Kingdom of Rohilkhand
The Kingdom of Rohilkhand rose in 1721, carved from the ruins of Mughal authority. Its founder, Ali Mohammed Khan, was a Jat boy of eight when Sardar Daud Khan Rohilla, chief of the Barech tribe, adopted him. Daud Khan was later murdered by the Raja of Kumaon. At fourteen, Ali Mohammed took command of his slain foster father's militia. From there, he built a kingdom.
The death of Aurangzeb had left Mughal rule across North India deeply unstable. His successor, Muhammad Shah, could not hold the empire together. Rohilla migration from the northwest had been growing for decades. Ali Mohammed Khan moved into that vacuum, attracting adventurers and winning the loyalty of Afghan chiefs who had every reason to distrust an outsider.
The kingdom Ali Mohammed Khan built survived for more than fifty years. By 1774, British-backed forces had ended it in a single battle. Why would Afghan chieftains follow a man who was not Afghan by birth? What oath, sworn on the Koran, was broken in a way that fractured the kingdom at the moment it most needed unity? And what role did a payment of forty lakhs of rupees play in sealing its fate?
Behind Ali Mohammed stood Qamarudin Khan, the Wazir al Mulk, who backed him as a deliberate counterweight to Oudh's power.
The people who called themselves Rohillas were a composite community. Old Pathan families long settled in India mixed with Indian converts to Islam and with new adventurers from the northwest. Marriage alliances, some genuine and some constructed, wove these disparate groups into shared kinship.
Rohilkhand's population reflected this religious complexity. About a quarter of its inhabitants had converted to Islam. The majority were Hindu. The Rohilla rulers governed a state in which most people were not Muslim.
In the nineteenth century, the Nawabs of Rampur, descendants of Ali Mohammed Khan, tried to rewrite his origins. They claimed he was a Barha Sayyid. They brought in a prominent religious figure, Najmul Ghani, to establish ancestry from Ali, cousin of the Prophet. No valid pedigree was ever produced. The claim was widely rejected.
Ali Mohammed Khan himself received recognition as a Rohilla chief not through bloodline but through action. His first decisive act in Mughal imperial politics would settle the question more convincingly than any ancestry could.
Ali Mohammed Khan drew adventurers to Katehir through his reputation. His standing rose when he helped suppress the Barah Sayyids. Their chief, Saifudddin Barha, had ordered the Mughal governor Marhamat Khan put to death, along with all of Marhamat Khan's followers. Helping end that threat earned Ali Mohammed the title of Nawab from Emperor Muhammad Shah in 1737.
Nadir Shah's invasion of India in 1739 created new opportunities. The disorder drove large numbers of Afghans to seek employment, and many found it with Ali Mohammed. For the five years after that invasion, his authority in the region went effectively unchallenged.
In 1745, a quarrel with Safdar Jang, the Subedar of Oudh, changed Ali Mohammed's fortunes temporarily. Safdar Jang resented his growing power. When Ali Mohammed's retainers seized property belonging to Safdar Jang's servants, Safdar Jang went to Emperor Muhammad Shah. He secured an imperial order demanding the property's return and the arrest of those responsible. Ali Mohammed refused.
Safdar Jang then led an imperial expedition against him, with the Emperor present in person. Deserted by his men, Ali Mohammed was captured and brought to Delhi. He was treated with respect, in part because his remaining followers still held sway throughout the region. That standing led to his appointment as Governor of Sirhind, the province between the Jummuna and Sutlej rivers.
Ahmed Shah Abidali's invasion in 1748 gave Ali Mohammed the opening he needed. He returned to Katehir and most of his former men rejoined him. To secure their loyalty, he distributed land grants widely. Among the recipients was Najib-ud-Daula, who would go on to become one of the confederation's most consequential figures.
On his death-bed, Ali Mohammed Khan appointed Hafiz Rehmat Khan guardian of Rohilkhand. The charge was temporary: hold power until Ali Mohammed's sons came of age. He left six sons, the eldest being Faizullah Khan and Abdullah Khan. Ali Mohammed asked Rehmat Khan to take a solemn oath on the Koran to honor the arrangement he had made.
Dunde Khan, Ali Mohammed's cousin, was named Commander-in-chief. Niamut Khan and Silabat Khan took charge of general administration. Futte Khan, Ali Mohammed's favourite retainer, was made Khanfaman. Sirdar Khan was appointed Bakshi, or Paymaster. Each of these men was granted a district to govern in trust until Ali Mohammed's children came of age.
By 1754, the oath was worthless. Hafiz Rehmat Khan set aside the pledges he had made and appropriated the most valuable portions of Rohilkhand for himself. Faizullah Khan and Abdullah Khan received only smaller districts. Rehmat Khan had, in effect, made himself the ruler.
