1857 War

2007-12-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

Education under British Rule

British records show that indigenous education was widespread in the 18th century, with a school for every temple, mosque or village in most regions of the country. The subjects taught included Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Medical Science and Religion. The schools were attended by students representative of all classes of society. But scholars have questioned the validity of such an argument. They argue that proponents of indigenous education fail to recognize the importance of the widespread use of printed books in the West since the sixteenth century, which led to a remarkable advancement of knowledge.

Printed books were not used in Indian schools till the 1820s or even later. There were institutions such as Gresham's college in London that encouraged scientific learning. In fact, there were a number of such academic and scientific societies in England, often supported by Puritan and non-Conformist merchants, the like of which probably did not exist in India. The entire claim of indigenous education proponents is based on the thesis advocated by Dharampal which says that there was a general decline in Indian society and economy with the coming of British rule.

In the process, indigenous education suffered. This, however, is too broad a generalization, and the exact impact of British rule on different regions at different times has to be studied more carefully before we conclude that the curve everywhere steadily declined. He argues that pre-British schools and colleges were maintained by grants of revenue-free land.

The East India Company, with its policy of maximizing land revenue, stopped this and thus starved the Indian education system of its financial resources. Again, we need more detailed evidence to show how far inam lands were taken over by the government. More often, military officers, zamindar.~,and talukdars were deprived of revenue-free land rather than temples, mosques, madrasas. Recent research has revealed that inam lands continued to exist well into the nineteenth century, much more than was previously suspected.

The current system of education, with its western style and content, was introduced & funded by the British in the 19th century, following recommendations by Macaulay. Traditional structures were not recognized by the British government and have been on the decline since. Gandhi is said to have described the traditional educational system as a beautiful tree that was destroyed during British rule.

The British established many colleges like St. Xavier's College, Sydenham College, Wilson College and Elphinstone College in India.

According to Prof. Emeritus M.G. Sahadevan, F.R.C.P. (London), the first medical college of Kerala was started at Calicut, in 1942-43, during World War II. Due to shortage of doctors to serve the military, the British Government decided to open a branch of Madras Medical College in Malabar, which was under Madras Presidency then. After the war, the medical school at Calicut was closed and the students continued their studies at Madras Medical College.

Source:Wikipedia

2007-10-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Anniversary of Provisional Government of Free India Observed

Imphal, October 21: The 64th anniversary of the Provisional Government of Free India founded by Indian National Army (INA) under the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was observed today at Moirang, where the tri-colour flag was hoisted for the first time.

The event jointly organised by the Department of Art and Culture, Government of Manipur and INA Advisory Committee at INA Memorial complex, Moirang was attended by Chief Minister O Ibobi as chief guest, MLA Mairembam Manindra as functional president and Director of Art and Culture Dr Kh Sorojini Devi as guest of honour.

Chief Minister O Ibobi led other dignitaries and people present at the occasion in offering floral tributes to the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose installed inside the memorial complex.

Speaking on the significance of the Provisional Government of Free India which was installed only for a short period, Prof Y Modhu Singh recounted that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, who was the leader of Indian Independence League, later came to be known as INA declared formation of the Provisional Government of Free India on October 21, 1943 at Singapore and nine countries including Japan recognised it.

Three days after the declaration of formation of Provisional Government of Free India with the help of the then powerful countries like Japan and German, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose declared war against the British.

Under the slogan of Delhi Challo, the Army of the Provisional Government not only reoccupied Andaman and Nicobar Islands but also proceeded till Moirang of Manipur after crossing the Arakan Range of Myanmar.

On April 14 of 1944, the tricolour flag of India was hoisted for the first time at Moirang and after setting up the advance headquarters there continue to rule till July 16.With a command of over 40,000 army and 1500 officers which was divided into five Division, the Provisional Government liberated over 1500 square miles of land in Manipur from the British rule.

The whole of Moirang supported Subhas Chandra Bose.

Even if the end of the Provisional Government and th subsequently breakdown of INA was another story, there is no two argument on the influence of Netaji on the free struggle of India.

In fact, there had never been such Provisional Government in the history of th world, Prof Modhu said.

In his address as chief guest of the function, Chief Minister O Ibobi said Moirang where the tri-colour flag of India was unfurled for the first time would remain as an important asset for all of us.

Indian leaders like Netaji, Gandhiji, etc, as well Bir Tikendrajit, Thangal General, etc are true leaders who not only led and lit the torch for us but also inspire us.

However, the prevailing culture of targeting the people under the cloak of patriotism is really unfortunate and all concerned should think over it, the Chief Minister said.

On conservation of Loktak lake at Moirang, the Chief Minister said an amount of Rs 4 crores has been set aside for further development of the lake to attract tourists and help the fishermen who depend on the lake for their livelihood.

So removal of the floating bio-masses have already begun and each of the fishermen who attended their co-operation would be entitled to get Rs 13,000.Side by side, necessary arrangements for upgrading and expansion of the road leading to Sendra from Moirang as four-lane, construction of retaining walls and installation of street lamps would be taken up soon, the Chief Minister said, while appealing to the encroachers concerned to voluntarily shift away before the Government evicts them.

The Chief Minister further informed that the Govt has also sanctioned Rs 14 crores for setting up Tamupat as a regional water sports complex.

Moreover, plans are also afoot for construction of a watch tower at INA complex and a guest house at Moirang, he added.

Source: The Sangai Express

Provisional Government of Free India

The Provisional Government of Free India consisted of a Cabinet headed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as the Head of the State, The Prime Minister and the Minister for War and Foreign Affairs.

Captain Doctor Lakshmi Swaminathan (later married as Lakshmi Sehgal) was the Minister in Charge of Women's Organization. She held this position over and above her command of the Rani Jhansi Regiment, a brigade of women soldiers fighting for the Indian National Army. For a regular Asian army, this women's regiment was quite visionary; it was the first of its kind established on the continent. Dr. Lakshmi was one of the most popular and prosperous gynecologists in Singapore before she gave up her fabulous practice to lead the troops of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

Other public administration ministers of the Provisional Government of Free India included:

* Mr. S. A. Ayer - the Minister of Broadcasting and Publicity
* Lt. Col. A. C. Chatterji - the Minister of Finance

The Indian National Army was represented by Armed Forces ministers, including:

* Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmed
* Lt. Col. N. S . Bhagat
* Lt. Col. J. K. Bhonsle
* Lt. Colonel Guizara Singh
* Lt. Col. M.Z. Kiani
* Lt. Col. A. D. Loganathan
* Lt. Col. Ehsan Qadir
* Lt. Col. Shahnawaz Khan

The Provisional Government was also constituted and administered by a number of Secretaries and Advisors to Subhas Chandra Bose, including:

* A.N. Sahay - Secretary
* Karim Ghani
* Debnath Das
* D.M. Khan
* A. Yellapa
* J. Thivy
* Sirdar Isher Singh
* A. N. Sarkar - the government's official Legal Advisor

All of these Secretaries and Advisory officials held Ministerial rank in the Provisional Government. The extent of the Provisional Government's day-to-day management of affairs for Azad Hind is not entirely well-documented.

