1621 - Birth of Guru Tegh Bahadur on 1st April in 1621. He was the ninth of ten gurus in the Sikh religion. Guru Tegh Bahadur was executed on the orders of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor, in Delhi, on 11 November in 1675.
Born in Amritsar, Guru Tegh Bahadur was the youngest son of Guru Hargobind (1595 – 1644), the sixth Sikh guru.
1857 - Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of the 34th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) mutinied against his commanding officers of the East India Company on 29 March 1857.
This event and his role in the subsequent events led to more resentment among the sepoys of the Bengal Army ultimately aiding in the Revolt of 1857. Also known as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857 resulted in the dissolution of the East India Company and the beginning of the British Raj through the Government of India Act 1858.
Mangal Pandey was executed on 8 April 1857.
1531 - Mahmud Shah II of Malwa surrendered to Bahadur Shah, the sultan of Muzaffarid dynasty of Gujarat after the fort of Mandu fell to Bahadur on 28th March 1531.
Death of Syed Ahmad Khan on 27th March in 1898. Sayyid Ahmad Khan was an Indian Muslim reformer and educationist. He is credited for originating the two-nation theory, founding the Aligarh Movement and being a founding father of Pakistan.
Syed Ahmad Khan began publishing the journal Tehzeeb-ul-Akhlaq (Social Reformer) on 24 December 1870 to spread awareness and knowledge on modern subjects and promote reforms in Muslim society.
He was born on 17 October in 1817 in Delhi,
1552 - Amar Das became the third Sikh Guru on 26 March 1552 at the age of 73. Born on 5 May 1479 at Basarke in Amritsar district, Guru Amar Das was raised in an orthodox Hindu family. He established his headquarters in Goindwal. He introduced the ceremony of the Anand Karaj Marriage. He died on 1st September 1574, at the age of 95.
1931 - Death of Indian journalist and politician Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi on 25 March in 1931. Founder-editor of the Hindi language newspaper, Pratap, Vidyarthi was killed in 1931 in the communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in Kanpur.
1946 - Cabinet Mission arrives in India on 24 March 1946. In September 1945, the newly elected Labour government under Clement Atlee in Britain expressed its intention of creating a Constituent Assembly for India, that would frame India’s Constitution. The Cabinet Mission was sent to India to make this happen. Cabinet Mission arrives in New Delhi on 24 March 1946
The members of the Cabinet Mission were Lord Penthick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, and A.V Alexander, First Lord of Admiralty.
The Cabinet Mission's plan failed due to the disagreement between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League.
1776 - Death of Carnatic classical music composer Muthuswami Dikshitar on 24 March in 1776. He was one of the trinity of Carnatic music. Tyagaraja and Syama Sastri are the other two. Dikshitar mainly composed in Sanskrit with the exception of a few kritis in Telugu and Manipravalam. Manipravalam is a combination of the Sanskrit and Tamil languages.
He had written Sanskrit lyrics to colonial tunes that had arrived with the British East India Company.
1351 - Firuz Shah Tughlaq, the third ruler of the Tughlaq dynasty, succeeded the throne on 23 March 1351 at the age of forty-six. He became sultan after the demise of his cousin Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq who had become second Tughlaq sultan in 1325 AD.
Firuz Shah Tughlaq is credited with the founding of the cities of Jaunpur in 1359 (Uttar Pradesh), Hissar and Fatehabad (Haryana), Firozpur (Punjab). Jaunpur was named after Muhammad bin Tughluq who was known by the name of Juna Khan before his accession to the throne.
1739- Military leader Nader Shah sacks Delhi on 22 March 1739 during the reign of Mughal emperor Mohammad Shah by killing thousands of the inhabitants of the city.
1894 - Birth of Surya Sen, an Indian revolutionary, on 22 March 1894. He is best known for leading the Chittagong Armoury Raid in 1930.
A revolutionary leader from Bengal, Surya Sen had founded the Chittagong Republic Army with a view to freeing Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) from the British rule. A teacher by profession, Surya Sen led an armed uprising and organized simultaneous attacks on the British strongholds.
On April 18, 1930, the Chittagong (or Indian) Republican Army, founded by Surya Sen, raided two government armories. The telegraph, telephone and railway station were disrupted. As a result, Chittagong was completely cut of from the rest of India. After these daring raids and attacks, Surya Sen declared the formation of a free National Revolutionary Government.
But his venture did not last long. As a result successive defeats, he went for guerilla warfare and in the meantime extended his fight to the adjoining districts of Chittagong. After nearly three years of valiant struggle, he was captured in February 1933 due to the betrayal by one his followers. He was sentenced to death in 1934.
1887- Birth of Manabendra Nath Roy, better known as M. N. Roy, on 21 March 1887. M. N. Roy was a revolutionary, philosopher, radical activist and political theorist. Roy was the founder of the Mexican Communist Party and the Communist Party of India (Tashkent group).
