ABSTRACT
We have seen that after the fall of Delhi on 20 September no organized resistance remained in northern, central or western Haryana. Yet southern Haryana had not yet accepted defeat. Rao Tularam had left Delhi on 13 September, a day before the assault, and had arrived at his headquarters at Fort Rampura. 1 Shahzada Mohammad Azim too left Jamalpur on the same day after his defeat at the hands of Van Cortlandt’s forces. General Abdus Samad Khan with his cavalry too came into the region and slipped into Rajputana. Rao Krishan Gopal alias Kishan Singh of Nangal Pathani had by that time come from Meerut, where he was naib kotwal, and all of them were in contact with each other. In the meantime, the Jodhpur Legion had mutinied at Mount Abu and Irinpura on 21 August and had marched towards Delhi, but before it could do anything, Delhi had fallen; it was thus held up in the Khetri-Singhana area. A massive campaign had been started by the British forces to eliminate any resistance, and capture or kill each and every rebel. The forces in the shape of moveable columns, these sahibbas could be seen everywhere; now starting from Delhi on 2 October, now from Rohtak on 6 October and then again on 13 October; first towards Hansi and later towards Bhiwani; from Hansi to Bhiwani on the 13th; the Rohtak and Hissar columns converging at Bhiwani on the 14th and then arriving in Dadri on the 16th. Brigadier Showers we have already seen moving from Gurgaon to Pataudi, Rewari, Jatusana, Nahar, Dadri, Jhajjar, Mahendragarh, Taoru, Sohna and Ballabgarh leaving a trail of burnt villages, dead bodies in the battlefields at many a place, and men hanging from the trees. The Haryana had, of course, been put to a great churning to weed out rebellion, and in this process numerous innocent lives had been taken even without verifying the identity of the accused. Even then Showers column could not smash the spirit of liberty. A correspondent writes,
It is now 10 p.m., and we are all done up by the hard day’s work; but I must write to tell you, that about 11 a.m. we met the Jodpore Legion with no end of mutineers and budmashes from Delhi and its neighbourhood, whom Brigadier Showers let off, because they dropped their arms or hid them in the fields and jungles, whilst his Brigade remained in their vicinity, but shouldered them the moment he was out of sight. 2
