According to Ishwar Dayal Gaur, although he was “the trendsetter in peasant insurgency in medieval Punjab”, he remains “on the periphery of Punjab’s historiography. Bhatti fought for the liberty of his motherland and for his people against the Mughals, very bravely. Dulla Bhatti lost four of his family members protesting against centralized land revenue collection levied by Akbar. He is known as the icon of farmer/peasant uprising against the Mughals. He follows in the footsteps of his father and grandfather and waged guerrilla warfare against the Mughal Empire.
He refused to accept the legitimacy of Mughal King Akbar and refused to pay any tax. Such was the level of resistance put up by the rebels that Akbar had to shift his Imperial Capital to Lahore for nearly 20 years. When Akbar came to Lahore, he ordered the execution of the rebels. Legend has it that to instill fear into the hearts of the common man, Akbar got their SKINS STUFFED WITH HAY wheat hay (toori) and hung the dead bodies on the main door. Dulla wasn’t even born yet.
Pindi Bhattian is the place where Rai Abdullah Khan was born in 1547 in the family of Laddi and Farid Khan, whom the world now calls Dulla Bhatti. He was a Muslim Rajput of the Bhatti clan. Four months before his birth, his father Farid Khan, and his grandfather Sandal Khan were killed by the Mughals for their refusal to pay to accept Mughal suzerainty and pay taxes. The skins of both were stuffed with wheat hay and hanged outside the village of Bharwa in order to instill fear in the hearts of rebels.
After his birth, he was never told of the cause of his father’s and grandfather’s death until he was a young man. One theory has it that Dulla was born at the same time as Akbar’s son Salim (who would later become Emperor Jahangir), but Salim was a weakling and on doctors’ suggestions Akbar brought in Ladhi (Dulla’s mother and a strong Rajput woman) to his palace in Delhi and made her breastfeed Salim. So BOTH DULLA AND SALIM were practically brought up by Ladhi. As adolescents, these two had a good friendship. Dulla and his mother move back to their homeland once Salim has grown up enough.
The story of Dulla has been poetically treated by many and has been written in the style known as Saddam (similar to Mirza by Peelu and Bhagwan Singh). The above incident is thus narrated:
Tera saandal dada maareya, ditta bhore vich paa, Mughlaan puthhiyaan khallaan laah ke bhariyaan naal hawaa.
