Vijay Singh Gujjar

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Vijay Singh Gujar was from Kunja Bahadurpur.

Family[]

After death of Ram Dayal, British reassessed his estate and decided that many of the villages were not his property. Thus, in 1813 British cancelled contracts of many villages which were with Ram Dayal. The administrative setup implemented land reforms and granted villages to the village officials, rather than being under one person. Still, a sizeable number of villages were left in hands of the widow of Ram Dayal, his son Badan Singh and 6 other Taluqdars.^[1]

In 1817, Chaudhari Vijay Singh, a remote cousin of Ram Dayal succeeded to one of these Taluqa, Kunja Bahadurpur covering 33 villages and paying 22,000 rupees annually to British. He wrote to British Collector Archibald Murray, narrating story of his hardship as he had to dispose of his horses, valuables to repay his debt. Vijay Singh was dependent of Shaikh Kallan of Sharanpur district who used him for expanding his own tasks of land purchase, intimidating of rivals etc. ^[2]

Ambition and death of Vijay Singh[]

In 1824, there were rumours that British have became weak and they will soon return to Britain on their own. With infant Kushal Singh in Landhaura, Vijay Singh wanted to dispose off him and Badan Singh (son of Ram Dayal) and declare himself as head of Gujars and start revenue collection from all villages, which were earlier under Ram Dayal.^[3]

To realise his plan of becoming the head of Gujars, Vijay Singh aligned with Kallu Gujar, a dacoit with reward of 1000 rupees on his head. Kallu Gujar, who was from Muradabad district and was active for years in Nagina and Haridwar. He had shifted to Saharanpur district in 1823. Gaining strength from this alliance, Kallu became more daring and started attacking, looting and killing officials, Mahajans, travellers and other common citizens of the region.^[4]

Vijay Singh's village Kunja became base for Kallu Gujar. Once Police came chasing Kallu to Kunja, Vijay Singh accompanied by Ishq Lal and others and levelled matchlocks against policemen, who returned after being outnumbered. With more Gujars joining gang of Kallu and Vijay Singh, Kallu declared himself a Raja, styled as Raja Kalyan Singh and launched multiple attacks to loot and kill people in Sept and Oct 1824.^[5]

On Oct 1, 1824 nearly 1000-2000 men of Kallu and Vijay Singh looted over 17,000 rupees and returned to Kunja. On Oct 3, British sent 2 Gurkha detachments under Capt. Fredrick to attack Kunja and get rid of the dacoits. Gurkhas unhinged the main gate with a large tree, rammed down the gate. Gurkhas killed most of the Gujars, along with Kallu and Vijay Singh. Some Gujars climbed the wall and fled to nearby sugarcane fields, where they were shot. This brought relief to the region. ^[6]

Now termed as freedom fighter from the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand,the state government announced in 2015 that several roads and institutions would be named after him.^[7]

References[]