Raja Desingh or Raja Tej Singh was a king of the
Bundela Rajput who ruled
Gingee
Gingee, also known as Senji or Jinji and originally called Singapuri, is a panchayat town in Viluppuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Gingee is located between three hills covering a perimeter of 3 km, and lies west of the ...
in 1714 CE.
Background
The
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the ...
defeated the
Maratha Empire
The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of S ...
at Gingee in February 1698.
In return for military services, the Mughal Emperor
Aurangzeb
Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...
, granted a
mansab rank of 2,500 and
jagir
A jagir ( fa, , translit=Jāgir), also spelled as jageer, was a type of feudal land grant in the Indian subcontinent at the foundation of its Jagirdar (Zamindar) system. It developed during the Islamic rule era of the Indian subcontinent, start ...
land grant of 12 lakhs (1,200,000) to Raja
Swarup Singh, a
Bundela Rajput chieftain, along with the (fort commandership) of Gingee in 1700 AD. Raja Swarup Singh died of old age in 1714 AD. Hearing about the death of his father, Desingh, the newly married son of Raja Swarup Singh, started for Gingee from Bundelkhand, his ancestral home. Differing accounts have the
Nawab of Arcot,
Saadatullah Khan I
Sa'adatullah Khan I or Sa'adatullah Khan was Nawab of Carnatic (r.1710–1732) and founder of Nawayath dynasty. He was an adventurer from Konkan in Maharashtra.
Life
Mohammed Sayyid was the last mughal governor who was appointed as Nawab of ...
somewhat recalcitrant to the Mughal Empire,
and the terms of the grant from Aurangzeb were disputed, nevertheless a debt was claimed after Aurangzeb's death ... a debt that the Raja refused to pay, eventually the arrears of payments due amounted to 70 lakhs rupees (7 million), and being a defaulter for ten years; the Nawab of Arcot reported this matter to the Mughal Emperor at the time,
Bahadur Shah I
Bahadur Shah I (14 October 1643 – 27 February 1712), also known as Muhammad Mu'azzam and Shah Alam I. was the eighth Mughal Emperor who ruled from 1707 until his death in 1712. In his youth, he conspired to overthrow his father Aurangzeb, t ...
at Delhi. .
Battle for Gingee
Traditional plays and ballads are sung in and around Gingee about the gallantry displayed by Desingh at the young age of 22, against the more powerful Nawab Sadatulla Khan of Arcot in a struggle that was unmatched from the outset (Desingh’s army consisted of only 350 horses and 500 troopers, while the Nawab’s army had 8,000 horsemen and 10,000 sepoys). Desingh eventually died in battle and his small army was defeated. His young wife committed
Sati on his funeral pyre.
However, the fortress of Gingee lost its pre-eminent position and political importance within a few years of the extinction of the Rajput rule.
References
4 .https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.500497/page/n444/mode/2up
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Bundelkhand
18th-century Indian monarchs