• ISBN13: 9789358525311
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: History
• Publisher: Ratna Sagar
• Publisher Imprint: PrimusBook
• Publication Date: December 10, 2023
• Pages: 350
• Original Price: INR 1195.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: N/A

The Lost Hero of Banaras: Babu Jagat Singh examines the life and legacy of Babu Jagat Singh, a scion of the royal family of Banaras and an instrumental figure in Indian history during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in India. Most historiographies of the period tend to think of 1857 as a watershed moment in India's struggle for independence. However, the present book-set during a period when the sovereignty of zamindars in north India was rapidly dwindling due to increasing colonial intervention-focuses on an armed anti-British struggle in Banaras in 1799, pioneered under the auspices of Jagat Singh. As a result, Jagat Singh was penalized with deportation to St. Helena.




Contesting existing knowledge on the basis of primary evidence, this work shows that Babu Jagat Singh was also responsible for discovering the ancient site of the Dharmarajjika stupa at Sarnath, although the credit has been erroneously ascribed to Alexander Cunningham in colonial historiography.

H.A. Qureshi joined the Geological Survey of India in 1965, from where he retired as a Gazetted Officer in 2005. He is an alumnus of the Universities of Delhi, Jaipur and Lucknow. He is also proficient in multiple languages, including Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Apart from numerous research papers on Indian history and culture, he is the author of many books which include Iqbal (1873-1938) (2010); The Flickers of an Independent Nawabi: Wazir Ali Khan of Avadh (2 vols.) (2002); The Mughals, the English and the Rulers of Awadh: A Kaleidoscopic Study (2003); 1857: Classics Volume I: Khandang-i-Ghadar and Naunaga (translations) (2007).

Shreya Pathak is Assistant Professor at Vasanta College for Women, Varanasi. She has contributed a number of papers to research journals and is the author of The Ruling Dynasty of Benares State (2014).