Mohansingh (ruler)
| Mohansingh | |
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Ruler of
Early lifeThe king of the Haihayas. According to J.W. Chisholm, Mohansingh was represented as "a young man of physical strength and considerable personal attraction". The young Mohansingh remained with the raja Raj Singh frequently for months and became his favourite.[3][1][4]
Raj Singh eventually made Mohan Singh his successor, however, the death of Raj Singh was somewhat sudden and Mohan Singh was on a shooting expedition at that time. Thus Mohan Singh could not come back early and Rajsingh thus crowned his grand-uncle Sardar Singh as the king. According to a theory proposed by Dr. P.L. Mishra, he wandered aimlessly for at least twenty years during the reign of Sardarsingh. After the Raghuji Bhonsle, who was returning from the Bengal campaign, installed Mohansingh as the Haihaya king under his suzerainty.[3][1][4][7]
ReignThe zamindars of the kingdom were irked at the new king, Mohansingh since he was a Maratha vassal. Unlike his Haihaya ancestors, who solely exercised overlordship over petty chieftains, Mohansingh started successfully conquering and directly ruling over the zamindaris. In order to please his Maratha overlords, he deposed the Haihaya ruler of Raipur, who was his relative and gave him a pension. After the death of the ruler in 1753, he stopped the pension to his cousins. He was faithful and obedient to the Raghuji Bhonsle's death, his sons were assigned different roles by the peshwa to avoid a succession struggle. Janoji became the king of Nagpur and given the title of Sena Sahib Suba, Sabaji was to govern Western Berar with his headquarters at Darwha, Mudhoji was given the title of Senadhurandhar with Chanda an Chhattisgarh as his jurisdiction and Bhonsle was to govern Chhattisgarh with his headquarters at Ratanpur .
Therefore Bimbaji proceeded for Chhattisgarh to assume his post, which would mean Mohansingh's dismissal. Therefore Mohansingh started collecting his resources and forces near Raipur half-heartedly but he died shortly after and thus, Bimbaji assumed rule of the region with ease.[3][8][9] References
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