This plain's freedom struggle is overwhelmingly a story about 1857 and about what was done afterwards. Nearly every holding on it took part — the Ambala cantonment, the districts of Gurgaon, Rohtak and Hisar, the Mewat pockets, the Ahirwal around Rewari, and the small states of Jhajjar, Ballabgarh, Farrukhnagar and Bahadurgarh — and the reprisal was total. Rulers were tried by military commission and hanged at Delhi, estates were confiscated, and in 1858 the entire territory was detached from the North-Western Provinces and attached to the Punjab as a punishment, which is why this plain was governed from Lahore for the next century. What came after was not primarily nationalist. Non-cooperation arrived through a very large conference at Bhiwani in October 1920 and produced a real district organisation and a handful of long-serving prisoners; but the dominant rural politics of the 1930s here was the Unionist one, built on debt, land and the price of grain rather than on independence, and it is worth saying so rather than recasting it.
The revolt of 1857 in the bangarMay – November 1857
The 60th and 5th Native Infantry rose at Ambala on 10 May 1857, the same day as Meerut. Within three weeks the collectorates at Gurgaon and Hisar had been overrun, the records burnt at Rohtak, the Mewat tract taken by Meo bodies under Sadruddin, and Jhajjar, Ballabgarh and Farrukhnagar had joined. Villages across Panipat and Thanesar refused revenue and sent men to Delhi.
Outcome: Suppressed with the fall of Delhi in September 1857. About a hundred and twenty sepoys were hanged at Ambala; the rulers of Ballabgarh, Jhajjar and Farrukhnagar were hanged at Delhi and their estates confiscated; and the territory was transferred to the Punjab in 1858.
The Ahirwal campaign and Nasibpur17 May – 16 November 1857
Rao Tula Ram and his cousin Rao Gopal Dev deposed the tehsildar at Rewari on 17 May 1857 and held the Ahirwal for six months, raising about five thousand men, manufacturing powder and shot, and sending money and supplies to the forces at Delhi. After Delhi fell, a British column moved south and met them at Nasibpur outside Narnaul on 16 November 1857.
Outcome: The first charge broke the British line and several of their officers were killed, but the Ahirwal force was defeated by the end of the day. Rao Tula Ram withdrew to Rajputana and then travelled to Iran and Afghanistan seeking support; he died at Kabul in 1863.
Non-cooperation and the Bhiwani conference1920–1922
The Ambala divisional political conference was held at Bhiwani on 22 October 1920 before a very large gathering and was addressed by Gandhi and Abul Kalam Azad. It is the moment organised nationalist politics reached this plain, and district committees in Rohtak, Hisar and Gurgaon followed from it.
Outcome: Congress organisation was established across the districts and survived the end of the campaign in 1922; Neki Ram Sharma and others were imprisoned in 1921 and repeatedly afterwards.