Raipur

Raipur lies in the wooded country of western Bengal once known as Tungbhum, on the margins of the Malla kingdom of Bishnupur. Its estate became a focus of resistance to the East India Company at the end of the eighteenth century. Forests, cultivated land and mud forts formed the setting for a struggle in which local landholders and their followers contested the sale of estates.

In 1798 Durjan Singh, the dispossessed zamindar of Raipur, led a rising against the purchaser of his estate. His followers attacked the bazaar and revenue office, and a detachment of sepoys sent against them was driven back. Local landholders and other influential men withheld supplies and information from the troops and sometimes sheltered the rebels. The rising was part of the wider unrest in the Jungle Mahals during the early years of Company revenue rule.