Hari Singh Nalwa, Who captured Afghanistan

[Sukerchakia]

Hari Singh Nalwa was a Dogra!

One requires a good leadership and good Generalship!

So was Zorawar Singh, who was a Dogra and a General of the Sikh Empire!

Under boths leadership and Generalship the Sikh Empire reached its zenith!

I dont think thats accurate. He was an Uppal Khatri. Uppals Sikhs are found in both Jatts and Khatris in Punjab.

 

[Sukerchakia]

Zorawar Singh was a Kashmiri Rajput living in celibacy when Sikhs spotted him.
Now I don't know whether he became a Sikh or was still a Hindu when he was the General of Ranjit Singh.
An unstoppable Zorawar even invaded Tibet, after which the Chinese retaliated and it became his undoing. I remember Dogras did revenge his death in the subsequent battles killing leaders on the other side when Chinese tried counter invasions and then finally after a battle at Ladakh, both sides agreed to a cease fire and to never venture into each others territory again.

The Dogra Rajputs in service with the Lahore Durbar had converted to Sikhism. This greatly advanced their careers. Gulab Singh apparently renounced Sikhism and went back to Hinduism after colluding with the British to gain Kashmir.

 

[TrueSpirit]

I have seen that flag. I have visited Amber Palace and have seen the Jaivan (a huge cannon, largest mobile cannon I think). All the palaces and properties of the Raja Man Singh fly that flag even today.

IIRC, Jaibaan was used only once in test trial; the "golaa" reached beyond 27 kms (powered by a quintal of. gunpowder), forming a mini-lake (as per folklore)...when I visited it, I could barely reach beyond its wheels.

 

[Dinesh_Kumar]

Hari Singh Nalwa was so powerful that he could defeat 4 men of the King's bodyguard (Maharaja Ranjit Singh) , at the age of 14.

 

[Pak-sarzameen]

He has achieved what Russian, American, Nato failed to achieved.

Actually Sikhs face much fiercer resistance from pashtun population than British, Russians or Americans. Hari singh nalwa didnt achieve any thing, he aggravated the situation further by trying to impose ban on cow slaughter, ban on Azaan etc. Sikhs successfully imposed these anti-muslim laws on kashmiris, but they couldnt establish their writ on Pashtuns. Infact to extract annual tribute from tribes, Sikhs had to send armies to collects it, which usually resulted in battles.

Pashtuns of Peshwer hardly know about Ranjeet Singh let alone Hari Singh, i dont know who came up with mothers scaring kids with "hari singh raghaly" crap........Hari singh was nobody compared to the central asian invaders which devastated the Pashtun/afghan areas time and again , Sikhs didnt struck terror into the hearts of Pashtuns.....if they had, uprisings should have stopped, but they didnt. Infact the occupation of NWFP became a costly affair for Sikhs, they lost best of their generals here and had to deploy more than 80,000 soldiers in peshawer valley alone.

Hari Singh is overrated. He fought only one battle against a proper army with artillery , at jamrud 1837 and he lost it and got killed in action due to a reckless blunder which speaks volume about his relative inexperience. Previously he had fought in battles of attock, kashmir etc but under command of other generals. The successes of Sikhs in NWFP were more due to civil wars of afghans and absence of their army to aid the tribes who didnt have sufficient rifles while no artillary at all. The attempt of directly ruling Pashtuns failed in 1837, therfore sikhs handed over authority to the local chieftyains again with prominse of annual tribute, as was the case before 1834.

As for as capturing/conquering afghanistan is concerned , have a look at the map of Pashtun region Sikhs captured,

 

[Pak-sarzameen]

Hail Hari Singh Nalwa :thumb: .. but hold your horses on that one. Allow me to sprinkle few drops of history from my FB page. Will keep it concise I promise


So, you see I'm not a pro in history and though would want to share a lot of exciting stuff .. I would resist from making sweeping conclusions.
Rajputs not only defeated Afghans, they made a nice pudding of their flags.