Azad Hind had diplomatic relations with nine countries: Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, Fascist Italy, the Independent State of Croatia, Wang Jingwei's Government in Nanjing, Thailand, Burma, Manchukuo and the Philippines. On the declaration of its formation in Singapore, President Eamon de Valera of the Irish Free State sent a note of congratulations to Bose. Vichy France, however, although being an Axis collaborator, never gave formal political recognition to Azad Hind. Recent researches have shown that the USSR too had recognised the Provisional Government of Free India. This government participated as a delegate or observer in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

2007-10-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

British Intrigues to Rule India

The Honourable East India Company (HEIC), often colloquially referred to as "John Company", was an early joint-stock company (the Dutch East India Company was the first to issue public stock). It was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favouring trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created HEIC a 21 year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies.

In 1617, the Company was given trade rights by Jahangir the Mughal Emperor. One hundred years later, it was granted a royal dictate from Emperor Farrukhsiyar exempting the Company from the payment of custom duties in Bengal, giving it a decided commercial advantage in the Indian trade. A decisive victory by Sir Robert Clive at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 established the Company as a military as well as a commercial power. By 1760, the French were driven out of India, with the exception of a few trading posts on the coast, such as Pondicherry. In South-East Asia, the company would establish the first trading posts and exert its military dominance leading to the eventual establishment of British Malaya, Hong Kong and Singapore as British Crown Colonies.

The Company also had interests along the routes to India from Great Britain. As early as 1620, the company attempted to lay claim to the Table Mountain region in South Africa; later it occupied and ruled St Helena. Piracy was a severe problem for the Company. This problem reached its peak in 1695, when pirate Henry Avery captured the Great Mughal's treasure fleet. The Company was held responsible for that raid, because according to Indian popular opinion of the time, all pirates were by definition English. Later, the Company unsuccessfully employed Captain Kidd to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean; it also cultivated the production of tea in India. Other notable events in the Company's history were that it held Napoleon captive on St Helena, and made the fortune of Elihu Yale. Its products were the basis of the Boston Tea Party in Colonial America.

Its shipyards provided the model for St Petersburg, while elements of its administration, the Honourable East India Company Civil Service (HEICS), survive in the Indian Civil Service (ICS). Its corporate structure was the most successful early example of a joint stock company. However, the demands of Company officers on the treasury of Bengal contributed tragically to the province's incapacity in the face of a famine, which killed millions of people in 1770-1773.

Chronology -- Modern India -- 1757 AD to 1947 AD

1757 Battle of Plassey: The British defeat Siraj-ud-daulah
1760 Battle of Wandiwash: The British defeat the French
1761 Third battle of Panipat: Ahmed Shah Abdali defeats the Marathas; Accession of Madhava Rao Peshwa; Rise of Hyder Ali
1764 Battle of Buxar: The British defeat Mir Kasim
1765 The British get Diwani Rights in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa
1767-1769 First Mysore War: The British conclude a humiliating peace pact with Hyder Ali
1772 Death of Madhava Rao Peshwa; Warren Hastings appointed as Governor of Bengal
1773 The Regulating Act passed by the British Parliament
1774 Warren Hastings appointed as Governor-General
1775-1782 The First Anglo-Maratha war
1780-1784 Second Mysore War : The British defeat Hyder Ali
1784 Pitt's India Act
1790-1792 Third Mysore War between the British and Tipu
1793 Permanent Settlement of Bengal
1794 Death of Mahadaji Sindhia
1799 Fourth Mysore War: The British defeat Tipu; Death of Tipu; Partition of Mysore
1802 Treaty of Bassein
1803-1805 The Second Anglo-Maratha war: The British defeat the Marathas at Assaye: Treaty of Amritsar
1814-1816 The Anglo-Gurkha war
1817-1818 The Pindari war
1817-1819 The last Anglo-Maratha war: Marathas finally crushed by the British
1824-1826 The First Burmese war
1829 Prohibition of Sati
1829-1837 Suppression of Thuggee
1831 Raja of Mysore deposed and its administration taken over by East India Company
1833 Renewal of Company's Charter; Abolition of company's trading rights
1835 Education Resolution
1838 Tripartite treaty between Shah Shuja, Ranjit Singh and the British
1839-1842 First Afghan war
1843 Gwalior war
1845-1846 First Anglo-Sikh war
1848 Lord Dalhousie becomes the Governor-General
1848-1849 Second Anglo-Sikh war : (Rise of Sikh Power) British annex Punjab as Sikhs are defeated
1852 Second Anglo-Burmese war
1853 Railway opened from Bombay to Thane; Telegraph line from Calcutta to Agra
1857 First War of Indian Independence: The Sepoy Mutiny
1858 British Crown takes over the Indian Government
1861 Indian Councils Act; Indian High Courts Act; Introduction of the Penal Code
1868 Punjab Tenancy Act; Railway opened from Ambala to Delhi
1874 The Bihar Famine
1877 Delhi Durbar: The Queen of England proclaimed Empress of India
1878 Vernacular Press Act
1881 Factory Act; Rendition of Mysore
1885
First meeting of the Indian National Congress; Bengal Tenancy Act
1891
Indian Factory Act
1892
Indian Councils Act to regulate Indian administration
1897
Plague in Bombay; Famine Commission
1899
Lord Curzon becomes Governor-General and Viceroy
1905
The First Partition of Bengal
1906
Formation of Muslim League; Congress declaration regarding Swaraj
1908
Newspaper Act
1911
Delhi Durbar; Partition of Bengal modified to create the Presidency of Bengal
1912
The Imperial capital shifted from Calcutta to Delhi
1913
Educational Resolution of the Government of India
1915
Defence of India Act
1916
Home Rule League founded; Foundation of Women's University at Poona
1919
Rowlatt Act evokes protests; Jalianwalla Bagh massacre; The Montague-Chelmsford Reforms offer limited autonomy
1920
The Khilafat Movement started; Mahatma Gandhi leads the Congress; Non-co-operation Movement
1921
Moplah (Muslim) rebellion in Malabar; Census of India
1922
Civil Disobedience Movement; Chauri-Chaura violence leads to Gandhi suspending movement
1923
Swarajists in Indian Councils; Certification of Salt Tax; Hindu-Muslim riots
1925
Reforms Enquiry committee Report
1926
Royal Commission on Agriculture; Factories Act
1927
Indian Navy Act; Simon Commission Appointed
1928
Simon Commission comes to India: Boycott by all parties; All Parties Conference
1929
Lord Irwin promises Dominion Status for India; Trade Union split; Jawaharlal Nehru hoists the National Flag at Lahore
1930
Civil Disobedience movement continues; Salt Satyagraha: Gandhiji's Dandi March; First Round Table Conference
1931
Second Round Table Conference; Irwin-Gandhi Pact; Census of India
1932
Suppression of the Congress movement; Third Round Table Conference; The Communal Award; Poona Pact
1933
Publication of White Paper on Indian reforms
1934
Civil Disobedience Movement called off; Bihar Earthquake
1935
Government of India Act
1937
Inauguration of Provincial Autonomy; Congress ministries formed in a majority of Indian provinces
1939
Political deadlock in India as Congress ministries resign
1942
Cripps Mission to India; Congress adopts Quit India Resolution; Congress leaders arrested; Subhash Chandra Bose forms Indian National Army
1944
Gandhi-Jinnah Talks break down on Pakistan issue
1945
First trial of the Indian Army men opened
1946
Mutiny in Royal Indian Navy; Cabinet Mission's plan announced; Muslim League decides to participate in the Interim Government; Interim Government formed; Constituent Assembly's first meeting
3 June 1947
Announcement of Lord Mountbatten's plan for partition of India
15 Aug 1947
Partition of India and Independence

