Two Ropes at Ranchi
Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo and Pandey Ganpat Rai raised Chhota Nagpur in 1857 and were hanged at the same Ranchi tree five days apart
Vishwanath Shahdeo of Barkagarh raised a Mukti Vahini in August 1857 with the mutinous Ramgarh Battalion and the chiefs of the plateau, and made the dismissed dewan Pandey Ganpat Rai his commander-in-chief. Beaten at Chatra, both were taken in March 1858 and hanged from the same kadamb tree at the Ranchi district school gate, Shahdeo on 16 April and Ganpat Rai on 21 April. Tikait Umrao Singh and his dewan Sheikh Bhikhari, who blocked the Chutupalu pass and were hanged there in January 1858, are carried inside the lesson.
The Kadamb Tree at the School Gate
It is 16 April 1858, outside the gate of the district school at Ranchi. A kadamb tree stands at the edge of the road. The Company has been using this tree for the men it takes out of Ranchi jail. There is a well in the compound, and the bodies go down it.
A man of forty is brought out. He is Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo, and until last year he was the ruler of Barkagarh, an estate of more than a hundred villages south of this town. He was born at Satranji on 12 August 1817. He had a fort, a temple his family built, and a rent roll.
He has none of those now. The fort has been blown up. The estate is confiscated. His wife is in hiding with a one-year-old son. He was caught last month at Lakraj, in Lohardaga, by a British column, and the evidence that convicted him came from a neighbouring chief.
Five days later, at the same tree, they will hang his commander-in-chief. That man is Pandey Ganpat Rai, and until 1857 he was the dewan, the chief minister, of the Raja of Chhota Nagpur. Two ropes, five days apart, at the same school gate. The question this lesson answers is what these two men actually did to earn them.
A Dewan and a Thakur
They came from opposite ends of the same society and both lost their footing the same way.
Ganpat Rai was born on 17 January 1809 at Bhaunro village in Lohardaga. He inherited the post of dewan at the court of the Nagvanshi Raja of Chhota Nagpur from his uncle. A dewan ran the revenue, the courts and the household of a small kingdom. It was the most powerful job in the plateau that an Indian could hold.
By the 1850s the job was hollow. The Raja was under Company supervision, and the real decisions were taken by British officers at Ranchi and Doranda. Ganpat Rai refused to take his orders from them and was dismissed.