M. N. Roy died on 25 January in 1954.
1351 - Death of Muḥammad bin Tughluq on 20th March in 1351. Muhammad bin Tughluq was the second ruler of the Tughluq dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. He was the son of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq, the founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. He ascended the throne after killing his father. Born Jauna Khan aka Ulugh Khan, Muhammad bin Tughluq died 20th March in 1351 while fighting against the rebels in Thatta in Sindh.
Muhammad bin Tughluq was among the most remarkable, enigmatic and controversial figures among the Sultans of Delhi. To his contemporaries, he was a mixture of cruelty and kindness.
1602 - Dutch East India Company was established on 20 March 1602 to facilitate trade between the Netherlands and the rest of the world. Chinsurah (now Chuchura) in Hooghly district in West Bengal was a famous Dutch settlement.
1919 - Rowlatt Act was passed by the British government in Delhi on 18 March 1919. The Rowlatt Act made it legal for British forces to arrest and hold Indians without a trial and judicial review.
Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar to protest against the Rowlatt Act on 13th April in 1919.
In 1919, Satyagraha Sabha was formed by Mahatma Gandhi in Bombay to protest against the Rowlatt Act.
1920 - Birth of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 17 March 1920. Also known by the honorific Bangabandhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, statesman and activist, who was the first president of Bangladesh.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was voted as the Greatest Bengali of all time in the 2004 BBC opinion poll.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed during a military coup in 1975, along with most of his family.
1527 - The Battle of Khanwa was fought on 16 March 1527 at Khanwa, a village in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. Khanwa is 60 km west of Agra. The battle was fought between Babur, the first Mughal emperor, and the Mewar ruler Rana Sanga for supremacy of Northern India. The battle resulted in the victory of the Mughal forces.
1206 - Muhammad of Ghor or Muhammad Ghori was stabbed to death at Damyak (in modern Pakistan) on the 15th March, 1206. Muhammad Ghori was the next prominent invader on India after Mahmud of Ghazni. Muhammad Ghori took the title of Mu'izzuddin Muhammad ibn Sam after he became sultan.
1878 - The Vernacular Press Act of 1878 was introduced by Lord Lytton, then Viceroy of India, and was passed on March 14, 1878. The Vernacular Press Act was enacted to curtail the freedom of the Indian press and prevent the expression of criticism toward British policies.
The Vernacular Press Act was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon, the then viceroy of India.
1742 - Death of Nana Phadnavis (also spelt as Nana Fadnavis) on 13 March 1800 in Pune. Nana Fadnavis was a brilliant Maratha minister and statesman during the Peshwa administration in Pune. He is often referred to as "the Maratha Machiavelli".
Nana Phadnavis was born in Satara on 12th February in 1742.
1940 - Michael O’Dwyer was killed in London on 13th March 1940 by Udham Singh.
Udham Singh was a great revolutionary who avenged the infamous Jalianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar by murdering Michael O’Dwyer, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab in 1919 when Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, the military commander of Amritsar had ordered the firing on the innocent people who have gathered here to protest the arrest of Congress leaders Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal under Rowlatt Act.
Udham Singh killed O’Dwyer in London on 13th March 1940. He was arrested on the spot and sentenced to death on 21st July in the same year.
1481- Muhammad Shah III of the Bahmani Empire sacks Kanchi or Kanchipuram temple on March 12, 1481. Other temples of Kanchipuram were looted by Muhammad III along with his minster Mahmud Gawan who confiscated large amounts of gold, silver and precious jewels.
1689 - Death of Sambhaji on 11 March 1689. Eldest son of Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha Empire, Sambhaji ruled from 1681 to 1689. He was captured, and after cruel torture for more than three weeks by Aurangzeb, he was brutally put to death by the Mughals forces on the instruction of Aurangzeb. He was executed by beheading on 11 March 1689 at Tulapur on the banks of the Bhima river near Pune.
Sambhaji was born at Purandar fort to Shivaji's first wife, Saibai Nimbalkar, who died on 5 September 1659 when he was two years old.
1897 - Death of Savitribai Phule on March 10 in 1897. Savitribai Phule was a poet, reformer and educationist. Born on January 3, 1831 in Naigaon in a lowly Mali family in Maharashtra Satara district she was married off at the tender age of 10. Her parents were Lakshmi and Khandoji Nevase Patil.
Critical of the prevailing Hindu religion and custom Savitribai Phule along with her husband, Jyotirao Phule, established several schools for the uplift of the untouchables and women.
Savitribai Phule started India’s first school for girls at Pune's Bhide Wada in 1848.
To make the depressed classes conscious of their rights, she and her husband founded the Satya Sodhak Samaj in 1873.
Savitribai passed away on March 10, 1897.
Her important works include:
• Kavya Phule (“Flowers of Poems”) (published in 1854)
• Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (published in1892)
• Matushri Savitribai Phulenchi Bhashane Va Gaani
• Jotibanchi Bhashane Vol. 1 to 4 – [Collection of Mahatma Phule’s speeches, edited by Savitribai Phule],
In Savitribai’s honour, the Pune University was renamed the Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2015.
