BANDI BIR (Warrior Bound), a poem in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, based primarily on McGregor`s History of the Sikhs and Cunningham`s A History of the Sikhs was composed by him in October/November 1899. The poem celebrates the heroism of the Sikh warrior Banda Singh Bahadur (1670-1716). The opening stanzas tell how Guru Gobind Singh`s message had turned the Sikhs into a self respecting and fearless people.
CHHOTA GHALLUGHARA, lit. minor holocaust or carnage, as distinguished from Vadda Ghallughara (q.v.) or major massacre, is how Sikh chronicles refer to a bloody action during the severe campaign of persecution launched by the Mughal government at Lahore against the Sikhs in 1746. Early in that year, Jaspat Rai, the faiydar of Eminabad, 55 km north of Lahore, was killed in an encounter with a roving band of Sikhs. Jaspat Rai\'s brother, Lakhpat Rai, who was a diwan or revenue minister at Lahore, vowed revenge declaring that he would not put on his head dress nor claim himself to be a Khatri, to which caste he belonged, until he had scourged the entire Sikh Panth out of existence.