Battle of Saragarhi

Who: Twenty-one Sikh soldiers of the 36th Sikhs (now the 4th Battalion, Sikh Regiment), commanded by Havildar Ishar Singh, with one non-combatant sweeper in the post. Sepoy Gurmukh Singh was the signaller. Against them stood Afridi and Orakzai tribesmen of the Tirah region. Lieutenant-Colonel John Haughton commanded the battalion at Fort Lockhart.

What: On 12 September 1897 the tribesmen surrounded Saragarhi, a small stone blockhouse on the Samana Ridge, halfway between Fort Lockhart and Fort Gulistan (also called Fort Cavagnari). The battalion had already beaten off attacks on Gulistan on 3 and 9 September. Cut off, so that no reinforcement could reach them, the defenders fought for six to seven hours. Gurmukh Singh kept battalion headquarters informed by signal. When he was the only one left alive he asked leave to stop signalling, took up his rifle and fought alone until he fell. All the defenders died and the post was destroyed.

Estimates of the attacking force run from about 8,000 to 20,000, and figures for their dead range from about 180 to some 800 bodies reportedly counted by the relief party. Each of the 21 was awarded the Indian Order of Merit after death, and their next of kin each received Rs 500 and 50 acres of land.

Where: Saragarhi, on the Samana Ridge in the Tirah region of the North-West Frontier Province, now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. In Punjab, gurdwaras were built with public contributions at Amritsar (opened in 1904) and Firozpur in their memory.

Why it mattered: The Sikh Regiment marks 12 September every year as Saragarhi Day, and the 36th Sikhs received battle honours. The stand is the best-known example of Sikh soldiering under the Raj and is remembered for the courage and discipline of the 21. It also shows the place Sikh soldiers held in the colonial system: the battalion held the ridge as part of the British frontier defences during the Tirah fighting, nearly half a century after the annexation of Punjab.