The Zamindars of Benares:Beginnings To 1770
The family are Brahmins of the Bhumihar Brahmin clan; and their traditions go back to the year 1000, when a Brahmin ascetic of Utaria, a village near Benares foretold the succession of his posterity (descendants) to the dominions then governed by a Hindu raja.
With the decline of Mughal Empire, in the area of south of Avadh, in the fertile rive-rain rice growing areas of Benares, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Ghazipur, Ballia and Bihar and on the fringes of Bengal, it was the 'military' or Bhumihar Brahmins who strengthened their sway. What brought success to these Hindu prince lings was the strong clan organisation on which they rested. There were perhaps as many as 100,000 Bhumihar Brahmin clansmen backing the power of the Benares rajas in what later became the districts of Benares, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh. This proved a decisive advantage when the dynasty faced its rival and a nominal suzerain, the Nawab of Awadh, in the 1750s and the 1760s. It was the capacity of the Benares ruler to mount an exhausting guerrilla war against the Avadh camp using his Bhumihar Brahmin clan levies which forced the Nawab to withdraw his main force.
The Royal House of Benares is of an ancient Gautam Brahmin clan of Bhumihar Brahmin dating to the year 1000 that originated from Gangapur near Benares. In the late 17th century, one Raja Mansa Ram of this family entered the service of the Nazim of Benares, Rustam Ali Khan. He grew immensely wealthy and rose to become Zamindar of Kaswar in the service of the Nazim. Appointed as successor to Rustam Ali Khan by the Nawab of Awadh, Saadat Khan, one year before his death in 1739 he arranged a grant from Mohammed Shah for the revenues of the sarkars of Benares, Jaunpur, Ghazipur and Chunar to be held by his eldest son along with the title of Raja Bahadur of Kaswar .
His eldest son, Rafa'at wa Awal-i-Martabat Raja Sri Balwant Singh Sahib Bahadur, succeeded his father as Raja of Kaswar and Nazim of Benares in 1738,leading a much more martial life. He built a fort and established a capital at Gangapur, but later removed to Ramnagar. In 1751, he expelled the representative of the Nawab of Awadh in an attempt to carve out a principality at Benares, but was forced to flee when the Nawab invaded his domain in March 1752; however, he was not severely punished, but was instead restored to his titles by the Nawab. Emperor Alamgir II granted him a jagir in Bihar two years later. The first of his house to deal with the Honourable East India Company, he joined Shah Alam and Shuja ud-Daula in their 1763 invasion of Bengal. Following the Battle of Buxar in 1764, Emperor Shah Alam transferred Balwant Singh's zamindari to the Company, but the Company refused it along with the Treaty of Benares, signed by the Emperor the same year. Instead, the zamindari reverted once again to the Nawab of Awadh in 1765, five years before Balwant Singh's death in 1770.
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