Key Takeaways
1285 - Death of Muhammad Khan, eldest son of Slave Sultan Balban, on 9th March in 1285. Balban did not lose sight of the Mongol danger that was lurking in the north-west frontier of the Mamluk kingdom during his rule .
Balban’s cousin Sher Khan Sunqar was ably defending the frontier. However, Balban grew suspicious of him and got him murdered. His death left the field open for the Mongols to indulge in their incursions of the frontier tracts. After Sher Khan Sunqar prince Muhammad was made governor of Multan to check the Mongol menace.
Bughra Khan, Balban's second son, was placed in charge of the territories of Samana and Sunam. In 1279 they, together with Malik Mubarak Bektars from Delhi, successfully repulsed the Mongol invasion.
However, in A.D. 1285 Mongols under their leader Tamar invaded Punjab. Muhammad proceeded towards Lahore and Dipalpur and was killed during his fight against the Mongols. He was given the title of Shahid, "the Martyr" and came to be known as Khan-i-Shahid, (the Martyr Prince).
1535- Death of Rani Karnavati on 8 March 1535. A princess and temporary ruler from Bundi in Rajasthan Rani Karnavati, also known as Rani Karmavati, was married to Mewar ruler Rana Sanga (c. 1508–1528).
Rani Karnavati was grandmother of Maharana Pratap. She served as regent during the minority of her son, from 1527 until 1533. She was as fierce as her husband and defended Chittor, the capital of Mewar, with a small contingent of soldiers until it inevitably fell to the Gujarat army which was led by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. She refused to flee and performed jauhar to protect her honor.
1775 - The Treaty of Surat was signed on 7th March in 1775. Under the treaty Raghunath Rao, one of the claimants to the throne of the Peshwa, agreed to cede Salsette and Bassein Fort to the British in consideration of being himself restored to Poona.
Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal, disapproved of the Bombay Government’s action and annulled the Treaty of Surat and sent his own agent to negotiate a very different new pact, the Treaty of Purandhar (1776).
Manasollasa is authored by Kalyani Chalukya king Bhulokamalla Someshwara III who ruled from 1126 AD and 1138.
Also known as Abhilasitartha-chintamani (the wish-fulfilling
magic stone), this five volume compendium deals with a vast array of topics
namely polity, governance, ethics, economics, astronomy, astrology, rhetoric,
metallurgy, veterinary medicine, horticulture, perfumes, food, architecture, games,
painting, poetry, healing of trees, dance and music.
This 12th century encyclopaedic treatise is written in Sanskrit.
1759 - The siege of Masulipatam or Machilipatnam commenced on 6 March 1759 by the British during the Seven Years' War 1756–63), a conflict between European powers. The siege commenced on 6 March 1759 and lasted until the storming of the town by the British on the 7 April. The British were commanded by Colonel Francis Forde while the French defenders were under the command of Conflans.
1575 - On 3 March 1575, the Battle of Tukaroi was fought between the Mughals army and the Sultanate of Bengal .
The Battle of Tukaroi, also known as the Battle of Bajhaura or the Battle of Mughulmari, took place near the village of Tukaroi in present-day Balasore district of Odisha. It resulted in a Mughal victory and led to the weakening of the Bengal Sultanate which was annexed to the Mughal empire after their victory in the Battle of Rajmahal in 1576.
1707 - Death of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor, on 3rd March. He ascended the throne after imprisoning his father Shah Jehan, the fifth Mughal emperor in 1658. Shah Jahan passed the remaining years of his life in captivity until he died at the age of seventy-four in 1966.
A ruthless and intolerant ruler known for his military prowess, Aurangzeb ruled from 1658 to 1707. Mughal Empire was at its most expansive during the reign of Aurangzeb.
Aurangzeb who came out victorious in the terrible war of succession that took place among the sons of Shah Jahan. The war for succession continued till 1661 and in between 1658 and 1661 all the remaining sons of Shah Jahan were killed or executed.
1700 - Death of Rajaram, the third king (Chhatrapati) of the Maratha Kingdom, on 2nd March in 1700. He was the third king (Chhatrapati) of the Maratha Kingdom, who ruled from 1689 to 1700.
Born on 24 February in 1670, Rajaram was the son Shivaji. He ascended the throne in 1689 after the death of his (half) brother Sambhaji who was brutally put to death by Aurangzeb.
Rajaram died on 2 March 1700 in Sinhgad fort (in Pune district) at the age of 30.
1949 - Death of Sarojini Naidu on 2nd March in 1949. Sarojini Naidu was born on 13 February in 1879. She was the president of the Indian National Congress in the Kanpur session held in 1925. She became the second woman to preside over the Congress after Annie Besant. She was given the title of "Nightingale of India".
Sarojini Naidu had participated in the Second Round Table Conference in 1931. Round Table Conferences were convened by the British government between 1930 and 1932 to discuss constitutional reforms in India.
Sarojini Naidu became the first Governor of United Provinces in 1947 after Indian Independence and died in office on 2nd March in 1949.