2007-10-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

"Sepoy Mutiny" and Historical Distortions

The intellectuals of India today derive their recognitions and rewards because of their pro-Western attitude. As a result what should be a gigantic celebration for 150th anniversary of the India’s First War of Independence or what the British called “Sepoy Munity” is now reduced to arguments and counterarguments between politicians and historians about the specific version, which should be acceptable to them. Some historians of India recently are pursuing a policy to reflect and amplify the Anglo-American and Pakistani opinion, which is hostile towards India and the Indian history. The so-called “Sepoy Mutiny” is the latest victim.

British historians and their Indian followers like Sir Jadunath Sarkar have tried to prove that the revolt in 1857 was nothing but a mutiny of some undisciplined, uneducated soldiers, who had caused a lot of chaos and destructions but were unconnected to nationalist movement which came later. According to the British, the battle of Plassey in 1757 was a war between the French and the British where the Nawab of Bengal foolishly had supported the French. Similarly, they cannot not see the reason why the Indians who were saved from the ‘thugis’ and ‘sati’ would revolt against the British who did their best to bring civilization to this dark sub-continent.

The hero of the so-called ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ Mongal Pandey was described, by Rudranshu Mukherjee a very pro-British historian in his book ‘Mongal Pandey – brave martyr or accidental hero’, published by the Penguin Press, as a drunk, characterless person suddenly under intoxications had attacked his superior officer and he had nothing to do with the uprising of 1857. The same description of Mongal Pandey was there also in various history books written by the British historians (Sir Colin Campbell, Narrative of the Indian Revolt. London: George Vickers, 1858; John William Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War In India (3 vols). London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1878; Colonel G.B Malleson, The Indian Mutiny of 1857. New York: Scribner & Sons, 1891).

Although the above description of Mongal Pandey was disputed by Ramesh Chandra Mazumdar (Struggle for freedom, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1969) and many other notable Indian historians, I will not quote from them, as they are already dismissed by the British historians and their Indian followers from Jawaharlal Nehru University( JNU), Delhi University and Aligarh Muslim University( AMU) as “communal historians”.

“Sepoy Mutiny” as described by Karl Marx:
Recently Sitaram Yachury of the CPI(M) called for a fresh look at the Sepoy Mutiny. But what he has in mind is the JNU-AMU and Pakistani version of the revolt which was first described as the “ First War of Independence” by Karl Marx, as the historians of India could not understand the true significance of that revolt and still in the text books in India we can see only the British explanation of that event. During the revolt of 1857, Karl Marx was writing regularly in the New York Daily Tribune about the progress and the suppressions of that revolt. His description of the Mongal Pandey’s courageous act is as follows:

“On the 22nd of January, an incendiary fire broke out in cantonments a short distance from Calcutta. On the 25th of February the 19th native regiment mutinied at Berhampore; the men objecting to the cartridges served out to them. On the 31st of March that regiment was disbanded; at the end of March the 34th Sepoy regiment, stationed at Barrackpore, allowed one of its men to advance (i.e., Mongal Pandey) with a loaded musket upon the parade-ground in front of the line, and, after having called his comrades to mutiny, he was permitted to attack and wound the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major of his regiment. During the hand-to-hand conflict, that ensued, hundreds of sepoys looked passively on, while others participated in the struggle, and attacked the officers with the butt ends of their muskets.” (Karl Marx on 4 August 1857, New York Daily Tribune).

Thus, Mongal Pandey was not alone; he was not drunk or intoxicated but he was a part of the Sepoys who could not tolerate any more the continuous humiliations or torture of their countrymen by the British. According to the British historians and Rudranshu Mukherjee Mongal Pandey’s action was unconnected to the subsequent revolt that took place in Meerut much later in 1857. The famous Indian historian Jadunath Sarkar also supported this British view. However, according to Karl Marx, the action of Mongal Pandey was the beginning of the revolt, which spread like bonfire after that incident.
Marx wrote, “Subsequently that regiment was also disbanded. The month of April was signalized by incendiary fires in several cantonments of the Bengal army at Allahabad, Agra, Umballah, by a mutiny of the 3rd regiment of light cavalry at Meerut, and by similar appearances of disaffection in the Madras and Bombay armies. (Karl Marx in August 4 1857, New York Daily Tribune).
The cause of the revolt was not just religious taboo or superstitions, as the British historians and their Indian agents have suggested, but torture and humiliations the people suffered in the hands of the army of the East India Company. On August 28, 1857, Marx published an article in The New York Daily Tribune in order to show that “the British rulers of India are by no means such mild and spotless benefactors of the Indian people as they would have the world believe”.