Regards,
Virendra

Actually entire mughal armies got destroyed in Tirah and yousafzai country. Birbal got killed on one of such battle, along with his entire army. The tribes were not even equipped with rifles and artillary.
Mughals won some battles but the war got stretched and it was impossible to carry on warfare in mountainous tract so mughals forces retreated from independent pashtun territories of yousafzais. River indus was set as mugahl border with yousafzais along present day hazara tract. Yousafzis were finally defeated by Aurangzeb in 1667 A.D. But then Afridis rose in far more greater rebellion and it took mughals 12 years to finally crush Afridis and their allies.

 

[Singh]

 

[Hari Sud]

Overstated claims of Sikh Armies capturing Afghanistan.

Yes, Hari Singh Nalwa beat the hell out of Afghan tribesmen in and around Peshawar. He built the Fort of Jamrud. This Fort is on east of Khyber Pass. Afghanistan is west of Khybar Pass. It is here that he fought his last battle. He was injured and later passed away as a brave warrior, who dared the Pashtun tribesmen.

Try not to lie on the historic facts.

 

[Blackwater]

Overstated claims of Sikh Armies capturing Afghanistan.

Yes, Hari Singh Nalwa beat the hell out of Afghan tribesmen in and around Peshawar. He built the Fort of Jamrud. This Fort is on east of Khyber Pass. Afghanistan is west of Khybar Pass. It is here that he fought his last battle. He was injured and later passed away as a brave warrior, who dared the Pashtun tribesmen.

Try not to lie on the historic facts.

Pakis are born to distort facts and history

 

[Singh]

@Pak-sarzameen @Hari Sud

Afghan literary works (not history) commissioned by the Kings provides a distorted view of the facts.
Pathan "resistance" is wholly overrated.


This is a country that doesn't make sense to be conquered. It has meager resources, it has a decrepit economy, and it can barely provide sustenance to its own people. People have resorted to continue living in tribal medival way to make the best of circumstances.

In other words the poverty of Afghans can't be defeated. You can defeat them in battle, but the moment you think about "conquering" and "ruling" them you will lose out , because, you will have to infuse resources rather than be able to generate surpluses from this land to make it worth your while.

British, Soviet and again the West have bled financially in controlling Afghanistan. Although, all of them were able to slew Afghans in battle like a hot knife cuts through butter.

 

[Virendra]

@Pak-sarzameen @Hari Sud

Afghan literary works (not history) commissioned by the Kings provides a distorted view of the facts.
Pathan "resistance" is wholly overrated.

This is a country that doesn't make sense to be conquered. It has meager resources, it has a decrepit economy, and it can barely provide sustenance to its own people. People have resorted to continue living in tribal medival way to make the best of circumstances.

In other words the poverty of Afghans can't be defeated. You can defeat them in battle, but the moment you think about "conquering" and "ruling" them you will lose out , because, you will have to infuse resources rather than be able to generate surpluses from this land to make it worth your while.

British, Soviet and again the West have bled financially in controlling Afghanistan. Although, all of them were able to slew Afghans in battle like a hot knife cuts through butter.

I don't know about Afghan literary works authenticity or degree of Pashtun resistance. But one thing is clearly agreeable, that Afghanistan doesn't provide any raw stimulus for invasions as sedentary agrarians like India would.
In the course of history, whenever this land has been attacked, mostly the reasons were - strategic depth and control of trade routes passing through the land.
Afghanistan is like a vacuum where the powers around either liked to keep status-quo or control it as a periphery to the extent that attends to their needs.
The peculiar lack of attraction towards Afghanistan as ultimate target of an invasion; also explains why the invasions originating from here into mainland India did not see full length counter campaigns in Afghanistan upto the enemy bases. That of course is not the only reason though.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Simple_Guy]

Mongols conquered Afghanistan and held it for how long? Any Pashtun resistance to them?