©Malcha
kalyan Samiti
The Heirs
Of Raisina
By
- Arpit Parashar
On
December 12 last year Delhi celebrated 100 years of the announcement by King George
V that the capital of India would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi, a year after
the Viceroy proposed doing so, for obvious geopolitical reasons. The announcement
was made by the British without any previous notification, during the Coronation
Durbar in a grand ceremony fusing the British and Mughal traditions where they were
proclaimed the Emperor and Empress of India, to commemorate their coronation in
Britain earlier the same year The foundation stone for the new city was laid on
December 15, 1911, by King George V at Raisina village, where the Viceregal House—present
day Rashtrapati Bhavan—later came up, and adjoining Malcha village.
Just
as every ruling prince, nobleman, landed gentry and other persons of note from India
attended this Proclamation Durbar, the third and last held by the British in India
after 1877 and 1903, the who’s who of Delhi celebrated the occasion last year. The
Delhi government and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations have lined up a series
of celebrations to mark the occasion for a year starting December 12, 2011. Souvenirs
were released, the street food and kebabs and kulfis of Delhi were distributed and
celebrated, exhibitions with photographs ranging from that of the old city of Shahjahanabad
to the present day Lutyen’s Delhi celebrating the “new India” were held, and a book
on the history of the seven cities of Delhi was released by Delhi chief minister
Sheila Dikshit. But the book fails to celebrate an important event in India’s modern
history; an event that was probably the first in a series of similar occurrences
since then across the country almost every year with an alarming consistency.
The
residents of the 150 villages that were eventually acquired to build New Delhi refused
to give up their farmland to the British and protested. More than 3,000 families
united against the forced acquisition of prime agricultural land and the dense forest
land on the Raisina Ridge that is still termed the “lungs of Delhi”. Historical
accounts suggest that the villages of the area had played host to mutineers during
the 1857 revolt and provided them with supplies during the march to Red Fort in
the old city of Shahjahanabad. Many people from these villages took active part
in the rebellion and fought alongside the soldiers. One of them was a Jat soldier
Gulab Singh, who fought the British and later came to be known for his bravery in
the villages of the area as “ Kaale ghode
wala (one who rode a black horse)”.
British
records of deaths in the area, maintained meticulously to keep track of the division
of land parcels and ownership, show that he continued to live in the Malcha village
with his family and died on April 5,1894. By then, out of respect for his contribution
during the revolt of 1857, his family had become prominent across the villages of
present day central and south Delhi. Members of his extended family were often asked
to assume leadership roles during disputes in the panchayats. Tucked away in the
ridge forest was the famous hunting lodge called Malcha Mahal, owned by the Nawab
of
Awadh and built more than 600 years ago. The Nawab would often visit it with his
entourage and go hunting in the area, which then boasted of a sizeable tiger population
as
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| Construction of India Gate |
well
as other game. After the fall of the Awadh dynasty around 1850, Malcha Mahal lay
almost abandoned, with only a few servants guarding the property. The majority of
the population of these villages comprised Jats, while Muslims and Gujjars were
also present in good numbers along with some Brahmin and Dalit families.
By
1911, however, there were very few Muslim families left, presumably because Muslims
were specifically targeted by the British in and around Shahjahanabad after the
1857 revolt because of their active participation. Gujjars had also been punished
by the British since Gujjar gangs had looted British convoys and killed British
families that had fled Delhi when the mutineers were busy laying siege to the city.
The Jats were now in a
© Malcha Kalyan Samiti
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| Construction of Rashtrapati bhawan |
majority
across the villages of the area. Descendants of Gulab Singh were still respected
and people looked up to them for leadership; as a result Malcha village had acquired
the status of the most important village in the area over the more than five decades
since the great revolt. The proposal to shift the capital to Delhi was mooted by
Charles Hardinge—Viceroy of India from 1910 to 1916—in 1910, a decision that would
change the lives of
the
people of Raisina and Malcha forever. On November 21, 1911, M W Fenton, Chief Secretary
to the Government of Punjab, issued an order in the Punjab Gazette saying: “Notification
number 775; whereas it appears to the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and its despondencies
that land is acquired by Government for public purpose, namely for the new capital
of India at Delhi, it is hereby declared that the undermentioned land is required
for the said purpose. This declaration is made under the provision of section of
Act 1 of 1894 and under section 7 of the said Act, the collector of Delhi district
is hereby directed to take order for the acquisition of the said
land.”