Marx cited the official Blue Books -- entitled "East India (Torture) 1855-57"-- that were laid before the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857. The reports revealed that British officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians. Concerning matters of extortion in collecting public revenue, the report indicates that officers had free reign of any methods at their disposal. Marx also refers to Lord Dalhousie"s statements in the Blue Books that there was "irrefragable proof" that various officers had committed "gross injustice, to arbitrary imprisonment and cruel torture".

According to Karl Marx, before this there had been mutiny in the Indian army, but the present revolt is distinguished by characteristic and features. It is the first time that sepoy regiments have murdered their European officers; that “Mussulmans and Hindoos, renouncing their mutual antipathies, have combined against their common masters”; that “disturbances beginning with the Hindoos, have actually, ended in placing on the throne of Delhi a Mohammedan Emperor;” that the mutiny, “has not been confined to a few localities”; and lastly, that “the revolt in the Anglo-Indian army has coincided with a general disaffection exhibited against English supremacy on the part of the great Asiatic nations, the revolt of the Bengal army being, beyond doubt, intimately connected with the Persian and Chinese wars”.

“The ‘unorganized peasants’ of India fought one of the most powerful empires in the world to near defeat with limited resources and even more limited training. It is clear that British interference governments and the oppression of the Indian people, religious and economic, created a bloody revolution”.

“If there is a lesson to be learned from any of this, it is that a people, once pushed into a corner, will fight for nothing more than the freedom to fight, and live, if not for religion then for their basic right to live in freedom.” (in Marx, Karl & Freidrich Engels. The First Indian War of Independence 1857-1859. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959).
Mongal Pandey has initiated that first war of independence in 1857 and he should be respected as such. However, the pro-British historians of India are now doing their best to diminish the importance of both Mongal Pandey and the 1857 revolt. The JNU and Pakistani historians on the other hand is glorifying only the Mughal rulers and the contributions of their followers ignoring the role of the indigenous Indians

Conclusion:
Pro-Britishand pro-Pakistani journalists and historians of India want to malign and admonish the revolutionaries and important personalities of India, modern, medieval, or ancient. They have taken up the task to satisfy their masters in the West, who as Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan wrote, “… tried their best to persuade India that its philosophy is absurd, its art puerile, its poetry uninspired, its religion grotesque and its ethics barbarous.” [in ‘Indian Philosophy’, Vol.II, Allen& Unwin, London, 1977, p.779].

The historians following the British tradition describe India as an inferior civilization, always poor, always defeated and fragmented. Both James Mill in 19th century (in The History of British India) and Gunner Myrdall in 1970 (in Asian Drama) said that India is a civilization without any quality. According to the British historians, whether MaxMuller in 19th century or F.R.Allchin and Bridget Allchin in 21st century, everything in Indian civilization was borrowed starting with the Sanskrit language and the Aryan civilization, which were both of foreign origin. It is unfortunate that some Indian journalist and historians are propagating for the British journalists and historians to gain favour and the Indian establishment supports them.

Yvette Rosser in her PhD thesis, “Curricula as Destiny: Forging National Identities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh" in the University of Texas in Austin, has proved that the source of the recent writings of the JNU-AMU-Delhi historians are the Pakistani textbooks. In India, some recent historians from the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Milia Islamia, and Delhi University, Satish Chandra, K.M. Shrimali, K.M.Pannikar, R.S. Sharma, D. N. Jha, Gyanendra Pandey, Irfan Habib, Arjun Deva, Musirul Hussain, Harbans Mukhia, and Romila Thaper, are called Marxist historians. However, a closer look at their writings would show that they are not Marxian but loyalist of the British and Pakistani historical traditions, which are anti-Marxist, and anti-Indian. Unfortunately Sitaram Yachury is asking people to follow this pro-Pakistani version of the “Sepoy Mutiny” ignoring version given by Karl Marx.

Dr.Dipak Basu

(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)

2007-10-12T06:46:00.000-07:00

Satyagraha and India"s freedom Movement

Yogi Ramdev’s courageous statement that we must not forget the role of the revolutionaries in the freedom movement of India has called for a reexamination of the role of Mahatma Gandhi and his Satyagraha. "Satyagraha’ literally means insistence on truth. According to Gandhi, the doctrine of Satyagraha “came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but ones own self. Satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering.”

Recently the Prime minister Manmohan Singh went to South Africa to celebrate the centenary of Satyagraha, which was started in 6 September 1906 in South Africa as a protest against the identity card that the non-Europeans were asked to carry in that country. What that got to do with Indian freedom movement against the British Empire is the question. The answer given by the official historian is that Gandhi through Satyagraha fought the mightiest empire of the world in a peaceful way, which is novel in both theory and application. However, the truth is very different from the official version of history of the freedom movement in India.

Gandhi in South Africa:

Gandhi arrived in South Africa in 1893 as an employee of a Gujarati merchant for a year. When he agreed to stay on in South Africa to serve the Indian community, he was provided retainers by Indian merchants to enable him to live in proper style as a barrister and entertain Europeans. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress, which was an elite organization, just like the Indian National Congress at that time, restricted to the very rich people and the empire-loyalists.

Gandhi had visited India for five months in 1896 and met a number of public leaders to secure their support to redress the grievances of Indians in South Africa. In his second visit for a year in 1901-2 he attended the Congress session in Calcutta and spent more than a month with G.K. Gokhale, who was very loyal to the British and was opposed to the ideas of freedom movement of Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Banerjee and Bipin Pal. Thus, Gandhi has joined the Empire-loyalist camp within the Congress, disinterested in the Swaraj movement of Tilak.

Gandhi’s first Satyagraha:

Returning to South Africa, Gandhi began to defy the Transvaal Asiatic Ordinance, where the government wanted all Asiatic, Arabs and Turks to carry a pass all the time to prove their eligibility to stay in South Africa. It was not a big issue, as in most countries even today foreigners must carry such documents anyway. Throughout the Satyagraha, Gandhi emphasized that it was not so much for the rights of the Indians in South Africa as for the honour of the motherland, but which "motherland’ Gandhi was talking about was not clear. One of the most dramatic events of the Satyagraha was the burning of the passes. The question is did that help the Indians in South Africa. The answer is definitely negative. Indians were rounded up and deported in many cases. The campaign lasted for over seven years, and in 1913 hundreds of people went to jail - and thousands of striking Indian miners faced imprisonment and injury.

