The Jat Chronicles- Gokula

Bharatpur princely state located in the South East of Rajasthan, has been one of the few Jat princely states along with Dholpur in a region that was mostly dominated by Rajput princely states. It mostly covered Bharatpur, Alwar, the Mewat region of Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, and was founded as a result of the Jat revolt agains the Mughals. It is famous for the Lohagarh Fort considered one of the strongest ever, which even the British found it hard to capture, and the luxurious Deeg Palace both of them built by Maharaja Suraj Mal, considered their greatest ruler ever. Deeg was actually the capital of the Jat rulers before they shifted to Bharatpur.

During the later half of the 17th century, there were a series of revolts against the Mughals by the Jats living in Mathura, Agra and Delhi. And the man who began it all was Gokula Singh, a zamindar of Tilpat, now in Faridabad district, belonging to the Agre gotra. The second of 4 sons of Madhu, his birth name was Ola Haga, and his brothers were Sindhuraj, Jhaman and Saman.

The Hindus living around Delhi, Mathura and Agra then were facing untold hardships and atrocities under Mughal rule. The Subedars were imposing heavy taxes on the farmers to finance the Mughal military expeditions and the ruler’s lavish lifestyle. One of them Murshid Quli Khan used to carry off any women he fancied to satisfy his lust, while the governor of Mathura, Abdun Nabi Khan built the Jama Masjid there on the ruins of Hindu temples. And above all Aurangzeb imposing the Jaziya in 1665 and prohibiting celebration of Hindu festivals.

It was in response to this that Gokula led the Jats in revolt, in 1669,as Aurangzeb sent his commander Hassan Ali Khan to suppress it. For over four days they counterattacked the Mughal army and secured Tilpat. Abdun Nabi was killed at Sahora by the Jats, and they captured the Sadabad cantonment established by Nabi, as the Jats took over the countryside around Delhi. Aurangzeb tried to make peace, offering amnesty to Gokula, which he turned down, leading him to send a much larger army under Radandaz Khan, Hasan Ali Khan and other officers.

The Jats put up a strong resistance to the Mughal army, inspited of them being better armed. They fought till the end not surrendering, while the women killed themselves rather than be captured and sent to the harem. Though Hasan Ali managed to subdue the three villages, it came at a rather heavy cost as the Mughals faced large casualties.

Gokula along with his uncle Uday Singh, and around 20,000 Jats, Ahirs and Gujjars faced the Mughals near Tilpat, however under the relentless assault of their artillery, they had to take refuge in their fortress. Though they held out bravely fighting till the end, the fort finally fell to the relentless bombardment. Tilpat was captured but not before the Mughal army lost 4000 men, while the rebels lost around 7000. Gokula and his uncle were captured, and presented before Aurangzeb.

The Emperor asked Gokula to seek pardon, embrace Islam if he wanted to be alive. Gokula laughed loudly claiming he would rather die than live as a traitor and even demanded that the Emperor offer his daughter to him for marriage. A furious Aurangzeb, ordered his execution and on January 1, 1670, he was hacked to death in the most barbaric manner, limb by limb, at Agra as was his uncle.

However the brutal execution of Gokula, only spurred the Jats to resist more intensely, as Raja Ram of Sinsini led the second revolt in 1685. Compared to the first revolt, this actually was better organized, and Raja Ram used guerilla tactics well to harass the Mughals. In order to avenge Gokula’s brutal execution, he attacked Akbar’s tomb at Sikandara, dug out the bones and burned them. In the next part will be looking more in detail at Raja Ram’s revolt against the Mughals, and how he expanded his influence, that would eventually lead to the establishment of princely state of Bharatpur.

Sources

Girish Chandra Dwivedi, The Jats – Their role in the Mughal empire