11. After a lifetime of war to retake his father’s lost throne from the Mughal Empire, Ajit Singh was murdered by his sons for that very seat of power
Ajit Singh (b. 1679 CE) was the son of Jaswant Singh and a ruler in the Marwar region of present-day Rajasthan between 1679 and 1724 CE. Born after his father’s death in December 1678, with both of the former ruler’s wives pregnant but possessing no living male heirs, the family’s lands were converted by Emperor Aurangzeb into the Mughal Empire. Initially open to cooperating with the Singh dynasty, offering to adopt Ajit and provide him with noble rank, Aurangzeb later sought to capture the young Ajit; men loyal to his father resisted the Emperor and transported the child into exile. Failing to capture the young prince, Aurangzeb claimed another child in his custody was the true Ajit Singh and placed him as a puppet ruler over Marwar.
After failing in a joint uprising against the Mughal Emperor with the Mewar ruler Rana Raj Singh I, a relative of Ajit’s mother, the next twenty years saw a sustained guerrilla war fought by Singh loyalists against the Mughal occupation of Marwar. Upon the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Ajit Singh’s forces seized Jodhpur and expelled the Mughals from his father’s lands; continuing to pressure the Mughal Empire, Ajit was granted an imperial pardon in 1708, was appointed Governor of Gujarat in 1712 and Governor of Thatta in 1713, and married his daughter to the Mughal Emperor in December 1715.
However, despite a lifetime of struggle to regain his family’s position and honor, Ajit Singh was murdered by his sons Abhai and Bakhat in 1724 CE, with Abhai as his eldest succeeding him as Raja of Marwar. As was common practice for Rajput nobility 6 queens, 25 concubines, and 32 female slaves were burned on the deceased ruler’s funeral pyre, with 3 male advisors atypically committing self-immolation out of respect.