The descendants of the villagers whose land was acquired say that even when the
Coronation Durbar was being held the British were yet to inform the villagers, leave
alone getting them evacuated from the area.
They
say nobody was sure of what was eventually to happen; but the murmurs started after
Sir Sobha Singh (father of noted author Khushwant Singh), the builder who was entrusted
the task of building New Delhi, had the foundation stones removed from Kingsway
Camp, where the Durbar had been held and placed at Raisina and Malcha villages,
11 kilometres away. Meanwhile, architects Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker had started
to work on designing the architecture of the new capital, construction of which
was to begin only by 1916.
The
villagers were then informed— much like it is done in present day India—that their
land no longer belonged to them, and that all of it, including their dwellings and
non-agricultural land was to beacquired. Panchayats held in every village unanimously
decided that they would not surrender their lands.
On
October 10, 1912, the Government of India issued the order endorsing the order of
the Government of Punjab (endorsement number 1169), paving the way for the formal
acquisition of the land in Malcha and Raisina villages. At first, a little less
than 4,000 acres was to be acquired for the construction of the Viceroy House, or
Rashtrapati Bhavan as it is now known.
Meanwhile,
sensing the rebellious mood in the villages, the British decided to provide legal
sanction to the acquisition by paying compensation to all the people whose land
was being acquired. The farmers then put up a demand of Rs. 2,400 per acre for agricultural
land and `1,920 an acre for other infertileland. However, they were offered just
Rs. 35 and Rs. 15 per acre for fertile and infertile land respectively.Compensation
rates were decided without consulting any of the villagers; the government prepared
a list of all the villagers and the compensation amount they would be entitled to.
The
Land Acquisition Officer of the Government of Punjab was to issue awards between
©Malcha Kalyan Samiti
1912
and 1913 and pay the amounts that the government had seen fit as compensation to
families from the two villages. They were told to collect their compensation amounts
but no arrangements made for resettling them; they were simply asked to migrate
to wherever they could. The villagers had made up their minds to protest against
this injustice. Some
people, however, decided not to protest and instead
pleaded with the British to resettle
them
in other areas instead of leaving them to their own fate.The Jats of the area, however,
had no plans of surrendering. Village panchayats were held and it was decided by
Jats of at least seven villages—Malcha, Palam, Prahladpur, Sultanpuri, Manglapuri,
Motibagh and Gothda—that they would fight for their lands. Farmers from all these
villages gathered near a well called Dhaula Kuan at Palam village, which is today
a famous location situated southwest of Delhi, and poured salt in the well as part
of their vow to defend their lands. Historical accounts suggest that the well was
named dhaula (white) because of the white sand at its bottom but villagers in and
around the area claim that it was named so as part of the tradition of the Jats
of the region to pour salt in it as part of their vows before going to battle. “Namak ki saugandh khana sabse bada pran hota
tha (to swear by salt used to be the biggest vow those days),” a farmer recalled
at a meet of the farmers from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, organised in Delhi
by the Delhi Gramin Samaj (Delhi Rural Society). Led by Amar Singh, the pradhan
(village head) of Malcha village and grandson of the “brave dada ji Kaale ghode wala baaghi (the rebel who rode a black horse)”
Gulab Singh, they started fortifying the boundaries of Raisina and Malcha and preparing
for battle.
