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In today's episode,
we will talk about the Indian revolutionary,
who was the most wanted man in British India.
Whenever the cannon of history fires,
there will be an explosion of mysteries.
We will unravel deep secrets and dispel confusion.
We will hear untold stories and visit historical sites
with the help of experts,
we will discover new moments of exploration.
There will be much here
because this is "History Hunter" with Maniesh Paul.
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An Indian king who was India's "Most Wanted" freedom fighter.
The one who never fell into the hands of British rule.
He was trained in all kinds of warfare and administration.
He was partially being groomed to take over
as the next Peshwa after Bajirao II.
Nana Saheb is seen as the most violent,
the most monstrous,
and the most villainous figure by the British.
The British government poured money like water to arrest him.
Nana Saheb had a reward on his head for Rs 50,000
and later it was increased to Rs 1 lakh.
Whose revolt shook the British government.
Nana Saheb was an integral part of the uprising in Kanpur.
Until 1857, he was regarded as a friend of the British,
an ally, and a really good host.
Throughout England,
he is referred to simply as the "Butcher of Kanpur."
And then one night,
this controversial King suddenly disappeared.
And along with him vanished his treasure.
So we can estimate that the treasure
could be around 145 million pounds sterling today.
Who was it that presented
such a massive challenge to the British government?
Why has their life post 1857
become such a significant mystery even today?
Where did his treasure disappear?
Nana Govind Dhondu Pant,
known to people as "Nana Saheb Peshwa."
The last Peshwa of the Maratha Dynasty.
The forgotten hero of 1857.
Nana Saheb was the adopted son of Bajirao II.
After Bajirao II passed away,
in his will, he had given all his properties,
his jewels, his everything to Nana Saheb.
He was often seen sitting and chatting with British officers.
He often invited people as well back to his palace at Bithoor
in order to discuss things like, playing billiards.
The local Europeans and British officers in Kanpur
used to address Nana Saheb as the "Maharaja of Bithoor."
How did Nana Saheb become
the most wanted man from a Maharaja?
The last Peshwa, Bajirao II,
who surrendered to the British, to Sir John Malcolm
in 1818,
was given a pension of Rs 8 lakh per annum
and an estate from which he enjoyed the revenue.
Eight lakh rupees?
That means millions of rupees in today's terms.
After the death of Bajirao II,
the British government did not grant a pension to Nana Saheb.
They stated that he was Bajirao II's adopted son.
They only granted Nana Saheb permission
to stay at the Bithoor palace, and that too rent-free.
The company refused to give Nana Saheb the pension
that he felt was owed.
The company refused to treat Nana Saheb
as not only a Peshwa, but as a Maharaja.
This was Nana Saheb's grievance against the British.
From 1851 to around 1857,
he lobbied to have his pension renewed
and get back that estate.
On March 29, 1857, in Barrackpore,
soldier Mangal Pandey fired upon the English,
sounding the bugle for the first war of independence.
The situation was slipping out of the control
of the British government,
and there were few soldiers stationed in Kanpur at that time.
70-year-old General Wheeler,
had taken control of Kanpur a year earlier.
The revolt began on the night of June 5 in Kanpur,
and the surrounding villagers also joined the soldiers,
supporting them by taking to the streets.
So General Wheeler,
who was in charge of the cantonment
and the town of Kanpur, took the precaution
of calling every single white man and saying,
"You are not safe, please take refuge,"
in what came to be called the "entrenchment".
A lot of British people died.
Some died of wounds, lack of treatment,
some people died of starvation, lack of drinking water,
cholera, and so on and so forth.
It was a time of tremendous suffering,
so much so that this entrenchment,
this mud fort, came to be called "The fort of despair."
Before anyone knew it,
the rebels surrounded General Wheeler's entrenchment.
Guns and cannons started firing from both sides,
and for several days, that place turned into a war zone.
General Wheeler's entrenchment was under siege.
On June 25th,
people at the entrenchment saw a lady
coming towards the entrenchment with a white flag.
So, she was allowed to enter the entrenchment,
and she came as the bearer of a message from the rebel side.
She said it was a message from Nana Saheb.
In the message, they asked the English to surrender.
And in return, they promised to arrange boats
at Satichaura Ghat for them to go to Allahabad
and provide five rounds of ammunition.
On June 26,
General Wheeler agreed to surrender to Nana Saheb
and decided to leave that same night.
On the morning of June 27,
everyone from the entrenchment reached Satichaura Ghat.
Some were injured and on stretchers,
while there were also women and children.
As Nana Saheb had promised, there were boats there,
and the English started boarding the boats.
