EVEN EIGHTY YEARS AGO, Raja Sitaram Ray was a name celebrated in the folklore of Bengal. Among others, the greatest Bengali novelist, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya had immortalised the king in his final novel Sitaram, published in 1886. We need no greater authority than Jadunath Sarkar to attest to the acclaim of this work:
the genius of the greatest Bengali novelist has invested the name of Sitaram Ray with a halo of romance, which will cause it to be remembered as long as the Bengali tongue continues to be spoken on earth.
Sitaram is actually a fictional biography of a great, tragic Hindu hero, cast as a quasi historical romance in the mould of Walter Scott. It is also a firsthand account that flushes out the full spectrum of the horrors that Bengali Hindus suffered under Murshid Quli Khan and Mughal tyranny in general. As has been my experience in all such cases, I was unable to find a single copy of an English translation of this work.
But this is not about Bankim’s novel but about its protagonist, Sitaram Das, who hailed from an agricultural Kayastha lineage and went on to become the last Hindu king of Bengal.
Born in the same year in which Aurangzeb usurped the Mughal throne after murdering his brothers and jailing his father, Sitaram Das had a fairly comfortable childhood. His grandfather Hima Das worked as a Khas-Biswas (a government revenue official) under Shuja, who was then the Subahdar of Bengal. Sitaram’s father Udaynarayan was a Tehsildar reporting to the Faujdar of Bhushna (now in Bangladesh), which was once part of Jessore. In 1664, he earned the admiration of Shaista Khan, who had then become the governor of Bengal and invited Udaynarayan to Dacca.
Sitaram was raised in the home of his materal uncle at Katwa (now in Purba Bardhaman district, West Bengal). A bright student, he learned Sanskrit and digested Bengali literary and devotional classics and could recite Chandidas and Jayadeva from memory. He also mastered Persian — indispensable, if you had to secure a respectable job — and learned horse riding and sword fighting and other martial disciplines.
The selfsame Shaista Khan eventually noticed Sitaram’s talents and recruited him. Sitaram’s first big break came when he volunteered to crush a notorious Pathan rebel named Karim Khan who was serially ravaging the Satair Paragana. Accordingly, Shaista put him in charge of a troop strength numbering two or three thousand infantry and cavalry. In a hotly contested battle, Sitaram slew Karim Khan. An impressed Shaista granted him the jagir of Naldi.
That was the herald of a glorious career which culminated in royalty.
SITARAM FIRST BUILT a formidable army in an astonishingly short span. He elevated a ferocious wrestler cum soldier named Ramrup Ghosh as his commander-in-chief. Ramrup had earned the sobriquet of Mena Hati for killing a small elephant with his bare hands.
With his army in place, Sitaram initially concentrated his efforts at quelling the rampant Afghan banditry and frequent depradations in and around Naldi. His exertions bore fruit. In a short span, order and peace returned to the Paragana and Sitaram was regarded by the masses as their saviour. He was compared to a Grama Devata named Nishanath — literally, the Lord of the Night.
By 1684, Sitaram had founded a small fiefdom by regularly adding talukas from different Paraganas. People from various walks of life — adventurers, former dacoits, freelance mercenaries, fortune-hunters, businessmen — joined his ranks because he was a good paymaster and a caring boss.
Successive Mughal Subahdars did not check his growing power due to two main reasons. One, the chaotic politics of Delhi in the wake of Shah Jahan’s and Aurangzeb’s deaths, which left Bengal largely ignored and leaderless. Two, he kept Delhi and the Bengal Subahdars satisfied with regular and substantial payments. They in turn were happy with him for he had become a powerful check against the infernal Afghan dacoits.
Around the same time, Sitaram journeyed to Gaya on a Yatra in order to perform the last rites of his dead parents. From Gaya, he went to Delhi and sought an audience with Aurangzeb’s durbar. It was granted. Then he requested the emperor to make him a Mughal vassal. That too, was granted.
And so, in 1688, Sitaram was bestowed with the title of the Raja of Naldi. As a bonus, he was given the charge of the whole of Southern Bengal up to the Sunderbans.
When Sitaram triumphantly returned to Naldi in the same year, a splendid Rajyabhishekam was performed and he was henceforth known as Raja Sitaram Ray. But he was a king without a capital.
The capital was soon built from scratch and became a brand new fortified city known as Mohammadpur. Jadunath Sarkar gives a brief description.
To keep up his new dignity he founded a capital at the village of Bagjani (10 miles from Bhushna) and named it Muhammadpur… This place he fortified by means of long earthen embankments and a fosse, while vast marshes kept invasion out on two sides, and the river Madhumati formed a natural barrier on the east side. Here he built many temples, palaces, offices and store-rooms and stables and dug tanks of fresh water.
Mohammadpur quickly became a flourishing metropolis bustling with commerce and wealth.
