The Raja, the Rebel and the Monk: Fateh Sahi's War Against the East India Company

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In late-eighteenth-century India, an obscure king, who ruled over Huseypur in north-west Bihar, challenged the might of the British. When overpowered by the East India Company forces, he escaped into the jungles of Gorakhpur, raised a people's army and fought a guerrilla war against the Company for nearly thirty years. Beaten many times, he always bounced back and never surrendered.

He was Maharaja Fateh Bahadur Sahi.

A warrior, patriot and innovator, Sahi visualized the dangers of impending imperialism and rose to meet the challenge.

He devised new war logistics and resorted to guerrilla warfare, including ascetics, destitutes and bandits in his unique army.

This happened years before the Indian Revolt of 1857 and the revolutions in America and France.

Mainstream history is yet to look at him, but in the middle-Ganga valley, Sahi is remembered as a folk hero and a people's king.

This work is an effort to unravel Sahi's unusual life.

How did he operate and survive for so long? Could he be considered the progenitor of India's first war of independence?

The Raja, the Rebel and the Monk attempts to answer these questions and more.

J.N. Sinha was born in Majhawalia (Siwan), north Bihar, and educated at Patna University. He earned his PhD in the history of science from the University of Delhi, and did a stint at its Cluster Innovation Centre, teaching history in innovative formats. He has researched at the foremost centres in Europe, North America and Asia and is associated with many professional bodies internationally. He has published and presented globally. For the popular audience in India, he writes in the leading national press, on aspects of history, culture and environment, and about things ordinary and mundane. He has appeared on the BBC (London), Asianet TV (New York) and Sputnik (Moscow), and on several media platforms in India. He loves nature, heritage and travelling, and has visited noted heritage locations across the globe. In India, he endeavours to conserve and preserve these sites.

Over a decade ago, I came across a few references about Fateh Sahi, an enigmatic character in India's history, lost in the vortex of myth and reality-not because he did not exist, but because his different avatars in the public domain masked his real identity. Historically, he was the Raja of Huseypur, in the erstwhile Saran district of Bihar. He revolted against the British in 1767, soon after the Battle of Buxar, and continued his guerrilla war for nearly three decades. As such, for the British, he was an outlaw and a public nuisance. Even until recently, he was depicted as a dakoo (dacoit) on a Government of Bihar web portal! A generous or ingenious observer may characterize him as Robin Hood. Curiously, though, mainstream historians have not taken him seriously.

Somehow, the references to Sahi struck a chord with me. They referred to some thrilling episodes, a few heard about in my childhood, which prompted me to dig deeper into his history The Limited Raj by Anand A. Yang (Oxford, 1989) led me to his hideout in the jungles of Gorakhpur in the latter half of the eighteenth century. I would think of those episodes whenever I passed through the terrain of his operations on the border between Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The typical traits and nuances of the Bhojpuri culture and geography, with its semi wild topography of forests, lakes and riverine locations, and the way of life of the local people laid out the historical landscape for my story.

Meanwhile, I came to know of some locals trying to resurrect Fatch Sahi as a folk hero. I read the writings of Akshayvar Dikshit and others in Hindi and Bhojpuri, and reviewed them in Social Science Probings (2007), a serious academic journal. The response was encouraging. However, as these writers were basically litterateurs and not historians, their work lacked in professionalism. Yet, I appreciated their endeavour to reinstate this historic figure with whatever information they could gather from oral traditions and popular memory They tried to present their protagonist as a great warrior and a patriot who dared to challenge the mighty East India Company, single-handedly.

After all, city-based historians had never cared to look closely at this hero Looking into the historicity of the legend, I published a long article in The Hindu (2011), and was stunned at the volume of applause and queries it brought in about this little-known Raja, from countless readers from India and abroad. For most people, the find was a surprise, and they paid glowing tributes to the patriot. A Tamil NRI scientist based in Paris, for example, took details of the raja's location so that he could visit his abode and pay tributes. The story also attracted some movie-makers. Since I hail from the same region, I have been interested in the history and culture of the Gangetic heartland, and, off and on. write on them in the popular press.

The hero of this story-Fateh Bahadur Sahi is an unknown and extremely obscure character in modern Indian history. In popular perception, he is more of a mythological figure. In the folklore of the middle Gangetic plain, he features as a gallant warrior, rather than a real historical character. Indeed, he is still remembered as the ruler of the obscure principality of Huseypur in northwest Bihar, where he is said to have challenged the authority of the mighty East India Company. soon after the Battle of Buxar in 1764. Displaced from his capital, he retreated to the jungles of the Himalayan foothills, from where he continued his guerrilla wars against the East India Company for nearly thirty years. He did not spare even their supporters and often looted their property. It is not surprising, then, that he is remembered as a brigand as well-a dakoo in local parlance.

How did he manage all this, who supported him, and who constituted his army? How did he lead his life in the jungles? And, finally, what happened of him and his family afterward His story remains a mystery. This book is an effort to unlock it.

The little information that has trickled down to us places him in the latter half of the eighteenth century. When he became old, he relinquished his gaddi to his son in 1790, took sanyas, and finally left home for a pilgrimage to Nasik. He was last seen in 1808. Nothing is clearly known thereafter. This book is an attempt to understand his life and times in transition, on the borders of Awadh and Bengal in the Ganga valley.

Through contemporary relics and the history of events connected with him, we have a faint glimpse of his life at Huseypur, Line Bazar and other places in the old Saran district of Bihar. Popular memory and folklore apart, the structural remains of his time at and around Tamkuhi and Hathwa, his family heirlooms and the collections of his descendants are other important sources of information. A direct scion of Fateh Bahadur Sahi, now in the 114th generation of their founding dynasty, Vaidurya Pratap Sahi of the Tamkuhi Raj family, a scientist and heritage buff, is deeply interested in his family history. He is forever on the lookout for more information about his illustrious ancestors and is in touch with a number of archives, libraries and collectors throughout the world. His cousin line, the Hathwa Raj family, now in its 106th generation, also possesses sources in print, manuscripts and artefacts which may help to chronicle Fateh Sahi's story.

The key to many unknown facts about his life is likely to lie in moth-eaten official records stored at the administrative headquarters in Chapra, Patna, Lucknow, Allahabad, Calcutta (now Kolkata) and in London, as also in private collections elsewhere.

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