The weakening of central authority produced around a dozen separate Rohilla states. Four of them were carved out at the request of Ahmed Shah Abidali. The Afghan emperor asked that each of Ali Mohammed Khan's sons receive a territory. Badaun went to Abdullah Khan, Moradabad to Saadullah Khan, Rampur to Faizullah Khan, and Bareilly to Muhammad Yar Khan. Other chiefs who had become independent after 1748 formed their own chieftaincies, including Najibabad, Farrukhabad, and Pilibhit.
Futte Khan proved an exception, remaining loyal to the royal family throughout. Najib-ud-Daula went to considerable lengths to protect Rohilkhand's safety. But the maneuvers of Rehmat Khan and Dunde Khan ultimately prevailed. Ali Mohammed Khan's children were largely sidelined in the resulting government.
Najib-ud-Daula remained the confederation's most capable defender. What was coming from the Maratha Empire, however, was larger than any individual could manage.
In 1757, Maratha forces defeated the Rohillas and their Afghan allies in battle near Delhi. Najib-ud-Daula was taken prisoner. Rohilkhand survived, but its ability to defend itself had been clearly tested.
In 1772, a larger Maratha force defeated the Rohillas again. Faced with a threat they could not handle alone, the Rohillas turned to the Nawab of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula. The irony was real. Rohilkhand's borders had been drawn as a check against Oudh's power. Now the Rohillas were asking Oudh for help.
Shuja-ud-Daula's forces helped drive out the Marathas. But the arrangement left a debt the Rohillas could not repay. In 1773, when payment failed to arrive, Shuja-ud-Daula decided to annex Rohilkhand. He sought British military support from Warren Hastings. Hastings agreed, in exchange for forty lakhs of rupees.
Hafiz Rahmat Khan would lead the Rohilla forces into the engagement that Warren Hastings had funded. The outcome would determine not just the battle but the kingdom's existence.
Colonel Alexander Champion commanded the combined British-Oudh force at the Battle of Miranpur Katra on the 23rd of April 1774. The Rohilla army under Hafiz Rahmat Khan met them there. Hafiz Rahmat Khan was killed in the battle. The Rohillas who survived fled to the mountains near Loll Dong.
Rohilkhand fell to Oudh. The region was plundered and occupied. Most of the Rohilla population departed. The kingdom that Ali Mohammed Khan had built ceased to exist as a political entity.
Faizullah Khan, the eldest surviving son of Ali Mohammed Khan, was the exception. He negotiated a separate agreement and signed a treaty that let him keep his former territory around Rampur. On the 7th of October 1774, the Rohilla State of Rampur was formally established in the presence of Colonel Champion. Faizullah Khan became its first Nawab.
Rampur endured as a pliant state under British protection. The Rohilla dynasty that had begun under nominal Mughal suzerainty now operated under an entirely different kind of oversight.
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Common questions
Who founded the Kingdom of Rohilkhand and when was it established?
The Kingdom of Rohilkhand was founded by Ali Mohammed Khan in 1721. Ali Mohammed was a Jat boy adopted at age eight by Sardar Daud Khan Rohilla of the Barech tribe. He took command of his foster father's militia at fourteen and carved the kingdom from the declining Mughal Empire.
Was Ali Mohammed Khan actually a Rohilla Afghan?
Ali Mohammed Khan was Jat by birth, not Afghan. He was adopted by an Afghan tribal chief and later gained recognition as a Rohilla chief through his military and political achievements. His descendants in Rampur later claimed he was a Barha Sayyid, but could produce no valid pedigree to support the claim.
Why did the Kingdom of Rohilkhand fall in 1774?
Rohilkhand fell because the Rohillas could not repay Shuja-ud-Daula, Nawab of Oudh, for military help against the Maratha Empire in 1772. Shuja-ud-Daula then allied with the British and paid Warren Hastings forty lakhs of rupees for military support. Colonel Alexander Champion defeated the Rohilla forces at Miranpur Katra on the 23rd of April 1774, killing their leader Hafiz Rahmat Khan.
What was the oath on the Koran that led to Rohilkhand's fragmentation?
Before his death in 1749, Ali Mohammed Khan made Hafiz Rehmat Khan swear on the Koran to act as guardian of Rohilkhand until Ali Mohammed's sons came of age. The oath was meant to hold until those sons reached adulthood. By 1754, Hafiz Rehmat broke it and appropriated the most valuable portions of the kingdom for himself.
What happened to the Rohilla dynasty after Rohilkhand was conquered?
Faizullah Khan, the eldest surviving son of Ali Mohammed Khan, negotiated a separate treaty and retained his territory around Rampur. On the 7th of October 1774, the Rohilla State of Rampur was formally established in the presence of British Commander Colonel Champion. The same Rohilla dynasty continued to rule Rampur as a pliant state under British protection.
What was the religious makeup of the Kingdom of Rohilkhand?
About a quarter of Rohilkhand's population were Muslim converts, while the majority of inhabitants were Hindu. The Rohilla rulers were Muslim, but they governed a predominantly non-Muslim state, an unusual feature for a kingdom built on Afghan Muslim immigration.
All sources
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