Bundelkhand · Central Highlands & Forest Belt

Freedom fighters

Bundelkhand's resistance is unusually early and unusually rural. The 1842 rising in the Sagar and Narmada territories came fifteen years before 1857 and was fought by small jagirdars and by Lodhi and Bundela cultivators over revenue settlements that did not recognise their tenures; several of the same families reappeared in 1857. What happened here in 1857 was not one campaign but a scatter of separate small states, some of which fought each other — Orchha's forces attacked Jhansi in 1857 while Jhansi was in revolt. A large part of what the region remembers is also ballad rather than document: the story of Jhalkaribai, after the Rani's the best known here, first appears in print in 1907 and was greatly expanded in later Bundeli oral tradition and in twentieth-century fiction, and contemporary records do not carry it.

Risings and revolts

The Bundela rising1842–43

A revolt of jagirdars and cultivators across the Sagar and Narmada territories — Sagar, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Jabalpur — against the revenue settlement and the loss of jagirs, led among others by Hirde Shah of Hirapur. Rebels held outposts and besieged Narsinghpur and Sagar; the fighting was largely irregular and rural.

Outcome: Hirde Shah was captured on 21 November 1842 and the fort at Hiragarh was demolished; the rising was over by 1843. Several leaders were hanged and others imprisoned at Chunar.

Jhansi in the revolt1857–58

The Jhansi garrison rose in June 1857 and the Rani administered the state for the following nine months. Hugh Rose's Central India Field Force besieged the city from 24 March 1858; a relieving force under Tatya Tope was beaten on the Betwa on 31 March and 1 April, and the city was stormed on 3 April.

Outcome: The Rani left Jhansi by night and fought on at Kalpi, which fell on 23 May 1858, and at Gwalior, where she was killed on 17 June 1858.

The southern Bundelkhand risings1857–58

Banpur under Mardan Singh and Shahgarh under its raja joined the revolt in July 1857 and held Lalitpur and the country south of the Betwa; Sagar was besieged, Rahatgarh fort was contested in January 1858, and Tatya Tope's force besieged Charkhari in March 1858.

Outcome: Rose's column cleared Rahatgarh, Garhakota, Barodia and Talbehat between January and March 1858 before turning on Jhansi; the states involved were confiscated and their rulers imprisoned or pensioned.

People

Name	Years	Movement	Known for
Rani LakshmibaiJhansi	c. 1828–1858	1857	Regent of Jhansi for her adopted son after the state was annexed in 1854; she governed Jhansi through the second half of 1857 and commanded its defence in the siege of March and April 1858.Killed near Gwalior on 17 June 1858.
JhalkaribaiBhojla, near Jhansi	born c. 1830	1857	A woman of the Kori community attached to the Rani's household at Jhansi. The account in which she resembles the Rani and takes her place during the fall of the city comes from Bundeli oral tradition; the earliest printed reference, in 1907, describes her only as an attendant, and the fuller story dates from twentieth-century writing.Not documented; the accounts differ.
Raja Mardan Singh of BanpurBanpur, near Lalitpur	—	1857	Joined the revolt in July 1857, took Lalitpur and held the country south of the Betwa in concert with the Rani of Jhansi and the raja of Shahgarh.Captured in 1858; his state was confiscated and he was held in confinement.
Ali Bahadur IIBanda	1832–1873	1857	Nawab of Banda; joined the revolt in 1857 and commanded rebel forces in the Charkhari and Gwalior operations.Surrendered in November 1858; the state was annexed and he lived on a pension at Indore.
Tatya TopeBorn at Yeola in the Deccan; his 1858 campaign was fought largely in Bundelkhand	1814–1859	1857	The most mobile rebel commander of the war. He besieged Charkhari in March 1858, attempted the relief of Jhansi on the Betwa, held Kalpi, and took Gwalior with Rao Sahib in June 1858.Captured and executed at Shivpuri on 18 April 1859.
Hirde Shah of HirapurHirapur, Sagar territory	died 1858	The Bundela rising of 1842	A principal leader of the 1842 rising across the Sagar and Narmada territories, and one of the few men who took part in both that rising and the fighting of 1857–58.Captured on 21 November 1842 and imprisoned at Chunar; released in 1843, he was killed in 1858.
Maithili Sharan GuptChirgaon, Jhansi district	1886–1964	Nationalist literature	Wrote Bharat Bharati in 1912, a long Hindi poem on the condition of the country that was widely read and recited in nationalist circles and did much to establish Khari Boli as a language for serious verse.

People from Bundelkhand who resisted colonial rule, and the regional risings and revolts that shaped that resistance. (10)