Bassian Kothi

Bassian Kothi stands just west of Bassian village, near Jatpura and Raikot, in Ludhiana district. It is said to have been built around 1800. The builder is not recorded. It sits in open fields beside the Daudhar and Sudhar canals, and was once a residence for senior British officials, with flower and fruit trees around it. In December 1845, during the battles of Mudki and Ferozeshah, it served as the headquarters of Lord Hardinge. It then became an advance supply depot for the British army based at Ferozepur, and arms and ammunition were stored here. It was also used as a recruiting centre for the police and the army. On 31 December 1849 the 11-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh spent a night here. The British had taken him from Lahore on 21 December, after annexing Punjab. The memorial trust says he was brought through Kahna Kacha, Laliani, Ferozepur, Mudki, Baghapurana, Badhni, Lopon, Mallan, Manuke Sandhua and Jatpura. He left the next morning for Fatehgarh (Farrukhabad), in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), where he was kept under watch, and was later sent to England when he was 15. In 1871 Namdhari (Kuka) prisoners were held here. Five of them were hanged on 5 August 1871 from a tree near the kothi. After Independence the building became a rest house of the Irrigation Department. When the department moved out, it was left empty and fell into ruin. INTACH began restoring it in 2011 with Punjab Government funds, and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal opened it as the Maharaja Duleep Singh Memorial on 24 May 2015. The museum shows replicas of the Maharaja’s dresses, jewellery, furniture and portraits, models of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s throne and sword, a display on the Koh-i-Noor, and a family tree. The gardens have statues of the Maharaja and an amphitheatre.