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| Constructon of Parliament |
© Malcha Kalyan Samiti
When
the British got a whiff of the plans, they attacked Malcha and Raisina immediately
and 33 people, including Amar Singh, were killed in the fight. While there is no
evidence of what exactly transpired during the fight, an octogenarian who claims
his grandfather fought the British says his father had seen the British fire cannons
at Malcha. “The whole village lay in ruins after that,” he said. The families of
the Jats from Malcha and Raisina ran away, never to return to their homes again.
Only ten per cent of the 300 families from the two villages collected their compensation.
All that is left today of the village is the temple, known now as the Malcha Mandir.
Half of the compound of the temple houses a small school run by a private trust,
while the other half houses the old temple.
The
road running through the area was named Malcha Marg and the famous market of the
area is called Malcha Market. Malcha Mahal suffered near dilapidation and lay in
ruin, unoccupied since India attained independence in 1947. The last queen of the
Awadh dynasty of Lucknow, Begum Wilayat Mahal, was allotted the house in 1985 after
she had spent almost a decade in the VIP lounge of New Delhi railway station with
her two children, servants and a loyal pack of dogs. She reportedly approached Indira
Gandhi to have the property allotted back to her and the process was initiated after
that. The Begum poisoned herself to death in 1993 and is survived by her children,
Prince Ali Raza and Princess Sakina Mahal.
The
property has since been named Wilayat Mahal. A board outside Wilayat Mahal today
cautions potential “intruders” of the presence of hound dogs and threatens that
trespassers will be gunned down. Nothing has so far happened to make the guns boom,
and hardly anyone has met the prince and the princess since the Begum died. A few
journalists, mostly foreign, have managed to gain “legal” entry into the compound
but have come away dejected with the delusional and aggressive attitude of Sakina
Mahal, who was famous in the 1990s as a reclusive princess who is perpetually drunk.
The
land of Malcha and Raisina villages is today occupied by several ministries, including
the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign and Home ministers; the Chanakyapuri area,
where most of the embassies of foreign countries are situated, is also located where
once farmer ploughed their fields.
Malcha
Marg runs perpendicular to Sardar Patel Marg, along which the old Malcha village
would have run. The stretch along Sardar patel Marg houses foreign embassies and
the offices of some states, like Karnataka Bhavan and the Uttar Pradesh Bhavan.
One section of the Diplomatic Enclave has been named Malcha House, a reminder of
erstwhile Malcha village.
Right
across the road is the boundary wall of Rashtrapati Bhavan, across which lies the
dense forestknown as the Rashtrapati Bhavan Estate. Parliament House and India Gate
too fall in the 1,792 acre area along with Rashtrapati Bhavan, all of which were
reportedly under the area of Raisina village. The famous protected forest of the
Raisina Ridge area is also walled and out of bounds for the common man. Despite
suffering brutalities at the hands of the British, the families that were forced
to leave the villages did not scatter into oblivion. They stuck together, moved
westward and eventually settled down in the Harsana Kalan area of what is today
the Sonepat district of Haryana. They bought land from other farmers in the area
and started their lives all over again.
Over
the next decade, families from the other five villages who had rebelled alongside
them kept joining them after being forced into selling their lands at dirt cheap
rates. These families together formed a single village and named it Malcha Patti
after Malcha village out of respect for the people who laid down their lives there.
This village today has almost forgotten what happened with their forefathers; only
old-timers recall stories that have been passed down over the generations. The generation
that had heard first-hand accounts of the events that transpired 100 years back
is now represented by a couple of people with fading memories. Over the years the
interest in such stories had also faded. That was until 2004, when a farmer called
Sajjan Singh discovered something startling.
During a chance discussion with an officer from the Revenue Department in Delhi,
where he regularly participates in activities of the Ram Chandra Mission, Singh
learnt that the British had actually awarded compensation for the lands owned by
his forefathers; it was his forefathers who had refused to take the compensation
and chosen to fight for their lands instead.
© Malcha Kalyan Samiti
“Our
forefathers were illiterate and so never knew or even cared to know anything related
to compensation after they were thrown out of their lands. This information did
not trickle down through generations as a result. My father too was barely literate.