Even when General Smut decided to meet Gandhi, it was made clear that there would be no further immigration of the Indians to South Africa. Passes were withdrawn temporarily but soon after laws were passed to restrict the non-Europeans into designated areas in every cities; that was the beginning of the legal racial segregations in South Africa. By all means Gandhi’s Satyagraha was not a success, but that had not stopped certain people and the English language media in India at that time to propagate Gandhi as victorious against a racist government of British origin for whom Gandhi had worked as medical orderly in the war against the Dutch settlers in South Africa and became a recruitment agent during the First World War. Gandhi had practically no contact with the African and their liberation movement. Maureen Swan wrote in her book, "Gandhi: the South African Experience’:

In choosing not to attempt to ally with the articulate politicized elements in either the Coloured or African communities, Gandhi facilitated the implementation of the divisive segregationist policies which helped ease the task of white minority rule in South Africa.

The European rulers in South Africa enforced racial segregation and differential policies despite of Gandhi are Satyagraha and tried to incite Africans against the Indians and attempted to degrade the status of the Indians to just “coolies”.

When Gandhi left South Africa, he still believed in the British Empire though tentatively. He said, Though Empires have gone and fallen, this empire may perhaps be an exception....it is an empire not founded on material but on spiritual foundations....the British constitution. Tear away those ideals and you tear away my loyalty to the British constitution; keep those ideals and I am ever a bondsman. (in Martin Green, Gandhi: Voice of a New Age Revolutionary)

Impacts of Gandhi on South Africa’s freedom struggle were practically insignificant. Mainly African ANC (African National Congress), like its counterparts in the adjacent Portuguese colonies in Mozambique, and Angola, was strongly influenced, financed and armed by the Soviet Union and was not at all interested in non-violence methods of Gandhi. Nelson Mandela, in his speech from the dock in April 1964, pointed out that he and his colleagues had decided to undertake organized underground and armed resistance in order to avert uncontrolled violence unleashed by the racist government of South Africa against the black and coloured people.

Gandhi returned to India in 1914. Gandhi himself had twice volunteered for service in the First World War for the British, in France and in Mesopotamia, because he had convinced himself that he owed the empire that sacrifice in return for its military protection (in Martin Green, Gandhi: Voice of a New Age Revolutionary).

Gandhi’s Second Satyagraha :

Through extraordinary good fortune, due to the deaths of Tilak by September 1920 Gandhi in an extraordinary political coup was elected himself as the president of the All-India Home Rule League and steered a resolution in favour of Non-Cooperation to preserve the Khilafat but got rid of the freedom movement in the Congress session in Calcutta. Later all the important leaders of the Congress, Bipin Pal, Surendranath Banerjee, Ajit Singh were either expelled or neutralized by Gandhi. Tilak had gathered about Rs.10 lakhs, a huge sum these days to finance his freedom movement. Gandhi used that up to please the followers of Turkish Khalifa, who was defied by the Muslims in the Turkish occupied Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and in Turkey itself by the reforming leader Kamal Attaturk. Gandhi and the Muslim leaders of India were ignorant about these political developments in the Middle East.

The agitation to save the Turkish Sultan by the "Non-Cooperation’ of the Congress party was initiated by the Khilafat leadership, not by the Congress. Gandhi without consulting other leaders of the Congress made these two issues his own by presiding over the All India Khilafat Conference in Delhi in November 1919, and started his programme of peaceful non co-operation with the British included boycotts of British goods and institutions to protect the Turkish Sultan, leading to arrests of thousands of the people for defying British laws. Thus, the second Satyagraha has nothing to do with the freedom movement of India and was a regressive movement to preserve the violent crude feudal Sultanate of Turkey who had colonized a vast part of the world, from Iraq to Greece with its inhuman rule.

The Khilafat movement was discredited by the Muslims in Malabar Coast who had resorted into massive violence to slaughter the Hindus in Kerala and Mysore. Gandhi called off the Khilafat movement after the Chauri Chaura violence without even consulting his Muslim allies. Gandhi’s decision created deep consternation in Congress circles. Subhas Chandra Bose wrote: To sound the order of retreat just when public enthusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short of a national calamity. The principal lieutenants of the Mahatma, Deshbandhu Das, Pandit Motilal Nehru and Lala Lajpat Rai, who were all in prison, shared the popular resentment. I was with the Deshbandu at the time, and I could see that he was beside himself with anger and sorrow. (quoted from Indian Struggle by Subhas Chandra Bose, p.90)

Motilal Nehru, Lajpat Rai and others sent from prison long and indignant letters to Gandhi protesting at his decision to which Gandhi replied that men in prison were civilly dead and had no claim to any say in policy. In March 1922, Gandhi was sentenced to six years imprisonment. He was released after two years, but by then the political landscape had changed dramatically. The Congress Party had split and Hindu-Muslim unity had disintegrated. Sri Aurobindo said:”When Gandhis movement was started, I said that this movement would lead either to a fiasco or to great confusion. And I see no reason to change my opinion. Only I would like to add that it has led to both.”

Gandhi’s third Satyagraha:

Gandhis political influence was minimal for some years, until the Calcutta Congress in December 1928, where he demanded dominion status for India, and threatened a nation-wide campaign but he had also expelled Srinivas Iyenger from the Congress for demanding complete independence of India. Subhas Chandra Bose was expelled along with more than 200 of his followers from the Congress party for similar reason in 1939.

On March 12, 1930 Gandhi started a March in Dandi, Gujarat to break the law, which had deprived the people of his right to make his own salt, although for most of the people of India it was only symbolic as they never did used to make their own salt in any way. On April 6, 1930 Gandhi broke the Salt law at the sea beach at Dandi. This simple act was immediately followed by a nation-wide defiance of the law. This movement came to be known as Civil Disobedience Movement. Within a few weeks about a hundred thousand men and women, thinking mistakenly that it was the beginning of the freedom movement, were in jail, throwing mighty machinery of the British Government out of gear. Gandhi was arrested on May 5, 1930.

After his arrest, a more aggressive non-violent rebellion took place in which 2500 volunteers raided salt depots at Dharsana. In April 1930 there were violent police-crowd clashes in Calcutta. Approximately over 100,000 people were imprisoned in the course of the Civil disobedience movement (1930-31), while in Peshawar unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by the British. Gandhi withdrew himself from the movement. Sacrifice of the people was in vain. The British government had never withdrawn the tax on salt.

In January 1931, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, ordered the release of Gandhi and together they signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, which called for an end of Congresss civil disobedience. In August, Gandhi went to London to represent the Indian National Congress at the Second Round Table Conference; the first one was held without Congress participation in November 1930. That Conference in 1931has failed mainly because of the change of government in Britain.

