Bishan Singh

On the death of his grandfather Ramsingh I, the 16-year-old Bishan Singh returned to Amer with his Kachwaha clansmen. He had been serving with Ram Singh in Afghanistan, even though the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had demanded that he be sent to serve in the Deccan Wars. But remembering the fate of other Hindu princes when serving in the Mughal armies on distant campaigns, Ram Singh had evaded that order. For this he had been demoted in rank and reduced in the possession of some estates. Bishan, on the other hand, was entirely deprived of his rank and lands.

Raja Bishan Singh was thus the first ruler of Amer (since the days of the great Man Singh) to sit on the throne without any rank or status in the Mughal nobility. When Aurangzeb recognized Bishan Singh as Raja (30 April 1688), made him commander of 2500 cavalry, and gave him a cash advance for their maintenance, it seemed that the Amer royal family had come out of its dark days. The restoration came with a harsh condition: Bishan Singh was commanded to uproot the Jat rebels in the Agra province or these grants would be revoked.

At this stage, while Aurangzeb was fighting in the Deccan Wars, North India was also covered by strife. The main rebellions were of the Rajputs in Rajasthan, Malwa, Gujarat, Bundelkhand. Only the three weak states of Amer, Bundi, and Datia were in Mughal service, and were being used mostly against their own brethren by Aurangzeb. The other major rebellions were of the Sikhs in Punjab and the Jats in Agra.

The campaign against the Jats was led by Aurangzeb's grandson Bidar Bakht, with Bishan Singh as one of his subordinates. By that time the Jat leader Raja Ram Singh Sinsinwar had died but even so their resistance was ferocious. Sansani fort was taken at the cost of 200 Mughals and 700 Rajputs while the Jats gave up 1,500 of their men. The rest of the garrison was slaughtered by Bidar Bakht. Bishan Singh had been sent to take the lesser fort of Soghar—after conquering the fort the Rajput chief took 500 Jats as prisoners but did not slaughter any of them.[2]

Raja Bishan Singh carried out a military jurisdiction of the Mathura region in Agra from 1690–96 but was afterwards dismissed. Aurangzeb was angry because the Jats were not crushed, firstly because Bishan on his own did not have the resources to control the entire region, and secondly he would not engage in a slaughter of civilians. He was replaced by a Mughal officer named Itiqad Khan.

In 1696 Aurangzeb now commanded Bishan Singh, despite his previous dismissal, to serve in his ruinous Deccan Wars. The Raja pleaded with and bribed Mughal officials, Aurangzeb's sons, and the emperor's favorite daughter Zinat-un-nissa, until the order was changed to a summons for his 7-year-old son Jai Singh II.

Fearing the same fate as his father Kishan Singh, and other Rajput princes, Raja Bishan Singh evaded the order to go to the Deccan for almost two years. Displeased, Aurangzeb transferred Bishan Singh to Afghanistan with half the Kachwaha clan, while the rest were placed under Jai Singh II. The emperor then sent his men to force the child to fight in his wars.

In Afghanistan, Bishan Singh served under Shah Alam who spent every winter in Peshawar and moved to Kabul for the summer. Like his grandfather, Bishan Singh died in this bitterly cold region (31 December 1699).

The child Jai Singh II then came to the throne and raised his family and kingdom (known as Jaipur after him) to the first rank in Rajasthan after an eventful career of 44 years.

• House of Kachwaha

A History of Jaipur by Sir Jadunath Sarkar