1857 Revolution hero Nahar Singh’s letter up for auction in London

The 1857 Revolution hero, Nahar Singh’s mysterious letter to a former Governor-General of British India, Lord Ellenborough, will be auctioned on October 4, 2011 at Bonhams in London.

The letter dictated in English to a secretary, was written on September 10, 1857 , just four days before British troops stormed into Delhi in one of their first successful actions to regain control of the country.

The letter is signed by Nahar Singh as the ‘Rajah of independent Ballabhgarh’ and is estimated at £ 1,000-1,500.

Singh, a close aide of Bahadur Shah Zafar, was the King of the princely state of Ballabhgarh in Faridabad District of Haryana. He had played an active and public role in the mutiny from its beginning. It seems likely that the letter was written as a ruse to deceive the British in the event of his capture. Nahar Singh was taken prisoner and hanged for his part in the mutiny in 1858.

Raja Nahar Singh (1823–1858) was a King of the princely state of Ballabhgarh in Faridabad District of Haryana, India. The forefathers of Jat Raja Nahar Singh had built a fort in Faridabad around 1739. The small kingdom of Ballabhgarh is only 20 miles from Delhi. The name of the Jat Raja Nahar Singh will always be highly regarded among those who martyred themselves in the 1857 war of independence.