Monday, May 11, 2009

www.1857-amartyramongpwwbks.com

The 1857 martyr Jaipal Singh was born in the Sees Chand Mansion of Kaithi,Katehar,Varanasi,and we trace his origin and speak of his need to participate in the 1st war of Independence and hence join Babu Kunwar Singh-Tegva Bahadur,at some stage.

Had it not been for the alluvial action of the river Gomati on 07.09.1980, throwing away our 626.04 acres of riverine and prime agricultural holding across the Gomati in one single stroke 0f the meandering river to straighten her knot and confirm to the total length of the meander of her travel, which was upset in the previous year in Jaunpur and had increase by two to three kilometers in total lenth of the meander of river Gomati. This was corrected in one single stroke of the gorging river on 07.09.80 by breaking the narrowest strip of the land across the ‘Sihore’ Khan in the alluvial area of Kaithi, simply leaving aside two kilometers of her stream from that point to the old confluence near village Patna and our non revenue (Na- Chiragi Mauza)village ‘NAKHANWA’, with the Ganges which created a great hue and cry in the press on the statement of Collector Subodh Nath Jha of Ghazipur district, calling this a justice of nature, that the old injustice of 1840 was corrected, when about 500 acres of villages Kusanhi and Kharauna had accrued to village Kaithi ( under the alluvial and dilluvial regulation 11 of the Bengal Alluvial regulation Act of 1911). When he said he knew this would happen, Then Thakur Ram Rup Singh asked him whether this was in his horoscope as well.? Then when he further asked Thakur Ram Rup Singh to give it away to him(i.e. to his district) the reply came that Jha being from Mhithila (the birthplace of Sita- Ram’s consort )and we being the Raghuvanshies of Ayodhya, the giving should be on his part , that is on the part of Jha and certainly not from Ram Rup Singh a Raghuvanhies. Come to think of it 1840 was the year when Ram Sunder Singh must have been twenty five years old (see the table of Sees Chand’s descendants, counting backward from Ram Rup Singh being twenty five years old in 1925) and Jaipal Singh 50yeaqrs old, when the Gomati was made to shift by the order of the Kina Ram Baaba of Ramgarh (Saying “Gomati Go back –Gomati peechhe hat’’)and a few hundered acres of alluvial land had accrued to Jaipal Singh and Ram Sunder Singh – including 17+8.5 lathas of mazkoor tari and was recorded in the name of Ram Sunder Singh in 1840 and as zamindar in1882-83 quinquennial settlement of village Kaithi of Katehar pargana. So Mr Jha referred to that as a natural injustice to the district of his charge a hundred and forty years ago, when he spoke immediately after the cataclysm of 07.09.80 to the press and wrote to the Government also. And there on it become a question of one-upmanship between S.P Singh of Kaithi and SriS.N Jha of the I.A.S. erstwhile Collector Ghazipur, more of which in “Cornwallis revised by Ram Rup Singh in the alluvial ‘Mahal’ of Kaithi ,” coming out simultaneously after this narration but as I said in the beginning of the para had it not been for the alluvial action of river Gomati, that I would have taken such great interest of the permanent settlement of Jonathan Duncan and the five hundred years old settlement of the Raghuvanshies and my deep interest in the story of the house of Sees Chand, where I too was born.
So back to Jaipal Singh in 1840. The landed gentry of the first house of Katehar had become richer by another thousand acres of reverine land and obviously higher placed zamindars and small rajas came forward to offer their daughters to the of young Raghuvanshies of Katehar’s prime & pristine village. And Jaipal Singh’s son was married to the dowager princess Hansa Kunwar, the prime mover or the Karta woman (Sita & Draupadi are mentioned as Karta women of Ramayana and ‘Mahabharat’ episodes) who, I seem convinced was the cause of Jaipal Singh leaving the house of Sees Chand at the ripe old age of 57, in order to join Veer Senani Kunwar Singh of Aarrah in their own revolt of 1857, gaining ground upto Azamgarh before their hasty retreat, owing to reinforcement of the British from Lawrence and Faizabad / Lucknow one has to go very deeply and in the minute details as regards as to what happened in precise order with exact dates and things of reinforcement, attacks, counter-attacks withdrawals retreats and annihilation and complete routs. I surely place confidence in the coming generation of the Raghuvanshies to rake-up details of Kunwar Singh command and find mention of men like Jaipal Singh of the Raghuvanshees who volunteered to take up arms against the British in 1857, and change the lives of his son / forced to leave house before the next (1882-83) settlement and for his grandson, the Sage-like Bharat Singh to hide the G. Table of first house of Katehar, in order to Safe-guard the service of his Civilian grand son.) Here I am only too happy to have reinforced the 1857 martydom of my direct ancestor in an ICHR paper read by me 25 years ago. Perhaps Jaipal Singh was looking for an identity for himself and for the House of Sees Chand where he was born and had spent many years of his life, incognito and in obscure wilderness, and to be of the ruling dynasty of Ayodhya ,no less. He had an opportunity to be different, which could also, perhaps, provide a distinct identity to the first house of Katehar, something akin to Sees Chand’s cousin Doman Deo, who had Sher Shah as a servant in his stable. This then was the great chance that the providence had offered. Beside it was also a chance to escape the domineering and perhaps even a haggling daughter-in-law Hansa Kunwar but perhaps only, just and marginally so. He was surely a hero’s material inside, who would come out of the realm of the ordinary, but alas for the same forsake a sage like son and grand son who decided to cross the centuries of their own lives and put under wraps the deed of heroism of their immediate ancestor for the sake of their own survival. What was undone by both Ram Sunder Singh and Bharat Singh to the heroic act of Jaipal Singh should be brought out of hiding and declared as a glorious chapter of the first House of Katehar and another unknown and unsung chapter of the 1st Struggle of Independence,beginning in May 1857.

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