Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
DOWN MEMORY LANE
Ballabgarh tourism, anyone?
|
Tracing the history of Ballabgarh, R.V. SMITH feels the place has the potential to become a tourist hot spot
|
Ballabgarh, like Faridabad, is a satellite of Delhi and of late almost a part of the NCR with an interesting history. Ballabgarh, says the British gazetteer, is not a very old principality. In 1705, two years before the death of Aurangzeb, a zamindar named Gopal Singh of Alawalpur village, decided to settle in Sihi, near the present Ballabgarh. He met with resistance from the local peasants but managed to overcome them. Gaining in strength and becoming rich allegedly by plundering those who passed by on the Delhi-Mathura road, Gopal Singh’s next target was the regional Chaudhuri, Amjad. The Gujjars sided with Gopal Singh and Amjad was killed in a skirmish. Seeing no other way out, Murtaza Khan, the Moghul sirdar, accepted Gopal Singh as Chaudhuri of Faridabad parganah in 1710 but the usurper died the next year.
Charandas, who succeeded him, refused to pay the imperial revenue. Murtaza Khan, after some hesitation, arrested the new Chaudhuri and imprisoned him in the fort at Faridabad. However, Charandas’s son Balram managed to free him by a brilliant stratagem. Father and son then sought help from Raja Suraj Mal of Bharatpur and later had Murtaza Khan waylaid and murdered. After the death of Charandas, Balram became Chaudhuri and also prevailed upon Mohammad Shah Rangila to give him the title of Rao in 1739, the year Nadir Shah invaded Delhi.
New-found status
But Balram, after whom Ballabgarh was named, could not enjoy his new-found status for long as he was killed by Murtaza’s son Akhibat Mahmud who had been waiting for revenge. However, Balram’s sons took possession of the fort built by their father and got the title of quilladar and nazim of the parganah of Faridabad from the Raja of Bharatpur. But they fell out of favour with their patron in 1774 and died soon after.
Their sons Ajit Singh and Hira Singh, sought the help of Shah Alam. The emperor sent his Vazir, Najaf Khan, to enforce their claim and the title of quilladar and nazim parganah was bestowed on Ajit Singh, who was later declared Raja of Ballabgarh and his cousin made Salar Jang. After the murder of Ajit by his brother Zalim, the raja’s son Bahadur Singh, thwarting his uncle’s designs succeeded to the gaddi. In 1803 the new raja became an ally of Lord Lake who granted him 43 villages with the proviso that he patrol the dacoit-infested Delhi-Palwal road and keep it safe for travellers.
Bahadur Singh died three years later and his son the next year. Eventually the principality, after intrigues and counter-intrigues, passed into the hands of his cousins and uncles and at the time of the ‘uprising’ Nahar Singh, who had been under the shadow of his uncle, Nawal Singh, was arrested on a trumped up charge and hanged.
Ballabgarh was annexed and the raja’s widow given a pension of Rs.500 a month. Rani Kishan Kanwar was still drawing it till the year of Jawaharlal Nehru’s birth in 1889. The fort of Balram is on one side and the town, built like Jaipur, on the other. The legend about the treasure in it is based on recurrent dream that has been troubling some residents for long. The dream points to a trove that lies buried, but the large-scale digging has failed to uncover it. However, some interesting structures which formed part of the raja’s fort-palace have been unearthed in the process.
With the restoration of the fort Ballabgarh may become a tourist attraction. In the 1950s, however, it used to be famous for its satta but those who dabbled in it, like the late Alladin, called it the Ballamgarh ‘feechar’ (a corruption of the speculative futures market). Ballamgarh, incidentally, was the original name of Ballabgarh.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