It was a big revelation for me,” Singh recalls eight years later. But then Singh
was aware of his forefathers’ small role in the country’s history—that he was a
descendant of the famous rebel Gulab Singh.
He decided to trace this money and started talking to elders in his village about
what had happened a century back. With his father no more he convinced his paternal
uncle Rai Singh, who had no children, to initiate a legal battle to trace the money.
He approached advocate Sanjay Rathi at the Tis Hazari courts in Delhi urging him
to look into the matter.
“It
was a search in the dark in the beginning. But while fighting a case related to
another land dispute earlier I had learnt that the records of the erstwhile Punjab
province are stored in Chandigarh under the records of the state government of Punjab
and that they have revenue records as old as 200 years. So the first step we took
was to try and access them,” recalls Rathi
.
On
behalf of his uncle, Sajjan Singh then filed
a case at the Tis Hazari courts in Delhi claiming thecompensation that is due
to the descendants of the people who had fled from Raisina and Malcha villages in
1912. They won the first legal battle after two years when they managed to trace
the old revenue records and establish that compensation had indeed been paid.
On
December 25, 2006, replying to the petition filed by Sajjan Singh, the then Land
Acquisition Collector of Delhi A K Kaushal said, “As per records, compensation of
acquired land belonging to the ancestors of the applicants vide award no. 30, 31
and 32/1911-12 of village Malcha had been deposited in the Court of Divisional Judge
Delhi on 21.12.1912 under provisions of Section 31(2) of the Land Acquisition Act
1894.”
It
had been established that the amount was still with the government. During informal
meetings with government officers Sajjan Singh learnt that there were receipts of
people from some villages receiving the compensation still available in government
records. But it was not until 2006, after the Right to Information Act came into
effect, that Singh could access those records. Singh managed to lay hands on a receipt
acknowledging the payment of compensation to a farmer from Palam village, after
which he filed applications to access all records related to compensation paid to
villagers from Malcha and Raisina. The British used to keep detailed land records;
so much so that they would even list the number of trees that existed on a person’s
property. They also used to maintain pedigree tables or family trees of residents
of every village.
Sajjan Singh filed numerous RTI
applications and eventually established his immediate ancestry, ownership of his
forefathers over the land on which New Delhi stands today and that as per revenue
records the money due to his great great grandfather was never paid to him. All
this evidence now put the ball in the court of the government of Delhi and the government
of India.
This
information prompted other farmers to file cases in the court on the same lines
by providing proof of their family history and tracing the amount that was to be
paid to them as compensation. Many families came forward and Rathi now had at least
17 cases with him. The first bank ever set up in India was the Bank of Calcutta,
founded in 1806 by the British to fund their campaigns against Tipu Sultan and the
Marathas. This was renamed the Bank of Bengal in 1809 and was the national bank
of India when the British decided
©Malcha
Kalyan Samiti
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| LUTEYAN ZONES {DELHI } |
to
move their capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911. The money that was to be deposited
in the court of the Divisional Judge of Delhi was, by default, deposited in the
Bank of Bengal. It had been lying with the court since the people who were to receive
the compensation amounts never appeared before it; and neither the British bother
to trace them.
The
British had since also set up Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Madras but because
Bank of Bengal operated from the then capital Calcutta, all the money was deposited
in it. As per available records, the compensation money was deposited in the Bank
of Bengal in 1913. Ten years later in 1923 when construction of New Delhi—which
had suffered delays due to breakout of the World War I—had finally started picking
up, the three banks were merged to form a single entity which was named Imperial
Bank of India. The Imperial Bank inherited all this money and the records related
to it. After Independence, the Reserve Bank of India acquired controlling interest
in the Imperial Bank in its capacity as the central banking organisation in the
country and the Imperial Bank of India was renamed the State Bank of India.
