Nana Sahib

Also called: Nana Saheb, Dhondu Pant · Topic: The Revolt of 1857 · NCERT: Class 8, Ch 4 "The Colonial Era in India"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Rebels and the Raj"

Meaning

Nana Sahib (born Dhondu Pant) was the adopted son and heir of Peshwa Baji Rao II, the last Maratha Peshwa. The British refused to continue his father's pension and title. In 1857 the sepoys and people of Kanpur pushed him to lead the revolt there, and he fled to Nepal in 1858 after it was crushed.

He matters for the exam because he shows a key NCERT idea. The rebels needed old rulers to give the revolt a right to rule, and many of those rulers joined only because the people pressed them.

Explanation

Background: a Peshwa's heir without a pension

• After the Third Anglo-Maratha War (1818), the British removed Baji Rao II as Peshwa.
• They sent him to Bithur, near Kanpur.

• They paid him a yearly pension (a fixed allowance) for life.

• Baji Rao II had no son, so he adopted Dhondu Pant, who became known as Nana Sahib.

• The grievance:
• Baji Rao II died in 1851.
• The Company, under Lord Dalhousie, refused to pass the pension and the title of Peshwa to Nana Sahib.
• Nana Sahib felt cheated. Like other pushed-aside rulers, he had a personal reason to oppose the British.

How he became leader at Kanpur

• The sepoys came first. Charles Ball's account says the Kanpur sepoy lines held nightly panchayats (councils where the sepoys decided things together) before and during the rising.
• NCERT says the sepoys and the people of the town gave Nana Sahib no choice except to join the revolt as their leader.
• This is the "popular pressure" pattern.

• Rani Lakshmibai at Jhansi and Bahadur Shah at Delhi also joined this way.

• What he did once he was leader:

• Gathered armed forces and drove the British garrison out of Kanpur (June 1857).
• Declared himself Peshwa, which brought back the old Maratha title.
• Said he was a governor under Emperor Bahadur Shah, so he accepted the Mughal emperor as the symbolic head of the revolt.

Sequence of events at Kanpur

• June 1857: The British force at Kanpur was besieged and then surrendered.
• June–July 1857: British soldiers and civilians were killed, first at the Satichaura Ghat on the Ganga and then at the Bibighar. The British later used these killings to justify brutal revenge.
• July 1857: British troops under Havelock retook Kanpur.
• Late 1857: Tatia Tope, Nana Sahib's main military commander, kept fighting around Kanpur [2].
• 1858: As the revolt fell apart, Nana Sahib fled to Nepal. What happened to him after that is not clearly known; most accounts say he probably died there.

Results and meaning

• Kanpur became one of the main centres of the revolt, along with Delhi, Lucknow, Jhansi and Arrah.
• Nana Sahib's aim was restorative. He wanted to bring back the Peshwa's lost position, not to build a new kind of state.
• His leadership shows the revolt's weakness: each leader had his or her own aim, and nobody commanded all the centres.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: The Revolt of 1857–58.
• Place: Kanpur and nearby Bithur, in present-day Uttar Pradesh.
• Key people:
• Baji Rao II: last Peshwa and Nana Sahib's adoptive father.
• Tatia Tope: a Maratha Brahman who served Baji Rao and then Nana Sahib as his main military commander. He ran fast-moving campaigns across the North-Western Provinces and central India [2]. He was betrayed and hanged in 1859.

• Bahadur Shah: the Mughal emperor under whom Nana Sahib said he ruled.

• How we know:

• Charles Ball, who wrote the earliest history of the uprising, recorded the nightly panchayats in the Kanpur sepoy lines.
• NCERT Class 12, "Rebels and the Raj", draws on rebel proclamations and British records. It describes how the people of Kanpur pressed Nana Sahib to lead.
• British official records and accounts describe the siege of Kanpur and its recapture.

Don't confuse with

• Tatia Tope: Nana Sahib was the political leader at Kanpur and fled to Nepal in 1858. Tatia Tope was his military commander, fought on till early 1859, and was betrayed and hanged [2].
• Baji Rao II: He was the last Peshwa, defeated in 1818 and sent to Bithur. Nana Sahib was his adopted son, who only claimed the title in 1857.
• Doctrine of Lapse (Jhansi, Satara, Nagpur): Under it, Dalhousie annexed whole states whose rulers had no natural heir. Nana Sahib had no state to annex. His grievance was the refusal of his father's pension and title.
• Begum Hazrat Mahal: She also took refuge in Nepal, but she led at Lucknow (Awadh), as regent for Birjis Qadr [3]. Do not mix up the two "fled to Nepal" leaders.

Prelims Hooks

• Nana Sahib: leader at Kanpur; adopted son and successor of Peshwa Baji Rao II.
• His original name was Dhondu Pant. Baji Rao II lived his last years at Bithur, near Kanpur.
• Tatia Tope was Nana Sahib's main military commander, a Maratha Brahman [2].
• Nana Sahib fled to Nepal in 1858. Tatia Tope was hanged in 1859 (trap: they had different ends).
• Charles Ball recorded nightly panchayats in the Kanpur sepoy lines.
• Matching pairs: Kanpur – Nana Sahib; Jhansi – Rani Lakshmibai; Lucknow – Begum Hazrat Mahal / Birjis Qadr; Arrah – Kunwar Singh; Delhi – Bahadur Shah.

Mains Points

• Legitimacy versus capacity: The Kanpur sepoys had the fighting power but needed a Peshwa's heir to give their revolt a right to rule. Nana Sahib had that claim but joined only under popular pressure. This supports the NCERT view that "the sepoys were the makers of their own rebellion", with leaders often following rather than planning.
• Personal grievance and the wider revolt: The refusal of his pension was part of a larger pattern. Dalhousie's policies took titles, pensions and states from old ruling houses, which turned them against the British. These leaders' aims stayed restorative (bringing back the Peshwa, the Nawab of Awadh or the Mughal emperor). This limited the revolt's appeal and its ability to unite.
• Weak coordination: Nana Sahib accepted Bahadur Shah as overlord, but in practice Kanpur fought alone. There was no joint war plan with Delhi or Lucknow, and the leaders who escaped found no outside help; Nepal's Jung Bahadur refused the rebels' appeal [3]. This helps explain why the British, with a single command, could retake the rebel centres one by one.

Related concepts

• Sepoy panchayat
• Charles Ball
• Azimullah Khan
• Rani Lakshmibai
• Tantia Tope
• Kunwar Singh
• Birjis Qadr
• Begum Hazrat Mahal
• Bakht Khan
• Khan Bahadur Khan

Read more

• Planning, communication and leadership