Once all the Britishers were on the boats,
a bugle sounded from the bank
and firing started into the boats
and the Indian boatman set fire to the awning.
You can imagine the chaos, a lot of screaming,
shouting, freaking, terror. Absolute terror.
All of the men that are in the cantonment,
that didn't get away from Satichaura Ghat are killed.
Approximately 450 people were on the boat.
Less than 50 survived.
The children, alongside women,
that survived are huddled together
and brought into the building known as the Bibighar.
Such an incident had never occurred before with the British in India.
How did this happen?
And under whose orders?
Who was behind this horrific massacre?
The best account we have
is from the survivor Captain Mobray Thomson,
who specifically blames Nana Saheb
and says that it was his knowledge, and his command
that the British were massacred at Satichaura Ghat.
British forces were about to capture Kanpur.
However, eyewitnesses from Bibighar
and Satichaura Ghat were still alive.
They were also killed before the British Army could get there.
When the investigation reports came out,
Nana Saheb's name was the first to appear,
stating that everything happened under his orders.
But was this true?
If not, where was Nana Saheb at that time?
Nana Saheb was to later write and say
that I was coming to Kanpur to help General Wheeler.
Rebels told him
that we were fighting to defend our Dharma and our Din.
You have been one of our leaders, so you join us,
and if you do not join us, we kill you.
However, scholar Holmes believed
that Nana Saheb had done all the planning,
and Tatya Tope had executed those plans.
Nana Saheb was definitely present at Satichaura Ghat.
Some accounts even say
that he gave the order for the sounding of the bugle
and the firing to commence.
So, very quickly,
Nana Saheb becomes public enemy number one for the British.
Nana Saheb became
"The most wanted man" for the British.
His effigies were burnt in London.
Arresting and executing him became the prime mission for the British.
And thus began the search for Nana Saheb.
The correspondent of The London Times,
a man called William Howard Russell, travelled with this army.
He describes that on the Grand Trunk Road
there was not a single tree
that did not have four to five rebels
who had been hung.
No trial, no question asked.
After the Kanpur massacre the British were after Nana Saheb.
But was Nana Saheb really behind the Kanpur massacre?
If not, then where had Nana Saheb gone?
From Bithoor, he planned an elaborate escape
to cross the Ganges and go into Awadh.
Nana Saheb, along with his family and brother Balarao,
was constantly changing his location to evade the British.
From Lucknow he went to Shahjahanpur, Bareilly,
and then into the Jungles of the Terai.
There was a reward of 50,000 kept on Nana Saheb's head.
50,000 for government people was a huge amount of money
at that time.
So the spurt of imposter Nana Saheb's kept coming.
When the reward of 50,000 did not have any effect,
they increased the reward.
And when the one lakh reward was announced,
yet again the British,
they just couldn't find the correct Nana Saheb.
A one lakh reward in the late 19th century,
which would be worth millions today,
proves how desperate the British government
was to arrest Nana Saheb.
Their anger was intense and frustration was escalating.
Nana Saheb had taken
the most valuable treasures and fled.
But the British decided
to take their anger out on the Bithoor Palace,
having not been able to capture Nana Saheb.
Balasaheb's wife, Raosaheb's wife, carried their jewels and ornaments,
among which the famed Naulakha Haar was also there.
It's said that the Naulakha necklace was a legendary necklace
made of flawless pearls, emeralds, and precious diamonds,
which Peshwa Bajirao I had crafted in that era for 9 lakh rupees.
So, did Nana Saheb leave with only this,
or did he have much more in his treasure trove?
From spies they got to know
that there is a huge well in which all this is kept.
They had to put four iron Persian wheels around the well.
In all, there were 25 people.
They worked for 12 consecutive days, 24/7,
taking out the water and trying to see
where the treasure was.
They found gold mohurs from the wells,
pewter pots, all the antiques made of gold and silver,
lamps, jewellery pots, a golden bowl weighing 40 pounds,
and many other precious items.
Not only that,
the British also obtained approximately 34 kg of gold
and around 114 kg of silver from one well.
Ammunition crates that were filled with rupees.
This was around about 30 lakhs of rupees.
We also have lots of different items,
so we can estimate that the treasure
could be around 145 million pounds sterling today.
As per today's standards, 145 million sterling,
means more than 1400 crore rupees.
Unbelievable!
And 3,06,000 pounds means approximately 3 crore rupees.
So, in 1859, Nana Saheb with his family reached Nepal.
Nana Saheb thought,
he would receive a very good welcome from Jung Bahadur.
