"Amritsar was the spiritual capital of the Sikhs, and Sikh history is full of wars waged by Sikhs in the pre-Ranjit Singh Era for the recovery of Amritsar from the hands of Muslims who desecrated the holy Hari Mandir (the Golden Temple of, later days) and filled the sacred Tank with sand. ... To surrender Amritsar to the Muslims would mean practically the writing off of Sikh history and admitting a status inferior to that of the Muslims in the Punjab-a status, in view of the past record and declared ambitions and methods of the Muslim League, of serfdom. To break the Sikh resistance and morale in Amritsar was, therefore, of the first importance... As a result of the Muslim campaign of arson, from the 5th March onwards, more than one-fourth of the city of Amritsar has been laid in ruins-the worst sufferer in this respect among the cities of the Punjab."