Mohan Singh's Waqai Holkar (An Old and Rare Book)

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Waqai Holkar is the only Persian work, which deals with the early history of the Holkars of the former Indore State during the XVIIIth Century, and then gives a detailed account of the stormy petrel of that house, Jaswant Rao Holkar, till the beginning of July, 1807 A.D when he finally returned to Bhanpura.

The original Persian work fully covers the entire period of Yashwant Rao's active life. It was written by Mohan Singh, from the facts as narrated to him by Bakshi Bhawani Shankar who took service with Jaswant Rao Holkar in Feb., 1798, when the latter was proceeding to Nagpur, and there-after was his constant companion. Thus for about seven years Bakshi Bhawani Shankar, in the words of Jadunath Sarkar, "acted as Jaswant Rao Holkar's guardian, Prime Minister, diplomatic agent and lieutenant in campaigns" till about April 1805, when he quitted Jaswant Rao's service and joined the service of the British Government (E.I. Company). The author, Mohan Singh, however, even thereafter continued to be in the service of Jaswant Rao Holkar, and wrote down the later facts based on his own personal inquiries.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar translated 'Waqai Holkar' in English from the photo -prints of the Bodleian Manuscript. He could not, however, find time to prepare corrected and annotated transcript of his English translation Maharaj Kumar Dr. Raghubir Sinh of Sitamau, one of the most eminent historians of India and a disciple of Sir Jadunath, has fulfilled the desire of his great teacher by publishing a carefully revised and annotated typescript left by Sarkar.

The work should prove very helpful to the researchers and historians of this period as besides being an authentic contemporary account of these fateful years of the first decade of the XIXth Century, its author, Mohan gives us a very helpful glimpse of the prevailing spirit of those tumultuous times.

Waqai Holkar is the only Persian work, which deals with the early history of the Holkars of the former Indore State during the XVIIIth Century, and then gives a detailed account of the stormy petrel of that house, Jaswant Rao Holkar, till the beginning of July, 1807 A.D. when he finally returned to Bhanpura. The original Persian work fully covers the entire period of Yashwant Rao's active life. It was written by Mohan Singh, from the facts as narrated to him by Bakhshi Bhawani Shankar, who took service with Jaswant Rao Holkar early in Feb. 1798, when the latter was proceeding to Nagpur, and there-after was his constant companion. Thus for about seven years Bakhshi Bhawani Shankar, in the words of Jadunath Sarkar, "acted as Jaswant Rao Holkar's guardian, prime minister, diplomatic agent and lieutenant in campaigns" till about April 1805, when he quitted Jaswant Rao's service and joined the service of the British Government (E.I. Company). The author, Mohan Singh, however, even thereafter continued to be in the service of Jaswant Rao Holkar, and wrote down the later facts based on his own personal inquiries.

Waqai Holkar is full account of Jaswant Rao Holkar's active career, based on the narration of his contemporary close associate, Bakhshi Bhawani Shankar, and the author Mohan Singh's personal knowledge. Thus it is definitely more authentic than the Marathi chronical "Holkaranchi Kaifiyat", written in the later years of the sixth decade of the XIX Century A.D. The details of the happenings during Sept. and Nov 1797, and Feb., 1798, mentioned in "Waqat Holkar, are duly confirmed by the relevant contemporary despathes of Joshua Uhthoff, the then acting Resident (Feb., 1798. Mar., 1798 A.D.) at Poona. (PR.C, VI, Let. Nos. 25-26, 48, 78, 86, 88, 90).

Three Manuscripts of 'Waqai Holkar' are extant at present. They are-

(1) Khudabakhsh Library, Bankipur-Patna, Ms. No. 618, dated 4 Shaban, A. H. 1223 (Sun., Sept. 25, 1808), but is not autographed by the author.

(2) Bodleian Library, Oxford, Manuscript No. Bodl. Or. 779. Its first owner, Watkins, wrote his name on it on Feb. 24, 1812.

(3) India Office Library, London, No. 3930 is a 19th Century A.D. Ms.

Micro-films and or Photo-prints of all these three Mss. are available in Shri Raghubir Library, Sitamau.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar translated 'Waqai Holkar in English from the photo-prints of the Bodleian Manuscript after duly collating its text with that of the Patna Manuscript, which had been previously copied out for him. Sir Jadunath Sarkar was very keen to duly edit it him-self, as in his letter of Sept. 17, 1945, he had written to me- "I shall certainly send to you the corrected and annotated typescript of my English translation of Waqai-i-Holkar." (Making of Princely Historian, Let. Nos. 196-197, p. 187). But unfortunately he could not prepare such a corrected and annotated transcript of his English Translation. In Oct. 1945, he was anxiously making efforts to search out his son-in-law, Maj. Sunil Kumar Ghosh, I.A., of 5th Bn. 2nd Punjab Regiment, then in the 3rd Indian Corps in Malaya, missing since he left Singapur on Feb. 13, 1942, just before its surrender to the Japanese forces, and his ship was torpedoed off East Coast on the following day.

Thereafter Sir Jadunath Sarkar left Calcutta for Dehradun, (U.P.), for about three weeks, along with his widowed dauthter, Shrimati Sudha Ghosh and her sons, who were to stay on in Dehradun. He returned to Calcutta with a touch of rheumatism, and thus his plans of preparing a corrected and annotated typescript of Waqai-Holkar could not be taken up thereafter. Consequently, the typescript copy of his English Translation, then retained by me, has been carefully revised, annotated and is being published now in the fulfillment of Sir Jadunath Sarkar's unfulfilled desire to do so.

**Contents and Sample Pages**