Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/210

 BAH

132

Tiparaha taluqdar during the same period had increased his 24 villages to 48. The revenue noted above is that at which the villages were included in the ilaqas, and which, it may be assumed, was the very utmost that they were capable of paying. No sooner had the taluqdar got a village fairly in his grasp than he scorned to pay any but a sum considerably less than that which had been realized from it

while

tlie

estate from

hitherto.

The 110

villages acquired

by the Kalhans Eajputs

of

Guw^rich pargana

many of those absorbed by Baundi, were crested from the old family of the Jarwal Sayyads, who in 1816 A. D. held no less than 247 villages, but who in Gonda, and

estates

th^irruiQ^^^

lost all but 138. The story of their ruin goes that Ali Khan was anxious to obtain the daughter and heiress of the old Sayyad, the head of the principal branch of the family, in marriage for his son. The honour was declined, and the nazim resolved that the slight should, not go unpunished. The Jarwal estates had been under protection of Huzur Tahsil for some years, but before Mir Hddi left the district he got them brought under his own management and accomplished his end. In the year 1827 A. D., 98 villages of the Hisampur khalsa were made over to the Kalhans and other Rajput taluqdars, nearly all of these being the property of the Sayyads.

prior to annexation

the

had

Nazim Mir Hddi

Mir Hadi held the

district a second time a few years later, and notwithstanding the course of action described above, his ad* ministration of the district contrasts well with that of ^.^fd'+Tn; aclmimstration. ir. some 01 his successors. He was the first who held the districts of Gonda and Bahraich united under one nizamat, and after the first few years of his holding office, he seems to have been able to entertain hopes of keeping his charge more or less permanently, and to have restrained himself from those more oppressive acts of extortion and violence which the contract system encouraged. '

f

Darshan Singh, the father of the late Maharaja Mdn Singh, succeeded ^^^ Hadi, and on the first occasion of his holding Darstan Singli. office he did no harm, but when in 1842 A. D., he resumed charge of the nizamat, he came commissioned to coerce the great landholders who, under the measures, of the last twenty-five years, had been gradually attaining a position from which it was difficult to dislodge them. It was during his two years' administration in 1842-43 that he made the fatal mistake of embroiling himself with the Naipal Government in his pursuit of the young E^ja ofBalrampurinto that Darbar's territory. On account of this, such pressure was brought to bear on the Court at Lucknow that Darshan Singh was banished, only, however, to be recalled two months after. He died soon after, leaving three sons, R^madhin, Raghubar Singh, also called Raghubar Dayal, and M^n Singh. '

Raghubar Dayal, held the contract of the GondaBahraich nizSmat for 1846 and 1847 A.D., and terrible those years were. It was a reign of terror such as has seldom been experienced by any province under the worst days of

The second

of these sons,

Eaghubar Day^.

native rule.