Pothi and Lehri: Two Chib Jagirs, One Ancestor

Pothi Rajgan, a village in Kharian tehsil of Gujrat district, and Lehri, near Mangla in Mirpur district of Azad Kashmir, are the seats of two Chib Rajput jagirdar families with a single ancestor. According to the 1997 Chib chronicle, both descend from Inayatullah Khan of the ruling house of Khari Kariali, whose sons Tarbiyat Khan and Shamsher Khan founded the Pothi and Lehri lines.

Pothi Rajgan and Lehri: one ancestor, two jagirs

Both families belong to the house of Raja Mal Khan, son of Baba Shadi Shaheed, who received the western Chib state of Khari Kariali; the book lists the Lehri and Pothi families among the descendants of Mal Khan’s grandson Raja Budha Khan (p. 144). Their common line, as drawn in the two family charts, runs from Raja Hasan Muhammad Khan, one of the renowned rulers of Khari Kariali before the Sikh era (p. 167), to his son Imam Quli Khan and grandson Inayatullah Khan. Inayatullah Khan’s sons divided the inheritance: Tarbiyat Khan founded the Pothi line and Shamsher Khan the Lehri line (pp. 413, 415).

Imam Quli Khan’s other son, Kamal Khan, is remembered as a builder. Near the fort of Ismailabad, today Samal or Samwal, he raised a magnificent mosque on the pattern of the Badshahi Masjid of Lahore, which his son Raja Surkhru (Sarkhru) Khan completed (pp. 167, 413).

Mangla and Pothi against the Sikhs

At the opening of the nineteenth century the two branches stood side by side against the Sikhs. After the Sikhs defeated Bhimber in 1808, Raja Umar Khan of Mangla, of the Lehri line, and Raja Sher Jang Khan of Pothi resisted them at Jo’iyan (reading uncertain), Samal, Farida and Mangla. Umar Khan died during the three-month siege of Mangla fort; his eldest son, Raja Akbar Ali Khan, made peace at Gujrat in 1810, and the forts of Pothi, Samal and Jo’iyan were demolished (p. 169). When Akbar Ali Khan died childless within six months and Ranjit Singh annexed Khari Kariali, Raja Amir Khan of Mangla, then ten years old, received a jagir of Rs 4,000 a year and Raja Sher Jang Khan of Pothi one of Rs 3,000 (p. 170). The siege is told in Mangla Fort.

The Rajgan of Lehri: rulers of Mangla

The book introduces the Lehri family as the walian, or rulers, of Mangla (p. 173). Its line runs from Shamsher Khan through Zulfiqar Khan and Sikandar Khan to Raja Umar Khan, whose four sons were Akbar Ali Khan, Amir (Ali) Khan, Fazal Dad Khan and Nawab Khan (p. 415).

Amir Khan died childless and his jagir passed to his younger brother, Raja Fazal Dad Khan. He served as aide-de-camp to Prince Kharak Singh, the Sikh heir who held Khari Kariali in jagir, and for his services received an additional life jagir of Rs 1,075 a year, half of which was later granted to his descendants in perpetuity (p. 173). The Chiefs of the Punjab adds that Kharak Singh first employed him at three rupees a day, that he went to Multan with Sher Singh in 1848 without joining the revolt there, and that he died in 1864 (pp. 158–159).

Both jagirs, the book says, remained with Fazal Dad Khan’s grandson, Raja Allah Dad Khan, son of Fateh Khan and holder of the Lehri jagir near Mangla. For his services during the agitation of 1931 in Kashmir he received a further jagir of Rs 300 a year, and he was also a zaildar (pp. 173, 415). In 1908 he attended, as jagirdar of Lehri, the installation of the head of the Bhimber royal family at Jhelum (p. 136).

Raja Allah Dad Khan had five sons: Rab Nawaz Khan, Gul Nawaz Khan, Haq Nawaz Khan, Shahnawaz Khan and Ataullah (Ata Nawaz) Khan. Raja Haq Nawaz Khan retired as a revenue officer in the Azad Kashmir Revenue Department; of his three sons, Raja Khurshid Ahmad Khan was a deputy superintendent of police in Azad Kashmir and Raja Muhammad Farooq Khan tahsildar of Bhimber when the book was written (p. 174). A collateral branch descends from Umar Khan’s son Nawab Khan through Sher Baz Khan and Fateh Sher Khan to Muhammad Murawwat Khan (p. 415).

The Rajgan of Pothi

The Pothi line runs from Tarbiyat Khan through Jamiat Khan to Raja Sher Jang Khan, the defender of Pothi, who died during the period of Sikh rule (pp. 174, 413).

Khan Bahadur Raja Sultan Khan (d. 1902)

Sher Jang Khan’s son, Khan Bahadur Raja Sultan Khan of Pothi, not to be confused with Raja Sultan Khan of Bhimber, threw in his lot with the British. In 1849 and in the Mutiny of 1857 he supplied 60 sepoys and 25 horsemen, fought in person against the mutineers of the 14th Native Infantry at Jhelum, and for several years commanded the district cavalry, helping to restore order. In reward the quarter-share nazrana on his jagir was remitted, the jagir was made perpetual instead of for life, and he received a robe of honour worth Rs 500 and many certificates. In 1891 he was made Khan Bahadur, the title of Raja was made hereditary in his family, and he received a further jagir of Rs 1,000 a year. He died in 1902 (p. 174). The Chiefs of the Punjab records his original jagir as Rs 692 a year in Pothi, Dhak, Bhalwal and a fourth village (p. 159); see the Chibs in The Chiefs of the Punjab.

