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Photo from Baldwin who wrote: Begum Somru was a most remarkable
women in the latter part of Mughal India. For almost 60 years she controlled
a good deal of land in the Doab and maintained her own army. Born around 1751
and given the name, Munni, her early life is rather obscure.Moving to Delhi
around 1760 with her mother, she entered the service of a German mercenary
soldier named Walter Reinhardt. Reinhardt had previously served the French in
India and had earned the nickname Le Sombre because of his severe nature. It
is said that this nickname became corrupted to Somru. Over the years,
Reinhardt, latterly with the forces he raised himself, served a whole range
of different armies in India, particularly that of the Mughal emperor. Munni
accompanied Reinhardt on his campaigns and they married in due course. Around
the year 1777, the emperor granted Reinhardt a jagir in the Doab, which
extended from Aligarh to beyond Muzaffarnagar. Within this territory,
Reinhardt chose Sardhana for his and his army’s headquarters.Reinhardt did
not live long to enjoy his jagir, dying the following year. Munni, now known
as the Begum Somru, soon emerged as the rightful ruler of Reinhardt’s
territory, this succession being confirmed by the emperor, Shah Alam II. Then
things became complicated. The Begum needed a suitable officer to command her
troops. Various Europeans entered her service, including for a while George
Thomas. To command the troops, however, she appointed a certain Le Vaisseau. Presumably
to consolidate his position he proposed marriage to the Begum, which was
accepted. At this, Thomas left the Begum’s service to set up his own army
elsewhere.Le Vaisseau’s appointment was a mistake. Discipline in her army
broke down to such an extent that the Begum and her husband planned to retire
from their estates and seek refuge in the East India Company’s territories.
Her soldiers got wind of these plans and intercepted the couple on the road
from Sardhana. Concerned at the treatment she would receive she attempted to
commit suicide. Thinking she had succeeded, Le Vaisseau shot himself dead.
The Begum, however, had been less successful and was taken wounded to
Sardhana, where she was maltreated. At this juncture, George Thomas came to
the rescue. He must have heard of the Begum’s plight and moved towards
Sardhana with some of his troops. With the approval of the local Maratha
chiefs, who were now in overall command of the Doab, he issued the Begum’s
troops a stern ultimatum, which they heeded. The Begum was duly reinstated in
her jagir, the officers and troops promised to behave themselves, and a new
commander of her army was appointed in the form of a Monsieur Saleur.After
the Second Maratha War, the Doab came under British administration. In 1805,
the Begum entered into an alliance with them and remained in her territories
as a British vassal until her death in 1836.The rupee offered here is one of
an extremely rare issue first published by Whitehead in the Numismatic
Chronicle [1926]. It is in the name of the Mughal emperor, Shah Alam II, is
dated to the 45th regnal year of that ruler and bears the mintname: Dar
al-Zafar Zebabad. It shows only the first two digits of the Hijri year: 12xx,
but a specimen in the British Museum has the date 1218. White head stated
that “this issue was struck at Sardhana in the Meerut District in the year of
Lord Lake’s victory of Delhi by the Begum Sumru Zebu-n-nisa, Begum”. The
Hijri year 1218 did start in April of 1803, the year the British occupied the
Doab. Begum Somru was given the title, Zabu-n-Nisa, by the Mughal emperor,
Shah Alam II. This would account for the mintname Zebabad, which, it is
assumed, was given to the Begum’s capital of Sardhana |
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