Wadda Ghalughara

Vaḍḍā Ghallūghārā (Punjabi: ਵੱਡਾ ਘੱਲੂਘਾਰਾ [ʋəɖɖɑ kə̀lːuɡɑ̀ɾɑ] (or the Great Massacre), also known as The Sikh Holocaust of 1762 was the mass murder of the Sikhs by Afghan forces of the Durrani Empire that happened during the years of Afghan influence in the Punjab region owing to the repeated incursions of Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1764. As such, it is distinguished from the Chhōtā Ghallūghārā (the Lesser Massacre).

The Ghallūghārā's not pogroms in the sense of the killing of masses of defenceless people. Since the martyrdom of the fifth Sikh Guru, Guru Arjan Dev in 1606, Sikhs wielded arms in self-defense. The first holocaust was a program during the Afghan provincial government's campaign to wipe out the Sikhs, an offensive that had begun during the Mughal Empire and lasted several decades.

Sikhism began in the days of Guru Nanak (1469–1539) and grew to be a distinctive social force especially after the formation of the Order of Khalsa in 1699. The Khalsa was constantly opposed by the Mughal Empire. Through much of the early eighteenth century, the Khalsa were outlawed by the government and survived in the safety of remote forests, deserts, and swamplands of the Punjab region and neighbouring Kashmir and Rajasthan.

In the eighteen years following the first great carnage, the Punjab roiled with five invasions and several years of rebellions and civil war. Under these unsettled circumstances, it was difficult for any authority to carry on a campaign of oppression against the Sikhs. Instead, they were often sought out and valued as useful allies in the various struggles for power.

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