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Bikaner | History
History of Bikaner
City,
north-central Rajasthan state, northwestern India. It lies 240 miles (386 km)
west of Delhi.The city was the capital of the former princely state of Bikaner.
About 1465 Bika, a Rajput chieftain of the Rathor clan, began to conquer the
area from other Rajput clans. In 1488 he began building the city of Bikaner
(“the settlement of Bika”). He died in 1504, and his successors gradually
extended their possessions. The state adhered loyally to the Mughal emperors,
who ruled in Delhi from 1526 to 1857. Rai Singh, who succeeded as chieftain
of Bikaner in 1571, became one of the emperor Akbar's most distinguished generals
and was named the first raja of Bikaner. As Mughal dominance ebbed, wars between
Bikaner and the princely state of Jodhpur raged intermittently in the 18th century.
A treaty establishing British paramountcy was concluded in 1818, and order was
restored in the country by British troops. The rebellious behaviour of the local
thakurs, or subsidiary chiefs, continued, however, until the princely state
was made subject to the Rajputana agency in 1883. The state's military force
included the Bikaner Camel Corps, which gained renown in China during the Boxer
Rebellion (1900) and in the Middle East during World War I. In 1949 Bikaner,
which by then totaled more than 23,000 square miles (60,000 square km) in area,
became part of the Indian state of Rajasthan and was divided into three districts
.
Bikaner's
history dates back to 1488 AD when a Rajput prince Rao Bika ji a descendent
of the founder of Jodhpur (1459 AD)., Rao Jodha Ji established his kingdom here.
Bika Ji chose a barren land called "Jungladesh" and shaped it into
an impressive city, called Bikaner after the founder's name. Archeological surveys
and excavations have established beyond doubt that civilization flourished here
even before the Harappa period . Excavated statues, coins and carvings of stones
and clay stands as testimony to this fact. Ever since the foundation of Bikaner
till its accession into Indian Union in 1947 A.D. and there after it's integration
in Rajasthan state in 30-3-1949 A.D., Bikaner has played a notable role in the
history of the country.