Gandhi returned to India and decided to resume the civil disobedience movement in January 1932. India was then under the repressive policies of the new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon. The Indian National Congress had been outlawed. Gandhi had restricted the civil disobedience movement to him and suspended it completely in 1934.Gandhi then had started his campaign against untouchability. Thus, Gandhi’s second Satyagraha also could not achieve anything much because Gandhi as usual refused to continue it. That was Gandhi’s last and the only Satyagraha as a mass political movement for the freedom movement.

Quit India movement is not a Satyagraha:

In 1942, Japan already liberated Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Subhas Chandra Bose hoisted Indian flags there. Free India government in exile or Azad Hind Government was recognized by the Soviet Union, Japan, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Imperial China. Indian national army and Imperial Japanese army was on the doorstep of the British India. Gandhi refused to be outsmarted by Netaji Subhas and started his last mass movement, which was not a Satyagraha.

In August 1942, Gandhi gave forth the slogan Quit India for the British but he had no plan how to execute the programme. The Congress passed a resolution on 8 August 1942, which stated that, the immediate ending of the British rule in India, was an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and the success of United Nations. The congress resolved to launch a mass Civil Disobedience struggle on the widest possible scale for the vindication of India’s unalienable right to freedom and independence if the British rule did not end immediately. The day after the resolution was passed, the Congress was banned and all the important leaders were arrested including Gandhi. That provoked spontaneous demonstrations at many places and people resorted to the use of violence, not Satyagraha, to dislodge the foreign rule.

Unarmed crowds faced police and military firing on many occasions and they were also machine gunned by low- flying aircraft. Repression also took the form of taking hostages from the villages, imposing collective fines, whipping of suspects and burning of villages. By the end of 1942, over 60,000 persons had been arrested. Martial law had not been proclaimed but the army did whatever it wanted. The brutal and all-out repression succeeded within a period of 6 or 7 weeks in bringing about a cessation of the struggle. As usual Gandhi already withdrew himself from that movement within a few days after it has started.

Since 1942, Gandhi was busy making plans to partition India to create Pakistan, the idea of which Gandhi has accepted even in 1940, according to both B.R.Ambedkar and Sri Aurobindo. Nehru and Patel as representative of Gandhi were in regular consultations with the Vice-Roy of India on how best to help the British war efforts against Japan and the Azad Hind Fauz. Freedom movement was not in their mind.

Gandhi had initiated a number of his personal Satyagraha on a number of issues unrelated to the freedom movement; most of these were not successful. Sri Aurobindo made this comment about Satyagraha:

“Gandhi fasted in the Ahmedabad mill-hands strike to settle the question between mill- owners and workers. The mill-owners did not want to be responsible for his death and so they gave way, without of course, being convinced of his position. But as soon as they found the situation normal they reverted to their old ideas. The same thing happened in South Africa. He got some concessions there by passive resistance and when he came back to India it became worse than before.”

Gandhi’s fast in Calcutta in 1947 has ended communal riot only in Calcutta for a while, but thereafter the whole country engulfed itself in communal murders and mayhem. Gandhi’s fast in 1948 to force the newly independent India government to pay the due financial share to Pakistan was against his closest admirers and disciples, and it was bound to be successful. However, these have nothing to do with the independence movement.

Analysis:

It is a common belief in India and in the Western world that Gandhi through his non-violence Satyagraha has gave India independence from the British rule. The truth is somehow very different.

According to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, during whose regime India became free, the creation of the INA( Indian National Army) and mutiny the RIN ( Royal Indian Navy) of February 18–23 1946 made the British realise that their time was up in India. An extract from a letter written by P.V. Chuckraborty, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, on March 30 1976, reads thus:

“When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Lord Clement Attlee, who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India’s freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days. I put it straight to him like this: "The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry. Why then did they do so?’ In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, "Minimal’.”

(in Anuj Dhar’s website: www.hindustantime.com/news/specials/Netaji/; Dhanjaya Bhat, The Tribune, February 12, 2006; Majumdar, R. C., Jibanera Smritideepe, Calcutta, General Printers and Publishers, 1978, pp. 229-230; R.Borra, "Subhas Chandra Bose, The Indian National Army, and The War of Indias Liberation’, The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1982 (Vol. 3, No. 4), pages 407-439; http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p407_Borra.html)

Indian soldiers of the Royal Indian Navy have started their revolt at Bombay harbour on 18 February 1946 in association with the growing unrest in India when the British had started mass executions of the members of the Azad Hind Fauz, as reported in The Hindustan Times, 2 November 1945. From the initial flashpoint in Bombay, the mutiny spread and found support all over India, from Karachi to Calcutta and involved 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 soldiers. Industrial workers in Bombay area joined in. In Madras and Pune the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the Indian army. However, both the Congress and the Muslim League betrayed that revolt. Although both Gandhi and Jinnah condemned it, but it had a decisive role for the independence of India by forcing the British to realize they cannot depend on the Indian in the army, navy or in the air force. Lord Mountbatten has described India in 1946 as a burning ship in the mid-ocean.

Famous historian Ramesh Chadra Majumdar dismissed the contribution of Satyagraha to the eventual independence of India. He said, “ The campaigns of Gandhi… came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence… In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India. (Majumdar, R.C., Three Phases of Indias Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan).

Thus, one should not just believe in the official version of the recent Indian history, which has propagated that only Gandhi and Nehru through the Satyagraha has brought freedom to India. The reality is quite different, but was hidden so far due the massive state power to advertise Satyagraha, which as a mass movement has failed everywhere whether in India or in South Africa.

Dr.Dipak Basu

(The author is a Professor in International Economics in Nagasaki University, Japan)

2007-10-02T02:06:00.001-07:00

PM's address at the Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

January 23, 2007
New Delhi

“It is a great honour and privilege for me to participate in these celebrations of the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Netaji Bose was one of the tallest leaders of our freedom struggle. A great son of India, he was also a great citizen of the world.

The image of Netaji as a restless young man driven by the sole cause of freedom of India endures in the popular imagination of our countrymen. There was in him the fire and the zeal to pursue that single goal with firm sense of determination. Any obstacle in his way was never regarded as insurmountable.

He had a fiercely independent mind and refused to follow the beaten track. On one occasion he wrote, “There is nothing that lures me more than a life of adventure away from the beaten track and in search of the unknown. In this life there may be suffering, but there is joy as well; there may be darkness, but there are also hours of dawn. To this path I call my countrymen.”

Netaji was impatient in his desire to liberate our country from foreign rule. He left the coveted Indian Civil Service, joined the freedom movement and displayed rare sense of heroism in the relentless pursuit of his goal. He united Indians of all faiths, all communities and languages and gave shape to the idea of a modern resurgent India.

