At the siege of Anandpur in 1704 a group of forty Singhs from the Majha left, having signed a document disowning the Guru. It is called the bedava.
In the following year, when Guru Gobind Singh Ji was pursued across the Malwa, the same men fought an imperial column at the pool of Khidrana. All forty died or were mortally wounded. Mai Bhago Ji, of Jhabal, who had shamed them into returning and rode with them, survived. Bhai Mahan Singh Ji lived long enough to ask that the bedava be destroyed. The Guru tore it in front of him.
The forty are the Chali Mukte, the forty liberated, and the place became Muktsar. Gurdwara Tuti Gandi Sahib is named for the broken bond that was repaired there.
The Maghi mela is held at Muktsar on the first of Magh, in the middle of January, and is one of the largest gatherings in the Malwa. A horse and cattle fair runs alongside it.
Mai Bhago Ji later served in the Guru's bodyguard and lived out her life at Jinvara in Karnataka, where Gurdwara Tap Asthan Mai Bhago stands.
The forty had signed a document renouncing the Guru and left Anandpur. They came back with Mai Bhago Ji and fought at Khidrana in December 1705.
The Guru is recorded as having torn the document at the request of the dying Mahan Singh, which is where the name comes from: the pool of liberation.
The Maghi mela each January marks it and draws several lakh people. It is also the traditional date for political conferences, which sit alongside the observance in the same town.