Sitaram’s hard-earned royalty naturally spurred him on to greater ambitions. He enlarged his army and arsenal and in a series of predatory battles, reduced the neighbouring zamindars and hereditary chieftains to dust and pocketed their dominions. These included the various Paraganas and Talukas of Rupapat, Poktani, Rukanpur, Kachuberia, Mahmudshahi, Naldanga, Pabna, Nasibshahi, Nusratshahi, Mahimshahi & Belgachhi.
By 1704, Sitaram Ray had become unstoppable.
And then he made a fatal move.
AS WE’VE RECOUNTED earlier in this essay series, around this time, Murshid Quli Khan had a running feud with Azim-us-Shan, the Subahdar of Bengal. Azim had appointed his close relative, Sayyid Abu Turab as the Faujdar of Bhusna. The appointment was made with the express intent to contain the power of Sitaram. However, the moment he landed in Bhusna, Abu Turab unleashed a reign of terror, primarily against the Hindus. He rounded up the already impoverished Hindu tax defaulters and forcibly converted them into Islam.
Sitaram Ray was livid when he heard this news. As retaliation, he immediately stopped remitting payments to the Mughal treasury.
Abu Turab decided to punish him and wrote to Azim and Murshid Quli to send an army. For years, he received no response because Azim was neck-deep in palace intrigues in Delhi. And Murshid Quli hated Abu Turab because he was the relative of his sworn enemy.
Abu Turab had to thus wring his hands in frustration for a long time. Then he decided to act. In 1713, he sent his troops against Sitaram, which were hopelessly routed. Finally, Abu Turab entered the fray along with his Pathan commander-in-chief, Pir Khan. His whole force met Sitaram’s army along the banks of the Madhumati River and Barasia. The dense jungle that lay between them was infested with Turab’s army.
In the ensuing Battle of Barasia, Sitaram decisively pulverised Abu Turab who was killed by Mena Hati and the Mughal army, thoroughly routed.
MURSHID QULI KHAN, now the Subahdar of Bengal, took this defeat as a personal affront. In his eyes, the Kaffir king Sitaram had committed the unforgivable sin of killing a Musalman Faujdar. He had to be despatched to hell.
Accordingly, he first appointed his brother-in-law, Baksh Ali Khan as the new Faujdar of Bhushna. Under his leadership, he sent a strong force against Sitaram Ray. Then he ordered all the Zamindars in Sitaram’s territories to assist him. They were only too happy because Sitaram had pummelled them into submission earlier.
Murshid Quli’s two key Hindu loyalists personally marched against Sitaram Ray. The first was Sangram Singh, the head of the provincial army of Bengal. The second was Dayaram Rai, a close confidant of the aforementioned Raghunandan, the ruler of Natore. Hindus taking down fellow Hindus.
Sitaram Ray saw the writing on the wall and decided to fight to death. His situation was more grim because he had to defend two forts at the same time — Bhusna and Mohammadpur.
On the part of Quli’s forces, they knew that it was nearly impossible to wrest the Mohammadpur fort in a direct assault. Perfidy was the only option. And so, the treacherous Dayaram Ray resorted to sabotage and murdered the indomitable Mena Hati, the very backbone of Sitaram’s army. Hati’s severed head was paraded on the streets of Murshidabad, blood still dripping from the stem of his neck.
When he heard this distressing news, Sitaram evacuated most of his civilian population to the safety of Kolkata. Then he got ready to face the climactic battle that he knew he was destined to lose.
Baksh Ali Khan attacked the fort from the south and Dayaram, from the east. Raja Sitaram Ray held out heroically for several days before his smallish force was overwhelmed and he was captured along with his family.
But the unkindest cut of all was yet to come. It finally came in the form of the wretched Dayaram Ray who bound Raja Sitaram Ray in metal chains and personally escorted him to Murshidabad where he was marched on the streets like a common criminal.
But Dayaram wasn’t yet done with Sitaram. He next pocketed a huge stash of Sitaram’s abundant treasury and had it transported back to Natore. For his loyal service of betraying a fellow Hindu, Murshid Quli Khan appointed Dayaram as the Raja of Dighapatiya (now in Rajshahi, Bangladesh).
Murshid Quli Khan sentenced Sitaram Ray to death and threw all his family members and relatives into prison. For life.
Acharya Jadunath Sarkar, who personally visited Mohammadpur, describes its condition as he saw it in the 1940s.
Thus fell the last Hindu kingdom in Bengal. Sitaram’s kingdom, which once covered about one-half of south Bengal, has vanished. His palaces have crumbled into unshapely mounds of earth and brick completdy hidden under dense jungle; mud and weeds have choked up his lakes; and his family has been scattered to the four quarters; even the gods he worshipped have deserted the fine temples he built for them.
To be continued
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