New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University and Defence Corridor at Lodha in Aligarh on September 14.
In 2014, a major controversy stirred between the BJP workers and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) over the celebration of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh's birthday on campus. Since then, the demand for a university after the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh started gaining momentum.
Addressing a gathering in 2019 Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said that Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh University will be built on the lines of AMU. Now the university is being established after the name of the Jat king.
Who Was Jat King Mahendra Pratap Singh?
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was born on December 1, 1886, to King Ghanshyam Singh of Mursan, Hathras. He was the third son of Ghanshyam Singh.
At the age of three, King Harnarayan Singh of Hathras adopted him as a son. In 1902, he was married to Balvir Kaur, a Sidhu Jat family from the Jind state.
According to historian Manvendra Kumar Pundir the Jat King Dayaram of Hathras fought the Britishers in 1817. The Jat king of Mursan also joined hands with him in the war. The British took Dayaram captive and he died in 1841. His son Govind Singh sat on the throne.
In 1857, Govind Singh supported the British forces, yet the English rulers did not return Govind Singh's kingdom. The British snatched all the rights over the state of Hathras by giving him some villages to rule, Rs 50,000 in cash, and the title of King.
King Govind Singh died in 1861. Because they had no children, he had given his wife a right to adopt a son.
Rani Saheb adopted Harnarayan Singh, son of Thakur Roop Singh of Jatoi. She started living with her adopted son in her palace, Vrindavan. King Harnarayan had no son. So he adopted Mahendra Pratap, the third son of King Ghanshyam Singh of Mursan. Mahendra Pratap thus left the kingdom of Mursan and became the king of Hathras kingdom.
He studied up to BA in a school set up by Sir Syed Khan in Aligarh but could not appear for the exam due to family issues. Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh donated a lot of land to AMU where AMU's city high school stands today. The land was leased out by King Mahendra, whose term has expired in 2019.