(......part of the history of Mughal Empire series)
In 1685, Rajaram, a Jat zamindar at Sisini eight kilometers
west of Agra
strengthened fortress of hardened mud. Shileded by difficult terrain and
bomboo/scrub forests these forts could beat off all but the most determined assaults. Already
refusing to pay the revenue , Rajaram led his Jat clansmen to plunder traffic
on Royal road. They even attempted to enter Sikandra to despoil Akbar’s tomb,
but were driven back by the faujdar. Soon the overland route to Deccan was virtually closed. Even great nobles traveling
with their entourages were not safe. In 1686, a Turani amir, Aghar Khan , who
was marching from Kabul
to Bijapur with his troops and household , tried to pursue the Jats who had
plundered his baggage train. Outside the Jat fort he was killed along with his
son-in-law and eighty of his followers.
In the late 1687 , Aurangzeb sent Bidar Bakht , his young
grandson , north with troops to suppress the Jats. In the interim the newly
appointed governor of the Punjab, Mahabat Khan, a former Hyderabad officer, had encamped near Sikandra
on the Yamuna river. The Jats boldly attacked his camp in force and only
retired after losing four hundred casualties.
Rajaram’s Jats outmaneuvered the local imperial forces and
occupied Sikandra where they succeeded in looting Akbar’s tomb. According to
Manucci,
“Already angered by the demands of the governors and
faujdars for revenue , a great number of them (Jats) assembled and marched
mausoleum of that great conqueror Akbar. Against him living they could effect nothing ; they therefore
wreaked vengeance on his sepulchre. They began their pillage by breaking in the
great gates of bronze which it had , robbing the valuable precious stones and
plates…. of gold and silver , and destroying what they were not able to carry
away. Dragging out the bones of Akbar, they threw them angrily into the fire
and burnt them.”
The desecration of
tomb was the greatest affront possible to the house and linage of Timur. After
this incident Rajaram , the Jat leader , was killed by Mughal musketeer in a
subsequent clash , but the Jat stronghold at Sinsini was untouched.
Aurangzeb responded to these events by commissioning the
young Raja Bishun Singh Kachhwaha of Amber (Jaipur) as faujdar of Mathura and as jagirdar
of Sinsai , the Jat stronghold. The new commander and his Rajput troops marched
directly to the Jat stronghold and besieged it. After a four months siege, the
Mughal troops laid a mine successfully , opened a breach and stormed the small
fort. Fifteen hundreds Jats defenders died. Another small fortress at Sogar
fell to the Mughals. By January 1691, the Jat revolt around Agra was suppressed.
Source:
The New Cambridge History of India, The Mughal Empire ,page 250-51
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