This
means that the State Bank of India inherited the money that was meant for the displaced
people of New Delhi who live in today’s Malcha village in Sonepat. The State Bank
of India proudly exclaims in its ad campaigns, started a few years back, that it
has been the national bank of India for more than 200 years, and the fact that it
has records of the first Indians to open bank accounts like Rabindranath Tagore
Vinobha Bhave, Dadabhai Naoroji, and even Jawaharlal Nehru.
In
case of the compensation for these villagers, however, the bank, replying to a show
cause notice related to one of the petitions filed in this case, said in an affidavit
in 2009 that “the relevant records of the year 1913 of the Bank of Bengal are not
traceable”, which, in quite simply means that the records have been lost! Sanjay
Rathi has since tried to impress upon the court that the records of the then Divisional
Judge of Delhi must have been inherited by some authority, especially since there
are records of cases dating back up to 200 years available in courts of Delhi.
However,
his applications under the RTI Act have thrown up a sorry state of affairs in the
judiciary, too.“The Supreme Court directed me (through replies to RTI applications)
to the Delhi High Court, which in turn directed me to the local courts in Delhi.
Similarly, the Union Urban Development Ministry and theLieutenant Governor of Delhi
have directed me to the Land Acquisition Department of Delhi, which in turn has
stuck to its stand that it had deposited the amount in the court of the Divisional
Judge of Delhi in 1913 itself. The case has come back to where it started as a result.”
“It
is a vicious circle. ‘The records exist and the money was deposited with the government
but it has vanished now’ is what we are being told,” says Singh. “Everyone is eventually
hiding behind this one excuse—documents have been lost,” says Rathi. The Patiala
House court presently hearing the matter has issued a notice to the government of
Delhi to explain why the process of disbursement of compensation was not started
in 1913 itself, to which the government was to reply at the next hearing in June,
which has
©Malcha
Kalyan samiti
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| NORTH BLOCK {RASHTRAPTI BHAWAN } |
been
postponed to August. “It is the responsibility of the government as per law to make
sure that the farmers receive their compensation amounts. Instead, the farmers are
demanding it and being told that the government cannot compensate them.”As other
villagers slowly got to know of the issue and the case in the court picked up momentum,
politicson the matter too built up. Various self-help groups were formed among sections
of the farmers to pleadthe case politically.
Protests
and demonstrations were staged in the capital on a regular basis demanding justice
for the farmers, including one on Independence Day at Jantar Mantar when Anna Hazare’s
anti- corruption crusade was at its peak. Since then there have been many more protests
across the capital and farmers from the village have taken part in them in large
numbers along with the members from various other farmers’ unions in Haryana.
These
farmers now gather regularly when local politicians give calls for protests and
dharnas, not necessarily to address the issue of the compensation due to them but
other issues too. Sensing the opportunity to consolidate a decent vote bank and
judging the sentiments among the farmers from Malcha Patti as a sellable political
issue, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Member of Parliament from Sonepat,
Krishan Singh Sangwan raised the question in the Lok Sabha during a Zero Hour discussion
a few years back.
Nobody
in the village got to know what reply he got but they were told the reply was something
that did not address the issue and instead only “misled” the “honest” Sangwan saab.
Some farmers also approached Yoga Guru-turned-politician Baba Ramdev and got a promise
that he would take up the issue against the “corrupt” Government of India on a large
scale; it is, however yet to come to fruition, with Ramdev caught up in his own
issues. While the overwhelming sentiment in Malcha is that they have been cheated
and that the government has not even come up with a reply, Singh never participates
in rallies or protests; nor does he talk much about the political developments regarding
the issue.
“Only
the courts of this country can force the governments, politicians and bureaucrats
to work; this fight has to be won legally,” he says, dismissing the protests and
the speeches given by politicians who will “only exploit the farmers and never work
towards anything concrete to get their issue addressed”. After all, “…these very
politicians led numerous protests across Haryana and Delhi when land was acquired
by the governments and rallied the poor farmers around them. But no leader managed
to achieve anything for them. The governments kept doing what they wanted to and
will continue to do so”.
