A History of the Mahrattas v2.c56.45

v2.c56.45

² [The Brahman chief of Jhānsī (Jhansee) was originally a governor under the Pēshwā, who acquired the territory from the Bundēlkhand chiefs. In 1770 Raghunāth Rāo I ruled the State, and when he drowned himself at Benares in 1794 or 1795, was succeeded by Shivrām Bhāu, who ruled till 1814. The treaty of November 18, 1817, recognized the then chief, Rāmchand Rāo, his heirs and successors, as hereditary rulers of Jhānsī. Rāmchand Rāo was granted the title of Rājā by the British Government in 1832, and died without issue on August 20, 1835. The succession was then contested by four claimants; but ultimately Gangādhar Rāo was appointed Rājā, and after a period of disorder, during which British officers conducted the administration, he obtained full powers in 1842. In 1853 he died without heirs, and Lord Dalhousie, applying the doctrine of lapse, annexed the State in 1854, granting a pension of about £500 monthly to Lakshmī Bāī, Gangādhar Rāo’s widow. She resented the refusal of permission to adopt a son, and the consequent annexation of the state, and was further deeply offended by several acts of the English Administration, above all by the permission of cow-slaughter. Accordingly, when the Mutiny broke out, she joined the rebels. On June 7 and 8, 1857, all the Europeans in Jhānsī, men, women and children, to the number of about seventy persons, were cruelly murdered by her orders, or with her sanction. On June 9 her authority was proclaimed. In the prolonged fighting which ensued, she placed herself at the head of her troops, whom she led with great gallantry. In June 1858, after a year’s blood-stained reign, she was killed in battle. By November 1858, the country was pacified. (Sleeman’s Rambles, &c., ed. V. A. Smith, 1915, pp. 219–20 n.) Jhānsī is now the headquarters of the British District of the same name and also of the Indian Midland Railway. Since the opening of this railway and the restoration of the Gwālior fort to Sindia in 1886, the importance of Jhānsī, both civil and military, has much increased. The native town was given up by Sindia in exchange for the Gwālior stronghold. (Ibid., p. 209.)]