The Victory Pillar inside the Noida Golf Course marks the historic Battle of Delhi of 1803
Inside the Noida Golf Course is a stone pillar set up in 1916 by the British to mark their victory in the Battle of Delhi on 11th September, 1803. The place where the battle was fought is now known as Patparganj. According to a news agency report, it has not been popularised as a tourist attraction because if it is declared a heritage site the increase in the number of people visiting it will cause problems in the maintenance of the 18-hole golf course. Interestingly enough, it was the Noida Authority that retrieved the Victory Pillar in 1989 when it was hidden by wild bushes and weeds and spruced up to make the inscription readable again. The restoration of the pillar to public view must have made Gen. Gerard Lake, who led the British forces, to turn in his grave, though the pillar was set up 108 years after his death.
Lake entered Delhi after capturing Agra a year earlier in 1802. He was the most successful East India Company general until his failure to capture the near-impregnable fort of Bharatpur which, however, fell to Lord Combermere in 1826. After the siege was broken, the first trooper to enter the fort was Antonious Joanidies (later known as Sir Anthoy John), a Greek soldier of fortune who went on to establish the once reputed chain of John’s Mills after amassing wealth in diamond trade. Under his descendants, one of the mills was set up in Delhi too at the initiative of Sir Edwin John. To come back to the first Viscount Lord Lake, the hero of three continents died in London, five years after his path-breaking Delhi victory, on 20th February 1808 aged 63. Born in February 1744, he fought in the American Revolutionary War, French Revolution, Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the Anglo-Maratha War of which the Battle of Delhi was a part. Earlier when he took Meerut, Lake met Begum Sumroo and in an ecstatic moment planted a kiss on the cheek of the legendary chieftainess of Sardhana. The Begum’s Muslim troops took offence at this but with great tact she calmed them down, saying it was the “kiss of a padre to his repentant child”.
Like that there were many battles of Delhi, starting from 1191-92, which included the ones fought between Mohammad Ghori and Prithviraj Chauhan, the one of wits between the Mongols and Alauddin Khilji, Taimur’s rout of the forces of Mahmud Tughlak at Loni, then the three battles fought at Panipat between Babar and Ibrahim Lodhi, Akbar and Hemu (not counting the Karnal skirmish between Mohammad Shah and Nader Shah, the Persian invader) and the Maratha confederacy and Nader’s successor, Ahmed Shah Abdali. Though referred to as the battles of Panipat, they were really those for the possession of Delhi and as such linked with the fortunes of this imperial city. In all these battles (save the first one between Prithviraj and Ghori) the invaders were victorious, though Alauddin succeeded in chasing away the Mongols camping below the very walls of Delhi by not losing his nerve.
However, the only “Battle of Delhi” recorded as such in history is the one between Scindia’s Marathas and the British, with the former pretending to fight on behalf of the Mughal emperor, though Shah Alam himself was wavering between support to the two parties as he knew that he was caught between the devil and the deep sea.
To quote from Percival Spear’s “Twilight in Delhi”, The British Governor-General, “Lord Wellesley’s object was to secure the prestige of the Moghul name without any admission of its superior authority; Shah Alam’s to maintain the imperial pretensions at the cost of any conceivable practical concessions. Lord Wellesley’s agent was the British Commander-in-Chief, Lord Lake, and his agent in Delhi was Sayyid Reza Khan. During July and August Shah Alam’s letters wavered between appeals for help (against the Marathas who had made a virtual prisoner of him, keeping him in a golden cage as it were) and complaints of his treatment by the British as the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed. On 27 July, 1803 Wellesley, in a personal letter, assured Shah Alam that “if he accepted the asylum which he had directed Lake to offer, “then every respect and degree of attention would be shown to him and his family and adequate provision will be made on the part of the British Government for the support (ease and comfort) of Your Majesty, your family and household.”
But as Spear also thinks, the Governor General’s assurances were those of a forked tongue for, besides promising respect, dignity and personal security, he wanted Lake to “urge Shah Alam and the heir apparent Akbar (later Akbar Shah II) to reside at Monghyr in Bengal” (now in Bihar). However, Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sindh under the apology “Peccavi” (I have sinned) was of the view that the emperor should be sent to Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar the Great’s deserted capital, which was closer to Delhi and hence perhaps more acceptable to the blind emperor.
Shah Alam asked for British support on August 29 and on 1st September under French dictation, had announced that he would “take the field against the British whose invariable custom it is, in whatever country they are allowed to reside under fixed stipulations, speedily to seize upon that country.” “Despite this assertion he welcomed Lord Lake five days after the general had won the battle.”
As for the battle itself, there was not much to it as it turned out to be more of a skirmish, with the Marathas, more used to guerilla warfare, failing to carry the day. Despite the heroics of their French commander and his small band of compatriots, the freewheeling local soldiers of Delhi, who had raised the cry of “Deen Deen” (Faith) and come out to give battle to the pork-eating infidels “from the gallis and mohallas of the city with antique swords, spears and matchlock guns, were the first to retreat.”
The women of Delhi, the able-bodied men who had stayed at home, the emperor, his son and begums in the Red Fort waited for some miracle to happen but their hopes were belied and the British finally put their seal on Delhi, which was to last till August 1947. British tourists who come to pay homage to their ancestors who died in that battle and on September 19, when the Firangis retook Delhi 44 years later, in the war of 1857, somehow miss visiting the “Victory Pillar” in Patparganj. Probably they were not aware of its existence but now that the spotlight is back on it they may well start visiting it from the next anniversary of the battle, with Raj historian Dr. Rosie Llewellyn Jones who usually leads such parties in Sept –Nov almost every year. This may be cause for dismay for the Noida Golf Course Authority as, according to PTI, Tee No 16 is located right on the steps leading to the pillar, the inscription on which reads: “Near this spot was fought on Sept 11th, 1803 the Battle of Delhi in which the forces of the Mahrattas commanded by M. Louis Bourquian were defeated by the British Army under General Gerard Lake.” A ball lofted by a golfer may well fall on the tee, hitting the head of someone examining the memorial is the main cause of worry for the Noida Authority.
