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Bikaner
Bikaner
Walled desert city founded in 1488 by Rao Bika; capital of Bikaner State until 1947.
Rai Dalpat Singh
Seventh ruler of Bikaner, 1612–1613. Deposed by Jahangir for refusing an imperial order to leave Bikaner for Thatta, and killed; the throne passed to his younger brother Sur Singh.
p>Dalpat Singh was the second son of Raja Rai Singh, born around 1565, and he succeeded when his father died at Burhanpur in January 1612. He was styled Rai rather than Raja — the Mughal chancery was precise about such things, and Bikaner's own preference for Maharaja and Maharajadhiraja was not recognised.</p><p>His reign lasted about a year and ended because he would not do as he was told. Jahangir, already unhappy with what the sources call his rebellious conduct, appointed Mirza Rustam as Hakim of Thatta in 1612 and ordered Dalpat to accompany him — and, pointedly, to stop interfering in the affairs of Bikaner. It was the standard imperial technique for detaching an inconvenient vassal from his own power base. Dalpat refused.</p><p>Jahangir then instructed Javdin Khan, the Subedar of Hisar, to remove him from the gadi and install his younger brother Sur Singh in his place.</p>
p>How Dalpat Singh died is genuinely unresolved, and the three surviving accounts are not easily reconciled.</p><p>The regnal list in Wikipedia's Bikaner State article says that Sur Singh revolted against his elder brother and killed him along with his guards, with Jahangir's consent — a fratricide sanctioned from above. A second account, preserved in the traditions attached to Bhatner fort, has him hanged at Ajmer on 25 January 1614, with six of his queens performing sati in the fort a few days later; the episode is said to be inscribed on one of the fort's interior gates. A third, from the scholarly literature on the <em>Dalpat Vilas</em>, states simply that he was deposed for refusing to obey commands and killed by another noble shortly afterwards.</p><p>What the three agree on is the shape of it: Dalpat refused an imperial order, the empire removed him, and he did not survive the removal. They disagree on the hand that did it and on whether it happened in 1613 or January 1614.</p>
p>Dalpat is the most thoroughly forgotten ruler of Bikaner, and the reason is structural. The throne passed to his brother, and every subsequent ruler of the state descended from Sur Singh rather than from him. Dynastic histories are written by the winning line, and Dalpat had no descendants at court to keep his memory in them.</p><p>What survives is a text. The <em>Dalpat Vilas</em> — the Adventures of Dalpat — was composed to recount his life, and it has become valuable to historians for reasons unconnected with Bikaner: it preserves an alternative account of events at the Mughal court, including Akbar's hunt of 1578, that differs from the official chronicles. The one ruler the dynasty chose to forget left behind the source that scholars now read most closely.</p>
p>Wikipedia, 'Bikaner State' regnal list, 'Rai Singh of Bikaner'; the Bikaner genealogical tables (b. 1565, d. 1613, r. 1612–1613); <em>The Tribune</em>, 'Heritage: Bhatner fort' (13 January 2001), for the Thatta order, the role of Javdin Khan of Hisar, the hanging at Ajmer on 25 January 1614 and the sati of six queens; A. Truschke and others on the <em>Dalpat Vilas</em> in <em>Modern Asian Studies</em>, for the deposition and the text's later scholarly use.</p><p><strong>Unresolved.</strong> The manner and date of death conflict across sources as set out above. The date of death here is recorded as 1613 with year-level approximation, following the genealogical tables and the regnal list; the 25 January 1614 hanging is a live alternative.</p><p><strong>QID note.</strong> No Wikidata item confirmed; local QID minted pending verification.</p>
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