April 23rd- Victory-day of Babu Kunwar Singh-Tegva Bahadur

APRIL 23rd-Victory-day of KUNWAR SINGH

JAIPAL SINGH from the House of SEES CHAND in Kaithi, Katehar, joins company of,
Babu Kunwar Singh – Tegva Bahadur.

23rd April is celebrated in parts of Bihar as the victory day of Kunwar Singh, who is a living legend in the folk-lores and folk songs in large rural belts of east U.P. and Bihar. His area of influence was not limited to Arrah only, but was far and wide and had the effect of “terrorizing” the British East India Company upto Kanpur. There is no official document on his movements and marching of his forces, as the British were demoralized by his sudden charges in most unlikely places. Many brave hearts joined him wherever he passed-by forever swelling his armed-forces of untrained masses, all the time,with the passage of time. He was ably and just as bravely assisted by his younger brother Amar Singh, and consequently the command of forces, looking for an occasion to punish the white invaders, came in Amar Singh’s hands after the death of Kunwar Singh in April 1858.Amar Singh, thereafter adopted the tactics of guerilla warfare against the well-organised Company’s troops.

How Kunwar Singh joined the rebellions is not quite clear and neither has there been enough research on the original and the documentary evidence on the archives of the EIC, the East India Company’s officials of the sub-divisions ,and in the district head-quarters and at the Divisional Commissioner’s records of that time. Nishan Singh’s evidence, recorded much later, can be described as close to truth, but not as total and complete in itself.

Kunwar Singh may have joined the rebellious soldiers of Danapur Cantonment, an important military establishment near Patna, after 25th July 1857,who were in need of a leader and Kunwar Singh’s liaison with them resulted in turning the trained and uniformed soldiers westwards and have a rendezvous with Kunwar Singh in the night of 26th/27th July,1857.There had been an under-current of simmering discontent in Bihar for sometime, now and the British taxation of revenue-rents and cess on both the landed-gentry and the ryotts were harsh and back-breaking. Both classes had become bankrupt and financially ruined to turn sour against the white-skinned self-appointed adjudicators and administrators of the local problems, as well as over-lording the populace with further harsh measures, bringing about further financial stringencies, to them.

During such scenes of hardships, Babu Kunwar Singh’s pow-wow with a nasty british divisional commissioner exacting a severe and further back-breaking cess imposed locally by the Commissioner, without the usual consent of the Board of Revenue at Calcutta and passage of the enhancement orders through the council of the Governor-General for final consent and Order of the same, before being implemented on ryotts, became the proverbial last straw on Babu Kunwar Singh’s conscience against tolerating any further the whole lot of corrupt East India Company’s officials from the Governor-General on the top to the young sub-divisional magistrates, locally. And a battle ensued as a last resort against tyranny of the white intruders from both the zamindars and the peasantry alike as a cohesive force, otherwise always at daggers drawn.
This conflict presented Kunwar Singh, the seventy years old zamindar an occasion to express his own resentments against the Commissioner with judicious leadership to all and a personal spirit of a fierce freedom fighter, always leading the forces under his command, bravely and astutely like a trained soldier, moving to every corner of the skirmishes of his men and appear in a spot suddenly as a surprise element to fox the trained soldiers under the British.The gathering of unlikely fighting forces fought so well that of the four hundred strong force under Capt. Danbar starting from Arrah on 29th July,1857,only fifty could escape annihilation. Divisional Commissioner Taylor, in Patna was quite aghast, and it was arranged to call Artillery Commander Vincent Ayyar, stationed at Buxor to Arrah. So the tides turned and by 2nd/3rd August, Kunwar Singh had lost the battle of Beebiganj and Arrah, eventually fell in the hands of the Company. The Europeans in the custody of Kunwar Singh remained unmolested and unharmed and for which Babu kunwar Singh earned much praise from the British.

After loosing at Beebiganj, Kunwar Singh retreated to Jagdishpur, his ancestral home-town. All the while he was hotly persued by Vincent Ayyar where they clashed once more, in August itself and Kunwar Singh was defeated again. He had to leave Jagdishpur to take shelter in the foothills of Rohtas, Instead of bending down to superior forces or the old age of his own. He was not yet a spent force and had some more fight left in him. He planned to proceed to central India, leaving a strong contingent under his younger brother, Amar Singh.

At this stage there are varying views on Kunwar Singh’s expeditionary forces traveling outside Bihar. S.N.Sen thinks he proceeded to Mirzapur on leaving Rohtas and parts of Rewa, which had recorded his presence, as threatening, to themselves. By and by, his comrades left him and he felt he could not take-on the Raja of Rewa (a British lackey) and decided to turn towards Banda, where he was given the offer to join forces with Nana Saheb or the Gwalior contingent. In fact,on invitations from both the freedom fighters, he was to partake in the Kanpur attack. If we go by the statements of Nishan Singh, Kunwar Singh did participate in Kanpur skirmishes and after the reverses of Tatya Tope in Kanpur, he did not join the Marathas (who left for Kalpi),but preferred to proceed to Lucknow. There he was welcomed by Wali who ordered him to proceed to Azamgarh. In Azamgarh, he had captured Azamgarh by March 1858. But tides were turning and the confidence of the British forces was now on the ascendancy,after the fall of Lucknow, Azamgarh, too, was soon recaptured by them.