Ironically,
the law that was used against Singh’s forefathers to evict them from their villages
is still thesame one being used by the governments across the country to acquire
farmers’ lands: The Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which the Government of India
adopted verbatim after 1947. Except for a few cosmetic changes introduced through
some amendments since then, the Act remains the same. As per conservative estimates
more than four crore people have been displaced from their farmlands and houses
since independence as governments have continued to use provisions of the Act. And
government’s own figures suggest that almost three-fourths of these people are still
awaiting compensation. Provisions of this Act some of them allow the government
to take away land without even awarding
©Malcha
Kalyan Samiti
compensation—have
been at the root of almost every conflict related to land acquisition in India since
independence.
The
Supreme Court has come down heavily on the law on various occasions. After the violence
in Delhi’s suburbs of Noida and Greater Noida last year over the acquisition of
farmland for construction of upmarket housing societies, the SC had said that the
state is “the biggest land grabber, depriving farmers of their livelihood for generations”
and remarked that this law is “anti-people” and meant only to benefit the governments.
The
Government of India finally came up with a proposal to enact a new law which provides
justice to the farmers. The new bill, termed Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation
and Resettlement Bill, 2011, proposed to link welfare of farmers with the acquisition
of their land. But even before it was to be tabled in the Parliament last year,
which it eventually was not, experts and the farmers’ unions of the country
rejected
it as a farce. “The proposed bill falls way short of expectations. Leave alone the
complex issues related to ownership of land, it fails to deliver even on the often
repeated promises that ‘no forced acquisition of land will be carried out’ and that
‘fertile land will not be acquired’. It is simply a patch work on the earlier bill,
a far cry from the de novo approach promised to meet challenges in the current scenario
in the country,” says Devinder Sehrawat, Secretary of the Delhi Gramin Samaj.
Sehrawat
has been organising various discussions on the subject. Politicians, experts on
public policy, farmer leaders and protesters from various states have all taken
part in such meets. Farmers from Malcha too have actively participated in them,
demanding that the new law include provisions that require the government to address
all cases of land acquisition since the draconian law of 1894 came into effect.
The
people of Delhi, meanwhile, are busy celebrating. The Delhi Book Fair showcased
over 100 books on Delhi’s history recently. Pictures of King George V and those
of the Coronation Durbar were on display at the fair’s photos of Delhi before the
capital of modern India was built were also visible in many books.
The
people who inhabited this city before it are missing, though. Nobody seems to know
or even care about what fate they fell upon and what happened to their families.
The
fight that those families and their descendants have put up over these 100 years
is part of the long commentary on the wrongs that have been perpetrated on the poor
of this country, both before and after independence. That Rashtrapati Bhavan, the
building which houses the first person of India, stands on land that is legally
“in dispute” is a chilling reminder.
Shri gulab singh thakran is a Jat Soldier
and A very Important person in the jat history and a head of 360 village at that
time . Shri Gulab Singh Thakran is notable in Independence history.he is the king
of Malcha and some part of raisina hills
(all the Rashtrapti And tal katora village is all made in our land) .The real hero
of fight of Indipendence in 1857. In 1856 Shri Gulab Singh Thakran ji invited king
of muslim sultanate Raja Bahadur Shah jafar in New delhi (Malcha Mahal)from meerut and Bahadur
shah Jafar swear to give indipendence to Indians with salt and throw it
into
the well so the well is well known as dhaula kuan. Then Hindu and muslim men
and
woman made food for all the people there and serve it all the people there at malcha
village and then it is known as Sanjhi Roti. On 5 april
1894 british killed our Great Grand Father Dada
ji Gulab Singh Thakran ji and 32 to other People that fight for Our country
and our independence.
Sajjan
Singh - president- Malcha kalyan Samiti
ph.no. 09416423889
malchakls@gmail.com ; malchakls@ymail.com
©(Copyright)Malcha kalyan Samiti
