The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed profound political transformation across the Indian subcontinent. The steady decline of the Mughal Empire, the emergence of regional polities, and the territorial expansion and administrative consolidation of the East India Company together created a complex and fragmented political landscape. It is within this turbulent historical milieu that JN Sinha situates his recent study of one of the most enigmatic and historically obscure figures of the time: Raja Fateh Sahi, the ruler of Huseypur (located in the erstwhile Saran district of Bihar), known for his prolonged struggle against the East India Company’s advance into his domain following the Battle of Buxar.
Active primarily during the closing decades of the eighteenth century, Fateh Sahi operated in a region straddling eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar, bounded by the Ghagara and Gandak rivers to the west and east respectively, the Himalayan foothills to the north, and the Ganga to the south. Given the limited availability of direct primary sources, Sinha constructs his narrative by drawing on what he describes as ‘circumstantial evidence, popular memories and with the informed imagination of the historian’ (p. x1ix).