This year is also the 150th anniversary of the first war of independence. Netaji was inspired by its example when he created the famous Azad Hind Fauj. Netaji glowingly referred to the first war of independence and urged his soldiers to fulfil the unfinished task of the sepoys of 1857. One of the regiments of the Indian National Army was named Rani Jhansi Regiment.

Netaji’s clarion call “Dilli Challo,” echoed the call to arms of 1857 and inspired the whole Nation once more. He dreamt of hoisting the tricolour on the ramparts of the Red Fort. But instead his men were tried in that Fort. Jawaharlal Nehru put on the robes of a barrister and defended gallant young men. Ironically that trial became the trial of the British Empire.

The idealism and the spirit of sacrifice of Netaji for the cause of the nation remains the high point of our struggle for independence. Netaji once wrote, “… no suffering, no sacrifice is ever futile. It is through suffering and sacrifice alone that a cause can flourish and prosper, and in every age and clime, the eternal law prevails, ‘the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church’.” Today we salute that suffering and sacrifice of the men and women who marched under Netaji’s command.

Netaji’s magnetic personality also won the admiration of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Though Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, rejected Netaji’s methods, he always admired his zeal, his commitment, his patriotism and his nationalism. Gandhiji once observed: “the greatest lesson that we can draw from Netaji’s life is the way in which he infused the spirit of unity amongst his men so that they could rise above all religions and provincial barriers and shed together their blood for common cause.”

It is this spirit that is required today to take our country forward. To help us pursue a more inclusive and equitable path to social, economic progress. The national movement forged the unity of our diverse land. It brought people of diverse faiths, diverse creeds, diverse languages together. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose remained deeply committed to Hindu- Muslim unity and amity. They were both deeply spiritual men, but equally secular. They understood that India’s great contribution to humankind is the idea of “Sarva Dharma Sambhava”.

In celebrating Netaji’s birth anniversary we also celebrate the ideas and principles we associate with him and our national movement for freedom. We recall his extraordinary courage as the Supreme Commander of the Indian National Army, but we also recall his constructive approach to nation building. That vision of Netaji has immense relevance for the 21st century and for our fight against the forces of communalism, terrorism and extremism.

While commemorating Netaji’s birth anniversary I am reminded of his historic statement concerning the processes of nation building. He was in favour of guaranteeing rights to all citizens. But at the same time he stressed on taking special measures for minorities and other disadvantaged sections of society. As the President of the Indian National Congress in 1938, he articulated a vision that is of abiding relevance. Netaji’s view that all minority communities be allowed their due space in cultural as well as governmental affairs testified to his humanism and commitment to egalitarian values. A commitment to equity is not appeasement. It is a mark of one’s commitment to humanism.

Netaji had a sense of history and a far-sighted vision of India's place in the world. As far back as 1929, he said :

"History tells us how Asia conquered and held sway over large portions of Europe. The tables are turned now but the wheel of fortune is still moving ………Time is not far off when a rejuvenated Asia will be resplendent in power and glory and take her legitimate place in the comity of free nations."

Netaji Subhash Bose had many firsts to his credit. He was one of the first leaders of our country who cautioned the nation about population growth in the 1930s and suggested steps for controlling it. His historic decision to establish, for the first time in our history, the National Planning Committee under the Chairmanship of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru made him one of the key architects of planning in our country. He interacted with a wide spectrum of public figures including economists and scientists. He wanted to build modern India as much on the firm base of industrialization and science and technology as on our ancient culture and civilization.

Much has been said about the differences between Netaji Subhash Bose with Mahatma Gandhi. But much has not been said about their common approach and vision of a free India. It was Netaji who, as the Supreme Commander of the Indian National Army, had named its various brigades as Nehru Brigade, Azad Brigade, etc. From the battlefield, he sent a message to Gandhiji addressing him, probably for the first time, as the Father of our Nation. He sought Gandhiji’s blessings and good wishes for his Herculean endeavours.

In 1945 Mahatma Gandhi wrote in the Harijan, “The hypnotism of Indian National Army has cast a spell on us. Netaji’s name is one to conjure with. His bravery shines above all.” Let us all today bow our heads before his bravery and leadership in our struggle for Independence. In paying tribute to his memory, and on the eve of Republic Day, let us be imbued with the values of our freedom struggle and rededicate ourselves to the cause of India’s progress.

Jai Hind.”

2007-10-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech on 150 years of struggle for Independence

May 11, 2007
New Delhi

Today, we have gathered to commemorate a very historical event in real sense. This day 150 years ago, a gate of Old Delhi city was thrown open for revolutionary sepoys of Meerut. From this gate only, those revolutionaries entered the city and presented a strong challenge to the British rulers. Their slogans resonated through the city of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and Mirza Ghalib. That incident triggered a prolonged battle against foreign rule, which continued for 100 years. From that time to 1947, we struggled a great deal. The spark of 1857 which was extinguished momentarily lighted a lamp of desire for freedom in the hearts of all Indians, which continued to guide the countrymen. The most special aspect of 1857 war of independence was that in this war people from all religions, languages and regions became united. This was a war for freedom and for shaping one’s own destiny. That historical moment integrated kings, Jamindars, farmers, peasants, artisans under one banner. Perhaps, this show of unity was unprecedented in Indian history. There is no doubt about the fact that 1857 was the dazzling example of India’s national unity. It was a unique instance of unity in diversity. It was a living testimony of our colourful civilisation and culture. This is what is known as ‘Ganga-Jamuni culture’. Even today, sometimes, attempt is made to divide us in the name of religion. Most important facet of 1857 was that religious boundaries were obliterated, distances were removed and all Indians came to the battle-field as one. In fact, religious tolerance brought people on a single platform against Britishers.

Today, we are passing through an age of economic and social transformation. India is changing along with entire world and marching ahead with great speed. I wish that our youth should understand the hardships which were faced to attain independence. I wish that every citizen should know the sacrifice that our elders made and they should understand the feelings and ideals on which freedom struggle was based. It is the good luck of the people of this great country that such big leaders emerged here to give us a new and independent India. Come, brothers and sisters, let us work together and show our unity. We pay homage to those great souls who gave us independence through their sacrifice, hardwork and discipline. Come, let us prove ourselves to be worthy of that independence which was attained through the continuous hardwork of our elders. Our freedom struggle is based on unity and diversity and this is also the basis of our national integration of today.

Come, let us work together to create a new prosperous India.

