About
the city
History
Bharatpur, like Alwar, was once a part of the Matsya Desh of old. History
binds itself inextricably linked with mythology; for it
was here that the Pandava brothers are supposed to have
spent their 13th year of exile some 3500 years
back . And all of it is
not hogwash, for there're some fine archaeological remains
of this ancient civilization preserved in the Bharatpur
Museum.
A
Jat Legacy Takes Shape
But the most
interesting bit in Bharatpur's history comes much later,
in the late medieval times when it belonged to the Jats.
Actually it all started in the late 17th
century, with the Jats of the villages of Sinsini and
Thoon rising against the Mughal power. The leaders then
were the father-son duo, Bhajjasingh and Rajaram. Though
the Jats claimed to have descended from the moon god
(it was a matter of great prestige to claim descent
from the gods themselves), many historians give them
the status of nothing more than a gang of robbers. Whatever
it was, the Jats were out to declare their arrival on
the scene. The noted historian James Tod quips: "Though
reduced from the rank they once had among the 36 royal
races, they appear never to have renounced the love
for independence." So how could there be no conflict
between these daring sons of the soil and the powerful
Mughals, who had already established a stronghold in
India way back in the 1526?
So leaving aside the plough, the Jats took
up the sword instead. They became more than active in
the 18th century, when leaders like Churaman
and Badan Singh brought them together and turned them
into a formidable force. Churaman first started with
a few neighbouring villages of Bharatpur. Then his ambitions
grew – he rose against the Mughal power and his men
attacked and plundered the Imperial capitals. They staged
rebellions around Delhi during Aurangzeb's time (1658-1707)
that were not easy to quell. The Mughals, finally irked
to the maximum, killed Churaman in 1721 and tried to
crush the Jats. But the Jats being Jats were quite indomitable.
They rose again with Badan Singh (Churaman's brother)
and by the 1750s their armies were marching all over
the tract between Delhi and Agra. Now the Mughals had
no other choice but to recognize the Jat potential,
and with that, Jai Singh II of Jaipur
conferred the title of 'Raja' to Badan Singh and installed
him in the town of Deeg. And Deeg was on its way to
having its glorious share of fame and beauty.
The dauntless
Jats did not have a smooth sailing with the blood 'n'
blade Rajputs too, who had established themselves all
over Rajasthan. Obviously! Marital alliances between
the two did lessen the tension, but only marginally.
(Pssst! This must have been quite a fad in those days,
for the Mughals were also into marrying Rajput princesses.
The two warring groups went into frequent showdowns,
but their greatest enemy, however, remained the mighty
Mughals.
After Badan
Singh came his eldest son, Raja Suraj Mal, inheriting
all the turbulence and energy of his predecessors. He
further consolidated the Jat Empire and put the resources
to good effect, building many forts and palaces all
over the place. The greatest among them are the Deeg
Palace and the Bharatpur
Fort (Badan Singh had built a fort at Wiir too,
but justly gave it to another son, Pratap Singh). Suraj
Mal's ambitions rose, and he regularly raided the cities
of Agra and Delhi and carried back unimaginable booty.
Under his strong leadership, the Jats were able to hold
Agra for 13 years, until ousted by the Marathas in 1774.
They even marched on to Delhi in 1763, much to the alarm
of the Mughals whose once-mighty empire was then speeding
towards inevitable collapse. But with a final heave
of strength, the Mughals managed to kill Suraj Mal.
Following the death of Suraj Mal, his son Jawahar Singh,
was installed on the throne at Deeg.
The
British Gain Ground
In the meantime
the British (then the East India Company) tried to gain
ground with these powerful Jats. With their long term
plans in mind, they were soon pushing their way into
Bharatpur Fort. But Colonel Lake's siege (1805) was
fended off well by Ranjit Singh, another of Suraj Mal's
son. The Brits could remain there for merely four months,
and that too by suffering heavy losses. Lake lost over
3,000 men, the most disastrous setback in his illustrious
career. Ultimately the British had to go into an agreement
with the Jats in 1818. But this proved to be a disastrous
step in the long run, because it was in Bharatpur that
the British first developed their fatal Doctrine of
Paramountcy, the result of such alliances. The doctrine
was first enunciated as a concept by Charles Metcalfe
in 1820, and implied the duty of the British to act
as "supreme guardians of general tranquility, law and
right to maintain the legal succession" in the princely
states. It obviously meant the planting of a British
Resident or sometimes even troops in these states wherein
the prince became a puppet ruler. This ultimately led
the British to become the supreme political power in
India.
In 1825 Lord
Combermere attacked Lohargarh from a strategic point
in the north east and successfully captured it after
a month-long seige. And with that, Bharatpur became
the last one to acknowledge British suzerainty in Central
India.
Mirror,
Mirror on the Wall…
The Jats, being
of peasant stock, were never held in high esteem by
the elitist Rajputs of Rajasthan. No matter how bravely
they fought, they would invariably be snubbed as a 'gang
of robbers'. In fact historians, too, did not pay much
heed to their doings before the 17th and
18th centuries, that is, until the pinnacle
of their glory.
Obviously the Jats
were always trying to assert their supremacy over other
fellow human beings. Once what happened was that a maharaja
of Bharatpur was snubbed by an insolent young Rolls
Royce salesman. It hurt the Jat's pride immensely, and
to counter that, he brought a whole fleet of Rolls Royces.
And guess what he did with them? He made them Bharatpur's
garbage collecting vehicles!
Here's something
more, though it has nothing to do with elitism. Maharaja
Jawahar Singh, Badan Singh's grandson, was a figure
of note. It is said that he had a harem of 150 women
and 30 sons. How he managed to bring up so many children
is beside the point; he didn't even recognize them off
hand. One French missionary, Father Wendel, writes that
"The swarm was so large that he had difficulty in recognizing
his own offspring; each of them had to announce his
mother's name and his own name and the place of residence,
when he came to his father's reverence."
