THE AMAZING STORY OF 21 BRAVE SIKHS, WHO FOUGHT AGAINST 10,000 INVADERS - THE BATTLE OF SARAGARHI (12-SEP-1897)
On the Samana Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan, the British Army built a small communications post at Saragarhi, to be housed by an equally small contingent of soldiers. The region had always been a troubled area, and during the last quarter of the 19th century, British India’s hold on the North West Frontier was tenuous. In fact, several expeditions had been sent to maintain control and suppress rebellion in the region in the years immediately preceding the Saragarhi battle. Equipped with a heliograph, Saragarhi transmitted messages by using flashes of sunlight, sent much like telegraphic communication (read: Morse code). The flashes themselves were made by either pivoting a mirror or interrupting a beam of light. In the summer of 1897, things were getting tense in the region, and the British had only recently ended an uprising of Pashtun tribesmen in the Malakand region (known later as the Siege of Malakand) in early August. By the end of the month, there