1857 and the Freedom Struggle in Haryana: Notes

In 1857 the districts that make up Haryana were part of the Delhi territory of the North-Western Provinces, and their closeness to Delhi put them at the centre of the revolt. For HPSC, HSSC and Haryana CET papers this chapter supplies some of the most asked names of state history: Rao Tula Ram, the battle of Nasibpur, the Nawabs who were hanged, the transfer of the region to Punjab in 1858 and, later, the leaders of the national movement and of peasant politics.

Haryana in the revolt of 1857

Unrest among the sepoys of the Ambala cantonment was reported in May 1857, and some accounts place signs of it even before the outbreak at Meerut on 10 May. Once Delhi fell to the rebels, authority collapsed across the region: there were risings at Hisar, Hansi, Sirsa, Rohtak, Gurgaon, Rewari and Narnaul, treasuries were seized, records were burnt, and for several months the British held little more than Ambala and the Grand Trunk Road. The rebels of the Mewat tract in Gurgaon, the sepoys of Hansi and the irregular horse of Hisar all joined, and the princely houses of Jhajjar, Ballabgarh, Farrukhnagar and Bahadurgarh were drawn in against the Company.

Rao Tula Ram and the battle of Nasibpur

The leader of the revolt in Haryana was Rao Tula Ram of Rewari, of the Ahirwal country. He took over the administration of Rewari, raised troops, set up a foundry to cast cannon at Rampura, and sent men and money to the rebel government in Delhi. After Delhi was retaken in September 1857 a British column moved against him, and on 16 November 1857 he fought the battle of Nasibpur near Narnaul, where the British commander Brigadier General Gerrard was killed although the rebels lost the field. Rao Tula Ram then left India to look for allies, travelled through Iran and Central Asia and died at Kabul on 23 September 1863.

The punishment of the region

The reprisals were severe and are a favourite set of questions. Nawab Abdur Rahman Khan of Jhajjar was hanged in December 1857, and Nawab Ahmad Ali Khan of Farrukhnagar, Bahadur Jang Khan of Bahadurgarh and Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabgarh were executed in the weeks that followed; Lala Hukam Chand Jain and Munshi Jiwan Lal were hanged at Hansi for writing to the Mughal court. The estates of the rebel chiefs were confiscated and parts of them given to the loyal Phulkian states, so that Dadri went to Jind, Bawal to Nabha and tracts of Jhajjar to Patiala. In 1858 the whole Delhi territory, Haryana with it, was taken from the North-Western Provinces and attached to Punjab, where it remained until 1966.

The national movement in Haryana

Political life revived slowly. Lala Lajpat Rai began his practice as a lawyer at Hisar in 1886 and did his first public work there before moving to Lahore. The Rowlatt agitation and the Non-Cooperation movement brought Pandit Neki Ram Sharma of Rohtak, Lala Murlidhar of Ambala, Babu Dayal Sharma and Chhaju Ram forward as Congress leaders, and Pandit Shri Ram Sharma gave the movement a voice by starting the weekly Haryana Tilak in 1923. Students and lawyers boycotted institutions and courts, the Civil Disobedience movement brought salt and forest satyagrahas to the region, and in 1942 the Quit India call produced arrests and strikes in Rohtak, Hisar and Gurgaon.

Chhotu Ram and peasant politics

Beside the Congress ran a strong agrarian politics. Sir Chhotu Ram, born on 24 November 1881 at Garhi Sampla in Rohtak district and honoured as Deenbandhu, started the Urdu weekly Jat Gazette in 1916, helped found the Unionist Party of Punjab with Fazl-i-Husain, and as a minister carried laws for the indebted peasant, among them the Punjab Relief of Indebtedness Act of 1934. He worked within the Punjab legislature rather than in the Congress, and his following among the peasantry of the region was unmatched.

Dates to remember