Jhansi Fort

01From Orchha to the Newalkars

Bir Singh Deo, the Bundela raja of Orchha, built the fort on a rocky rise called Bangra in 1613. When the Mughals pressed Bundelkhand in the 1720s, Chhatrasal called on Bajirao I, and in gratitude left a share of his lands to the Peshwa; Jhansi came to the Marathas this way. The Peshwa’s governor Naro Shankar enlarged the fort and the town in the 1740s, and later the Newalkar family held Jhansi as subahdars and then rajas. Gangadhar Rao Newalkar married Manikarnika, Manu, the daughter of a Peshwa retainer from Varanasi, in 1842; she became Rani Lakshmibai. He died on 21 November 1853, a day after adopting a son, Damodar Rao. In March 1854 Dalhousie refused the adoption and annexed Jhansi.

02The siege of 1858

In June 1857 the sepoys at Jhansi rose and killed the British officers and their families; the Rani took up the government. Sir Hugh Rose’s Central India Field Force reached Jhansi on 21 March 1858. Her gunners, with guns such as Kadak Bijli, answered from the walls for days, and when Tatya Tope came to relieve her with a large army Rose beat him on the Betwa on 1 April. The town was stormed on 3 April. On the following night the Rani rode out with her son tied to her back, and the fort was in British hands by 5 April. She fought on at Kalpi and Gwalior, where she fell on 18 June 1858. Inside are the Ganesh temple where she worshipped and the spot on the wall from where, it is said, she leapt on horseback.

The life of this place