Under the circumstances, Kunwar singh was left with no option, but to head for Bihar and while crossing the Ganges at Shivpur ghats(banks) a stray bullet fired by a british soldier hit his right arm. The brave old chief decided to give an offering to the mother Ganges and severed his wounded arm and gave it to the mother with due reverence. He was to come across stiff resistance in his last journey too. Legrand in-charge of Arrah Garrison attacked the wounded warrior, but lost badly and was killed on the 23rd of April,1858.Kunwar Singh recaptured his fiefdom of Jagdishpur and was hailed as the victorious chief of the first struggle for Independence and thus came about his end on the 24th of April 1858.Eversince,the 23rd of April is commemorated as the Victory-Day of
Kunwar Singh.
Historians seem to agree on one thing that Kunwar Singh was one such rebellion who did not wait for the british-led forces to attack, first, but took initiative on his own to pin-point the chink in the armour of the brits and there-on attack and annihilate the enemy. He was a leader who did not confine himself to known surroundings, but ventured-out and tasted victory gaining praise from the local commanders, while many others were too timid to leave their own back-yards. Britishers held him in an awe for these fighting qualities in him and the prowess acquitted by him in the 1857-uprising,till 24th of April 1858.The popular leader is immortalized in the folk-lores and folk-songs by the populace of that area even today. In one sonnet he is described as the master of the art of swordsmanship, in the following way.

Bangala pe udela abir ho lala, bangala pe udela abir,

Ho Babu,aho Babu Kunwar Singh Tegwa Bahadur,

Bangla pe udela abir.


While Kunwar Singh ventured outside Bihar, his younger brother Amar Singh carried on a war of attrition on the british bully, in power through various deceits. After the fall of Jagdishpur to General Ayer, Amar Singh hid himself in the Camoor hills and operated a guerilla war-fare with the enemy. He cut –off communication lines between Gaya and Sasaram. The peasantry had decided in favour of the rebels in the entire Sahabad district, which added greatly to the anxieties of the Commissioner in Patna. A bounty of Rs.2000/- was announced for the capture of Amar Singh. But least deterred by such announcements of the British, he challenged them further by cutting down the telegraph-line at Kudra on the G.T.Road on the 16th of September.

On demise of Kunwar Singh, on the 24th of April,1858,Amar Singh took charge of the command of the rebellious forces. Englishmen were much concerned about their dwindling fortunes after the disastrous end of Capt. Le-Grand. In May General Lugard arrived from Azamgarh and proceeded to completely destroy and demolish Jagdishpur and was planning to burn down the entire forestry surrounding Jagdishpur, but by then Amar Singh had brought enforcement from across the Ganges from Gahmar in Ghazipur, under the command of Maighar Singh of the Sakarwars, by June and once again Shahabad came under the rebellions control and the rebellion contingent started to govern the district with the help of Hare Krishna Singh. Bounties were announced on English officers and on the heads of the Britisher’s agent as well, and they were punished duly.

Leaving big places like Arrah, Ramgarh and Chausa, small police stations were threatened by the rebellions and their in-charges were fleeing from their posts. Divisions were renamed on villages names ,e.g.: Chauganyee and Karisath.The new commander of the British forces Douglas took charge in October 1858 and began the exercise of crushing the rebellions by seeking them out of their hidden places. This kept Amar Singh on the move continually, although he was to take over as the Commander-in –chief of the rebellious forces after Nana Saheb left for Nepal in October 1859,but the Rana of Nepal siding the British had him arrested in December and was lodged in the Gorakhpur jail where he succumbed to illness on the 5th of February 1860.There is a folk-lore about the two heroes of Jagdishpur, thus.-


Tab le Amar Singh bole ka, sun bhaiyya meri bat,

Baithal bhaiyya paan chabao, main angrej ko dekhunga.


The JAIPAL SINGH connection:

It is entirely a guess work, specially after the destruction of his recent records by the mischievous Chaubeys by throwing it in the Gomti, Banshi Kavi, our family bard had maintained a hush-hush all along these years, as did my great grand-father. But my Kaka and my eldest sister, now 85 ventured to relate some loose tales of about twenty muskets being found in the drainage system, in the inner court-yard of Sees Chand Mansion ‘s older version on being demolished at the behest of Ghazipur Collector Mr.Moss, in 1928 to give way to a pucca haveli in it’s place, after Thakur Ram Rup Singh had joined the Civil Services at Ghazipur under Moss. All the above paraphernalia including Lazims and jhals for soldierly exercises of the locals were dumped in the well that had existed since the times of earlier settlers, the seories. All this exercise was to cover-up any trace of rebellion from this village, as a gentleman from the first house (primus inter pares) had gone and joined the rebellious forces of Kunwar Singh and had perished there-by or may have even joined the brother, later-on. And, instead perished in the Gorakhpur jail having been intercepted by the forces of Rana Jung Bahadur of Nepal, come to Terai to help the British. This could be established on scrutiny of the papers of Nishan Singh’s statements about the movements of Kunwar Sing and the list of his associates and the entire regimentation of civilians. There was another Raghuvanshy brave from the Chhayee in the same village who had accompanied Jaipal Singh to leave the village for the same purpose, by name of Gurubaksh Singh. Someone has to take-on from here to establish the names of the two martyrs from Kaithi, Katehar. After a lapse of 125 years, I was able to establish the martyrdom of at least Jaipal Singh and read a paper in the 43rd History conference in 1982, through researches in Gaya’s Panda’s (Kankata panda) archives, our Sazra and the women folk’s recital for ancestor’s blessings for the newly born, in a ritual known as “purakha-jagana” (from Madan Chand to Rishabh Deo Singh, during my son’s birth) My efforts to have it registered in UP Govt’s. Records were undone by a jealous clerk in the Varanasi-collectorate, specially being a Rajput himself, he just would’nt send it to the government in Lucknow.


Suresh Pratap Singh and Sunny Sees Chand (II), paying tribute and obeisance to Babu Kuwar Singh-Tegava Bahadur, his brother Amar Singh and their own ancestor Babu Jaipal Singh on this day, the 23rd of April commemorated as the Victory-Day of Babu Kunwar Singh.