Page 220 - Lohgarh

Chapter 16

Situation After the Destruction

of Lohgarh Fort

It has been said that Lakhi Rai Vanjara had a mansab of four thousand
granted by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (Athar Ali wrote a book ‘Mughal
Nobility Under Aurangzeb’ which gives the names of more than one
thousand mansabdars out of which dozens are Hindu Rajput, Maratha
and other mansabdars as well but, it does not contain even a single
name which belonged to the Sikh community). However, there is no
doubt that Lakhi Rai Vanjara was a very rich person; perhaps he was
the richest trader of his times. He used to trade from Balkh, Bukhara,
Yarkand, Samarkand (in the Central Asia) to Sri Lanka. He had at least
three hundred thousand camels, elephants, horses, oxen, buffeloes and
mules. To maintain such an animal force, he must be having thousands,
may be lakhs of employees, which were known as Vanjaras (employees
of Vanjara).
After the execution of the Sikh soldiers, including all the sons,
grandsons and great-grandsons of Lakhi Rai Vanjara, and the fall of
Lohgarh Fort, thousands of persons associated with his trade caravans
had become unemployed. Now, they began wandering from place to
place in search of work.
Similarly, some of these, who used to manufacture weapons for
Lakhi Rai Vanjara, Guru Sahibs, Banda Singh, too had become jobless.
The Mughals too did not give them jobs.
Those workers, who had been associated with trade, some of them
got engaged in trade activities, i.e. they got engaged in door-to-door,
village to village trade activities. They had experience of trade activities.
They knew what good was needed at which place. As they did not have