been exposed!

Pancanadira shore

Bhaktadehera raktalahari

What Ray was free!

Bust of splitting

Flocks lives paksisamana

Nijanire the running.

Heroes jananire

Raktatilaka foreheads paralo

Pancanadira shore.

***

Bandi Veer / The Captive Brave

7/25/2019 Bandi Veer

3/5

By the banks of the five great streams

Binding their long hair upon their heads

By and by harking to the words of their saints

The Sikhs arise from their dreams

Merciless and brave beyond compare.

A thousand voices raised in prayer

Shaking the earth to its very ends.

The newly awakened Sikhs

Gaze on the dawn of a brand new day

Unblinking and steadfast in every way.

"Alakh Niranjan"

A great noise breaks every shackle

And banishes all fear from the soul.

By each breast in savage unison

The sword rings out in song.

For today is the day that the Punjab roars

"Alakh Niranjan!"

A day such as this has never been seen

A million hearts know not what fear means

Nor feel that they owe another.

Life and death are but servants at one's call,

The soul worries about nothing at all.

By the ten banks of the five great streams

7/25/2019 Bandi Veer

4/5

Such a day has only been seen in dreams.

Atop the palace in Delhi

Over there lives the prince of the realm

His sleep is racked by thoughts unseemly.

Whose voices are these that roil the skies,

driving the darkness of night way -

Whose torches are those that bring a burning light

To the darkened brow of deepest night!

By the banks of the five great streams

That river of blood that flows in brave hearts

Are they being set free!

Cutting open a million hearts

Souls fly true like birds in quest

Seeking home in their own nest.

The brave sons bow to their mothers

Smearing blood across foreheads proud

By the banks of the five great streams.

An excerpt from Bandi Veer, Rabindranath Tagore

(Translation, mine)

banda

The original poem by Tagore was called Bandi Veer or the Captive Brave and described the exploits of

Sardar Banda Singh Bahadur, who was blinded and maimed before being put to death by the Mughals in

1716. While he had his sight, his four year old son was put to death while on his lap and the Mughals

7/25/2019 Bandi Veer

5/5

tried to force him to eat the child's flesh. Death came from red hot pincers and the executioner's axe.

Seven hundred other Sikhs were put to death as well.

CRWilson, a Bengal civilian, has given in his Early Annals of the English in Bengal the following

description of the entry of the Sikh captives into Delhi:

"Malice did its utmost to cover the vanquished with ridicule and shame. First came the heads of the

executed Sikhs, stuffed with straw, and stuck on bamboos, their long hair streaming in the wind like a

veil, and along with them to show that every living thing in Gurdaspur had perished, a dead cat on a pole

. Banda himself, dressed out of mockery in a turban of a red cloth, embroidered with gold, and a heavy

robe of brocade flowered with pomegranates, sat in an iron cage, placed on the back of an elephant. "

These are not stories made up by some rabid follower of the faith. The representatives of the East India

Company in Delhi, John Surman and Edward Stephenson were invited to witness some of these events

and saw enough to observe in a letter to the governor of Fort William:

"It is not a little remarkable with what patience Sikhs undergo their fate, and to the last it has not been

found that one apostatized from his new formed religion. "

Alakh Niranjan was a cry that came from Guru Gorakshnath. It meant the god without recognizable form

or Nirguna Brahma, a concept embedded in the Upanishads.