Tracing history of Sarai Kale Khan: Gujjar stronghold to Bhagwan Birsa Munda Chowk

Zafar Hasan, successful his exhaustive work, List of Muhammadan and Hindu Monuments, Volume IV, mentions Sarai Kale Khan being situated successful a colony named Bahlolpur Bangar. He wrote, “The sarai of Kale Khan which is constructed of rubble masonry was primitively surrounded by arched cells, with their outer walls crowned by battlements. Most of these cells person present fallen down, and the remainder which basal are utilized by villagers arsenic residential houses. It is said to person contained a gateway connected the northbound and west, but some of them person disappeared.”

Maulvi Hasan besides mentioned a tomb 150 yards from the sarai, constructed of plaster and rubble, which was successful a dilapidated information and contained nary grave.

Who is the mysterious Kale Khan though? To unravel this, 1 indispensable archetypal recognize wherever the sarai strategy came from.

In the chapter, Caravanserais Along the Grand Trunk Road successful Pakistan, Saifur Rahman Dar points retired successful the book, The Silk Roads: Highways of Culture and Commerce, that nary 1 knows erstwhile precisely the Grand Trunk Road was built. Precursor forms of the roadworthy existed during the clip of Panini and Chandragupta Maurya, and repairs were undertaken nether Sher Shah Suri’s rule.

During the arterial road’s reconstruction, Sher Shah Suri would emphasise the request to physique remainder stops for travellers. In his article, Sarais successful Mughal India, past prof Nazer Aziz Anjum writes, “(Sher Shah Suri) initiated gathering of sarais connected a ample standard connected routes fundamentally for the request of authorities and partially for the request of wayfarers… it was during the Mughal play that enactment of gathering sarais was carried retired connected an extended scale.”

Meanwhile, past presents 3 possibilities for the idiosyncratic down the sanction — Mubarak Khan Lohani, whose eternal resting spot successful South Extension is named Kale Khan Gumbad; Kale Khan, a Sufi saint from the reign of Sher Shah Suri, whose tomb present rests adjacent Delhi Airport’s Terminal 2; and Kale Khan, the spiritual advisor and person of Mirza Ghalib, whose location Ahata Kale Khan inactive stands successful Ballimaran’s Gali Qasim Jan.

Delhi chronicler and writer R V Smith seemed to beryllium arsenic baffled by the 3 men who shared the aforesaid name. However, helium agreed that Sarai Kale Khan was apt named aft Ghalib’s friend. “Kale Khan who built a sarai successful Southeast Delhi was astir apt calved successful the aboriginal nineteenth period and lived connected to spot the Mutiny of 1857 and its aftermath,” writes Smith successful his book, Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City.

He explains further that Khan was astir apt calved with different name, but received the nickname ‘Kale Khan’ due to the fact that of his acheronian complexion.

Smith besides mentions that Kale Khan would person astir apt witnessed the 1857 Mutiny since a snippet of past does look from the country conscionable aft the unit had died down. Gujjars pastoralists and farmers person agelong been settled successful the country since the onshore adjacent the Yamuna provided rolling grasslands for their cattle to graze on. However, successful the abbreviated duration of lawlessness aft the Mutiny, galore section Gujjars from Sarai Kale Khan formed raiding parties and wreaked havoc connected neighbouring villages.

In the contiguous day, the municipality colony of Sarai Kale Khan is inactive dominated by Gujjars. But their mentation of the area’s past differs. According to section Vicky Choudhary, Kale Khan was a adjacent and a sant, a devout Gaud Brahmin forced to person to Islam to prevention his life. “He was the 1 who made the sarai for travellers… successful 1650, the Gujjar assemblage from Khanpur shifted adjacent the sarai… onshore was bully and determination were immense fields for the cattle to graze in,” helium said.

Another fashionable folktale from the country goes that the Gujjars of Khanpur saved a royal retinue from being attacked by highwaymen connected the mode to Nizamuddin dargah from Mehrauli. Impressed by their enactment of bravery, the king awarded them onshore adjacent the dargah to support each those who travelled connected the way and guarantee the information of those who spent the nighttime successful the sarai.