A September in Patparganj

It was here in Patparganj that the Battle of Delhi was fought on September 11,1803 between British troops led by General Gerard Lake and the Scindia army under French commander Louis Bourquien.

It was this engagement,and the Battle of Assaye 12 days later near Jalna in Maharashtra,which decided the outcome of the Second Anglo-Maratha War — the decline of Maratha power and British ascendancy in north India.

The Battle of Patparganj was the battle for Delhi. The city fell three days after the defeat of the Maratha army. Today,group housing societies stand on what was the battlefield. The only reminder is a memorial pillar amidst the greens of the Noida Golf Course.

Erected in 1916,the pillar records: “Near this spot was fought on September 11,1803,the Battle of Delhi in which forces of the Mahrattas,commanded by M. Louis Bourquien,were defeated by the British Army under General Gerard Lake.”

When the battle was fought,Shah Alam II was on the Mughal throne,a helpless 75-year-old who had been blinded by the renegade Ghulam Qadir. In 1772,Mahadji Shinde and his Maratha army had returned the emperor to Delhi from Allahabad.

After the Marathas withdrew from Delhi,the British,who felt threatened by the growing French influence in the area,went to war with the Marathas who were led by Bourquien. In the Battle of Patparganj,Lord Lake’s troops defeated the Scindia army on the banks of the Yamuna and occupied Delhi.

There are different accounts of the run-up to the Patparganj battle.

Historian M S Navarane says the emperor wanted to free himself and sent a message to Lake,seeking help. As Lake’s forces advanced,the Marathas opened fire which resulted in heavy casualties and Lake’s withdrawal.

Presuming that the British were retreating,the Marathas charged. But the retreating British troops,Navarane says,were screening the main force.The Maratha army was routed and many perished in the Yamuna.

Professor Seema Alavi says Patparganj figures as a military base camp in the late 18th and early 19th century.

“The area remained in the fringes. In the late 18th century,at the time of Najaf Khan,Antoine Polier was employed by Shuja-ud-daula,the Nawab of Awadh. Sources of that period,in the form of letters written by Polier,show he was camped at Patparganj,” says Alavi.

Since ganj means market,the area must have served as an exchange centre. And if the Yamuna was flowing closer to Patparganj at that time,there is reason to believe that Patparganj was a market,supplied with goods ferried by boats.

According to scholar and historian Narayani Gupta,Delhi was “fed from the doab and the grain emporia east of the river in Shahdara,Ghaziabad and Patparganj.”

Other historians also note that wholesale merchants resided in Patparganj and Shahdara,suburbs of Shahjahanabad in the 18th century. Both the areas,however,were completely destroyed in the mid-18th century,writes the noted historian Stephen P Blake.

From a grain market teeming with merchants to a battlefield full of soldiers,and now home to an aspirational middle class. Patparganj has kept its date with history. September 1803 to September 2012 is just a little over 200 years,a blip in history.