Raja Muhammad Khan Chib (d. 1930)

His eldest son, Raja Muhammad Khan Chib, served the government in the Great War of 1914–18, gave generously to the war fund and received twelve squares of land in the Lower Jhelum Canal Colony. He was a provincial darbari and a zaildar and died in 1930 (p. 175); a portrait in the book shows him in a large white turban and long dark coat (p. 180). His brother Raja Ata Muhammad Khan (d. 1918) was sub-registrar at Dinga, an honorary magistrate, and sub-registrar and honorary civil judge at Sialkot. Ata Muhammad Khan’s sons served as non-commissioned officers in the Indian Army, as an assistant superintendent in the Criminal Tribes Department, and as a jemadar and a havildar in the 1/15th Punjab Regiment (p. 176).

Raja Sultan Lal Hussain Khan and his heirs

Raja Muhammad Khan’s elder son, Raja Ghulam Qadir Khan, became jagirdar in 1930 and held a prominent place in the area until his death in 1953; his son, Raja Ihsan Qadir Khan, has several times been elected a local councillor (pp. 175, 177). The younger son, Raja Sultan Lal Hussain Khan, BA (Hons), PCS, was the family’s brightest star. He passed the diploma examination of Aitchison College, Lahore, in first place with gold and silver medals and took an honours degree at Government College, Lahore. As honorary assistant recruiting officer in the Great War he received from the Viceroy a first-class sanad, a sword of honour and recruiting and war badges. Appointed Extra Assistant Commissioner in 1917, he served as special magistrate at Lahore, revenue assistant at Sheikhupura, sub-divisional officer at Khushab, Pindi Gheb, Kaithal, Rajanpur and Bhakkar, and special officer for the survey of the Lower Chenab Canal at Lyallpur, and retired as a Deputy Commissioner. He died in 1966 (pp. 175–176). His English-language family papers are among the sources of the book (p. 431).

His eldest son, Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan (1919–1980), graduated from the Punjab University, took a law degree and practised at Gujrat, contested an assembly election in 1954 without success, then passed the PCS examination and retired as a Deputy Commissioner (p. 177). Two younger sons died young: Raja Maqbool Hussain, as a student, and Raja Manzoor Hussain Khan, of tuberculosis, in 1963 (pp. 177–178).

Of Muhammad Ayub Khan’s five sons, Raja Wajahat Hussain Khan (1942–1990) contested a provincial seat in 1977 and was elected to the Gujrat District Council in 1987, and Raja Shaukat Hussain Khan (1946–1987) was elected Vice-Chairman of the Gujrat District Council in 1979. The youngest, Raja Shafa’at Hussain Khan, an advocate at Kharian, compiled the Pothi family tree and supplied the book’s material and photographs on the family; his other brothers are Raja Shafqat Hussain Khan and Raja Shujaat Hussain Khan (pp. 177–178, 413).

The revenue collectors of Pothi

The book also honours the family that collected the rents and land revenue of the Pothi jagir for about a century: Chaudhri Nek Alam, his son Chaudhri Fazal Hussain, and Nek Alam’s daughter’s son, Haji Chaudhri Muhammad Rafiq, a retired havildar of the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers who spent thirteen years building the Karakoram Highway (p. 179).

Family trees

The Rajgan of Pothi (after p. 413)

• Tarbiyat Khan
  • Sandu Khan (reading uncertain) — sons Bahawal Bakhsh Khan and Usman Khan
  • Jamiat Khan
    • Raja Sher Jang Khan; his brothers were Azmatullah Khan, Fateh Jang Khan and Saeedullah Khan
      • Khan Bahadur Raja Sultan Khan (d. 1902)
        • Raja Muhammad Khan Chib (d. 1930)
          • Raja Ghulam Qadir Khan (d. 1953) — son Raja Ihsan Qadir Khan
          • Raja Sultan Lal Hussain Khan (d. 1966)
            • Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan (1919–1980) — sons Wajahat, Shaukat, Shafqat, Shujaat and Shafa’at Hussain Khan
            • Raja Maqbool Hussain
            • Raja Manzoor Hussain Khan (d. 1963)
        • Raja Ata Muhammad Khan (d. 1918)

The Rajgan of Lehri (after p. 415)

• Shamsher Khan
  • Zulfiqar Khan
    • Sikandar Khan; his brothers were Muhammad Yar Khan, Allah Yar Khan and Khudayar Khan
      • Raja Umar Khan of Mangla (d. c. 1810); his brothers were Nur Ali Khan and Nawazish Ali Khan
        • Raja Akbar Ali Khan (d. 1810, childless)
        • Raja Amir (Ali) Khan (childless)
        • Raja Fazal Dad Khan (d. 1864)
          • Nazar (Nazir) Ali Khan
          • Fateh Khan
            • Raja Allah Dad Khan of Lehri — sons Rab Nawaz, Gul Nawaz, Haq Nawaz, Shahnawaz and Ata Nawaz Khan
        • Nawab Khan — sons Ali Mardan Khan and Sher Baz Khan; Sher Baz Khan’s son Fateh Sher Khan was the father of Muhammad Murawwat Khan

Pothi Rajgan is not Pothi Jang Khan

Readers should not confuse Pothi Rajgan near Kharian with Pothi Jang Khan in Bhimber district, the home of another Chib line, descended from Raja Chhel Khan, brother of Baba Shadi Shaheed (p. 388). Both, like the jagirdar houses described here, belong to the wider family of the Chib Rajputs.

Frequently asked questions

Continue reading

• Khari KarialiThe second Chib state and the house of Raja Mal Khan
• Mangla FortRaja Umar Khan’s last stand, 1810
• The Rajgan of KasgumahThe third family of the 1810 settlement
• The Chibs in The Chiefs of the PunjabJhelum, Pothi and Bisa in the colonial record
• Pothi Jang Khan and ChahiThe line of Raja Chhel Khan
• Thotha Rai BahadurSeat of the Rais of Khari Kariali