BHAGAT RAM, BAKHSHI

BHAGAT RAM, BAKHSHI (1799-1865), son of Baisakhi Ram, a small moneychanger in the city of Lahore, joined the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1818 at the age of nineteen as a writer in the treasury office under Misr Belt Ram, the chief to shakhama or keeper of the State treasury. In 1824, he was appointed assistant writer of the accounts of the privy purse. In 1831, he was deputed to accompany Kanvar Sher Singh to the hills of Jalandhar Doab to collect revenue from the defaulting states of Mandi, Suket and Kullu. He came back to Lahore in 1832 and was appointed paymaster of fifty battalions of infantry, eight regiments of cavlary and twenty batteries of artillery.

For his services to the State, he was granted in 1841 a jagir at Ajnala by Maharaja Sher Singh. After the assassination of Maharaja Sher Singh, he became leader of a section of the Mutsaddi party, the other section being under the influence of Diwan Dina Nath. After the murder of Raja Hira Singh on 21 December 1844, Bakhshi Bhagat Ram`s name was considered for appointment as one of the members of the council which was to carry on the government of the country, but the proposal fell through.

He was sent to Jammu with the expedition against Raja Gulab Singh in March 1845. Maharaja Duleep Singh granted him an additional jagir at Datarpur, in the Jalandhar Doab. Bhagat Ram lost thisJ`agfr when the Doab was ceded to the British by the treaty of Lahore, 9 March 1846, but received one in lieu of it in Amritsar district. Bhagat Ram died at Lahore in 1865, leaving behind one son,Jamiat Rai.

References :

1. Suri, Sohan Lal, `Umdat-ut-Twarikh. Lahore, 1885-89
2. Griffin, Lepel aad C.F. Massy, Chiefs and Families of Note in the Punjab. Lahore, 1909
3. Bhagat Singh, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and His Times. Delhi, 1990
4. Khushwant Singh, Ranjit Singh: Maharaja of the Punjab 1780-1839. Bombay, 1962