ACCORDING to the Mutiny Report, 1857-58…“Meanwhile the Kharrals submitted and the Wattoos returned to their villages, but the tribes assembled at Jalli and the Kathhias broke across the Bar towards the Sutlej and concentrated near Jamlera and Lakhoke, Joya villages. There they were brought to action and defeated. By the 4th November the insurrection was over and the force employed in its repression broke out. Joyas, even now a turbulent tribe, had risen and murdered an English officer, Lieutenant Neville, who was travelling on the Sutlej. They also plundered Kabula. Their leader was Lukman.” In Delhi the so-called war of independence was over in the last September, but in the civilians areas of the Punjab like Sahiwal the rebels were still up against the British and their local agents. But one wonders that in the Urdu literature or journalism of that period no mention is made of the Punjab's anti-British struggle in 1857 and the best proof is Dr Moeenuddin Aqeel's thick book Tehreek-i-Azadi Mein Urdu Ka Hissa (Published by a Lahore publisher, Majlis-i-Tarraq-i-Adab). This is not a new phenomenon and the further best proof is that every Muslim scholar from any part of the subcontinent whenever wrote about the war of independence - 1857 invariably included the Jihad (from Balakot) of Shah Ismaeel and Syed Ahmad Barelvi against the Sikh government as the opening of the 1987 war. The writers and the publishers just forget that jihad was against a local ruler and not against the foreigners like the British. Rather the British who had till that time conquered the Muslim independent states of UP, CP and Bihar encouraged Ahmad Barelvi's jihad against Ranjeet Singh who had not given the route to the British to attack Afghanistan. Moreover, it was the only independent state which had not accepted the Delhi-Calcutta-Ludhiana-based British rule.

There were two rulers in subcontinent about whom the British remained always worried. One was in the south with the name of Sultan Tipu and the other was in the north with the name of Ranjeet Singh and both engaged European consultants. Tipu was after the war technology of the West while Ranjeet had engaged European, mostly rivals to the British, army commanders who had brought the Raja's forces on a par with the British. Maharaja had a good fighting force and ample proof was provided in wars on Sutlej although the commanders of the Sikh army were in league with the British. The next test was the war at Chailianwala (Gujarat).

Both rulers Tipu and Ranjeet emerged from the local soil. Tipu's great grandfather was Behlol, a Ripra Jat from Jhang who was the teacher of Sufi poet Shah Husain and now buried near Pindi Bhattian. He was a sufi who met Baba Nanak at Mecca and Madina. Now the question is what was the problem that Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Balakot had with the Sikh ruler. The first perhaps was that the father of Shah Abdul Aziz, Shah Wali Ullah was utterly disappointed at the performance of the Muslim rulers of Delhi therefore he requested support from Kabul ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali to come and break the emerging powers of Marhattas, Sikhs and regional Muslim rulers who had regional states independent of the central government of Delhi. In Syed Ahmad Barelvi's period, Sikhs, particularly Ranjeet Singh, had got the right from the Kabul rulers to rule the area till recent under their government and then Ranjeet established his state in such a way that it got the support of all sections of the population. He administered well the strife-ridden turbulent land of the Punjab. He got such a command on the affairs of the state that none of the Kabul rulers dared to invade the Frontier and the Punjab provinces. So in the view of Syed Ahmad who was the disciple of Shah Abdul Aziz the gateway for the Muslims from the West was closed and for that the government of a Kafir (Ranjeet) was to be ended at all costs. That situation suited to the British aims and a prominent scholar Tufail Ahmad Manglori (Hazara) in his books Musalmanon ka Roshan Mustaqbil had quoted many events indicating direct British support to the Tehreek-i-Mujahideen of Balakot. The question before Syed Ahmad Shaheed was not to strengthen the Dehli government and restoration of its writ on the separatist Muslim rulers of Owadh, Bengal, Hyderabad etc but to destroy the Lahore state which had never clashed with Mughal government of the Muslims. It may be mentioned here that Punjab was never given its due share in the Mughal government and it was just ruled from Delhi which was receiving the revenue from this province equal to the most prosperous province of Delhi. From revenue point of view Punjab was second on the top among all provinces of the subcontinent. Delhi lost that source not during the Sikh regime but when Multan, Lahore, Peshawar, Kashmir and Sindh were included in the Kabul government. The Urdu poetry written about the Balakot movement clearly indicates the political/religious direction of Syed Ahmad Shaheed and Ismaeel Shaheed. Dr Aqeel quotes many Urdu verses paying tribute to Ahmad and Ismaeel Shaheed. Maulvi Muhammad Hussain Faqir paid tribute to Ismaeel Shaheed and attributed killing of hundred of Sikhs:

No doubt the Sikh period before Ranjeet Singh brought many miseries to the Muslims of the Punjab and it would have continued if Ranjeet had not emerged with the support of the Kabul rulers.

Another aspect is that war of independence 1857 is projected as a secular movement but if Balakot Jihad is the part of the 1857 uprising then certainly it damages the secular character of the whole war. The need is that there should be more research on the Punjab perspectives.