He didn't.
Jung Bahadur was an ally of the British.
He had sent his forces to Kanpur against the rebels.
Jung Bahadur told Nana Saheb that the women folk are safe here.
You can leave them here,
but I don't want to see you ever again.
Jung Bahadur Rana couldn't kill Nana Saheb.
Nana Saheb was a Brahmin
and it was forbidden to kill a Brahmin.
So, Nana Saheb had some treasure,
particularly the great Naulakha necklace.
Jung Bahadur asked him, "Why should I let you stay here?
You are a fugitive of the British."
But then in the end,
he offered the Naulakha necklace to Jung Bahadur.
Jung Bahadur took advantage of the opportunity
and bought this necklace for only Rs 93,000.
We actually have a letter
that a British resident in Nepal at the time,
Colonel Ramsay, wrote outlining that Bhalerao,
Nana Saheb's brother who was with him in the Terai,
had complained vociferously
about the sheer amount of over 500 luxurious items
that were given to Jung Bahadur and to his generals
to allow the Indian rebels to stay in the Terai.
The Terai region is an area near the Himalayan foothills
and the Shivalik hills, situated between India and Nepal.
It's a tall grassland and marshy area
surrounded by swamps and forests, meaning it is home to wild animals.
June 1859.
General Badri Narsingh in Nepal's Butwal
received a letter from Nana Saheb
in which he requested that for the last two months,
Balasaheb has been unwell
and a good doctor should be sent to their camp.
This letter directly implied that Nana Saheb,
who was residing in Terai, was not in good health.
Jwala Prasad was one of the key lieutenants of Nana Saheb.
In 1860, Jwala Prasad was captured
and it was confirmed that Nana Saheb had died
of malarial fever in 1859.
The British had no proof of Nana Saheb's death.
Unconfirmed reports of his sightings were still coming in,
so the reward was still open.
Was the news of Nana Saheb's death
a new conspiracy against the British government?
In 1861,
it was Colonel Ramsay who was commandant in Kanpur,
and even he believed that it's a rumour
that Nana Saheb is no more, and that he's still alive.
The claims about Nana Saheb's death didn't cease.
A sepoy from the 60th infantry
claimed to have seen Nana Saheb's dead body
and participated in the cremation.
A European,
who was kidnapped by Nana Saheb's army,
mentioned spotting Nana Saheb in Tibet.
Additionally, the same claim was made by Sepoy Ramdin,
who was serving a sentence in Lucknow jail.
The common aspect in both their claims was that
Nana Saheb's appearance resembled that of an ascetic.
From the 1860s onwards we get lots of different accounts of Nana Saheb
dressed as a sadhu or as a fakir.
Between 1863-64,
several people were arrested under suspicion.
Most of them fell victim to mistaken identity.
Some individuals were denied identification by witnesses,
while others, in order to claim a reward,
pretended to be Nana Saheb and got themselves arrested.
From 1877 to 1890,
Nana Saheb was reportedly spotted in various other countries
such as Mecca, the Middle East, Russia, and many other nations.
Furthermore, there were reports suggesting that
Nana Saheb had allied with the Russians
and was planning to come to India to launch an attack
against the British.
The British government had grown tired of Nana Saheb's case.
They did not display any enthusiasm and didn't even verify the reports.
The passion to hunt down Nana Saheb died down.
Almost 40 years had passed since the Kanpur revolt.
When Nana Saheb became the Peshwa in 1851,
he was around 35 years old,
which means he was now around 75 years old.
His chances of survival were low, and even if he were captured,
proving him to be Nana Saheb would have been difficult.
Finally, in 1906,
due to the British government's inability
to find any evidence of Nana Saheb's death,
his file was officially closed.
A large part of what happened to Nana Saheb remains a mystery.
How he died, where he died,
and when he died remains unknown.
Nana Saheb's death is no less than a Hollywood spy thriller movie.
From Bithoor to Kanpur,
Lucknow, Nepal, Terai,
Tibet, the Middle East, Mecca, and Russia.
The British government hunted for him in numerous places.
Their failure to find him still haunts the British today.
Perhaps, such a hunt has rarely been carried out
for anyone in history.
I salute you, Nana Saheb.
The British ran us around for 200 years,
and in return, you led them in a race
whose finish line they are still searching for today.
We almost hunted down Nana Saheb's treasure,
but his death remains a mystery even today
and will continue to be so.
See you in the next hunt,
this is Maniesh Paul signing off from History Hunter.
And remember,
don't be a troublemaker, be a History Hunter.
Subtitle Caption by ZestCorp