Jai Hind.

2007-09-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

Battle of Plassey, 23 June 1757

Battle that followed on from the accession of Suraj Dowlah as Nabob of Bengal (1756). Bengal had a long standing treaty with the East India Company, who held Calcutta, but the new Nabob ignored the treaty, and occupied Calcutta, after which he threw the captured servants of the Company into the infamous black hole of Calcutta. The East India Company responded with an army led by Robert Clive (Clive of India), which recaptured Calcutta, took Chandernagore off the French, and then caught up with the Nabob's army at the village of Plassey. Clive had just over 3,000 troops, of whom 2,000 were Indian, while the Nabob had over 50,000 men, with French artillery. However, the Nabob began the battle with an all out bombardment, using up all of his ammunition to no effect, The Bengali troops of the Nabob fled the battle without offering any further resistance, and the British were able to overwhelm the French artillery. Clive had won a famous victory against overwhelming odds, for the loss of between 20 and 70 men, an outstanding achievement that gained effective control over Bengal for the British, and drove the French out of northern India. Although there was little or no British government involvement in India at this time, the victory of the East India Company destroyed French trade in India, which helped Britain in the Seven Years War.

Source: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_plassey.html

2007-09-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

नेताजी का ऐतिहासिक भाषण

1857 में हुई आज़ादी की पहली लड़ाई की 150वीं वर्षगाँठ इस वर्ष देश भर में मनाई जा रही है। इस मौके पर भारतीय स्वतंत्रता संग्राम के नेताजी द्वारा प्रथम संग्राम के देशभक्त नायक की स्मृति में दिए गए इस दुर्लभ भाषण को नेताजी के दिल के करीब की ज़ुबाँ में पेश करते हुए हमें खुशी हो रही है। "राष्ट्रभाषा के नाते काँग्रेस ने हिन्दी (या हिन्दुस्तानी) को अपनाया, इससे अंग्रेजी का महत्व समाप्त हुआ" - इस उपलब्धि का श्रेय नेताजी महात्मा गाँधी को देते हैं। यह भाषण नेताजी ने सम्राट-कवि बहादुरशाह ज़फ़र की मज़ार पर हुए आज़ाद हिन्द फौज की आनुष्ठनिक कवायद और जलसे में 11 जुलाई, 1944 को दिया था। नेताजी की 'ब्लड बाथ' नामक पुस्तिका में यह संकलित है। यह पुस्तिका पहले-पहल 'आज़ाद हिन्द सरकार' के 'प्रेस, प्रकाशन तथा प्रचार विभाग' द्वारा बर्मा से प्रकाशित हुई थी तथा नेताजी जन्मशती के मौके पर, 1996 में, जयश्री प्रकाशन ( 20 ए प्रिंस गुलाम मोहम्मद रोड, कोलकाता - 700026) द्वारा पुनर्प्रकाशित की गई है। हिन्दी अनुवाद : अफ़लातून।

पिछले साल सितम्बर महीने में हमने भारत की आज़ादी की पहली जंग और इंकलाब के रहनुमा सम्राट बहादुरशाह की मज़ार पर आनुष्ठनिक कवायद का आयोजन किया था। पिछले साल हुआ जलसा भारत की आज़ादी के लिए हो रहे संघर्ष के लिहाज से ऐतिहासिक था चूँकि आज़ाद हिन्द फौज की टुकड़ियाँ मौजूद थीं और जलसे में उन्होंने शिरकत भी की थी। मैं उस जलसे को ऐतिहासिक क़रार दे रहा हूँ चूँकि वह पहला मौका था जब हिन्द की नई इन्कलाबी फौज द्वारा भारत की पहली इंकलाबी फौज के सेनापति को श्रद्धांजलि दी गई। पिछले साल की कवायद में हम में से जो लोग भी शरीक थे उन लोगों ने सम्राट बहादुरशाह के काम को आगे बढ़ाने और भारत को ब्रिटिश गुलामी के जुए से निजात दिलाने की क़सम ली थी। मुझे इस बात की खुशी और फक्र है कि उस कसम को आंशिक तौर पर पूरा करने में हमें कामयाबी मिली है। पिछले साल के जलसे में मौजूद ज्यादातर सैनिक इस वक्त अग्रिम मोर्चा संभाले हुए हैं। भारत की सरहद को पार कर आज़ाद हिन्द फौज आज मातृभूमि की मिट्टी पर लड़ रही है।

इस साल के आयोजन के साथ यह असाधारण, शायद दैविय संयोग था कि सम्राट बहादुरशाह की पुण्य तिथि और 'नेताजी सप्ताह' एक साथ पड़े हैं। 'नेताजी सप्ताह' के दौरान समूचे पूर्वी एशिया में रहने वाले भारतीय भारतीयों ने मुकम्मिल आज़ादी हासिल करने तक अपनी लड़ाई जारी रखने का विधिवत संकल्प लिया है। यह दैविय संकेत है कि आज़ादी के जंग के पहले सेनापति की समाधि का स्थल भारत की आज़ादी की आखिरी जंग का मुख्य केन्द्र है। इसी पवित्र अड्डे से हमारी अपनी मातृभूमि की ओर अग्रसर है। आज़ाद हिन्द फौज की आनुष्ठनिक कवायद में इसी स्थान पर पुन: जुट कर हम अपने संकल्प की आंशिक पूर्ति की खुशी महसूस करने के साथ-साथ भारत की भूमि को अनचाहे अंग्रेजों से निजात दिलाने तक अनवरत संघर्ष के लिए कमर-कस कर तैयार हो रहे हैं।

अंग्रेज इतिहासकारों ने 1857 की लड़ाई के बारे में यह दुष्प्रचार कर रखा है कि वह अंग्रेज फौज में सेवारत भारतीय सैनिकों का विद्रोह-मात्र था। हकीकत है कि वह एक कौमी इन्कलाब था जिसमें भारतीय सैनिकों के साथ-साथ नागरिकों ने भी शिरकत की थी।

यहाँ 1857 के घटनाक्रम पर एक नज़र डालना वाजिब होगा। अंग्रेज इतिहासकारों ने 1857 की लड़ाई के बारे में यह दुष्प्रचार कर रखा है कि वह अंग्रेज फौज में सेवारत भारतीय सैनिकों का विद्रोह-मात्र था। हकीकत है कि वह एक कौमी इन्कलाब था जिसमें भारतीय सैनिकों के साथ-साथ नागरिकों ने भी शिरकत की थी। इस राष्ट्रव्यापी जंग में कई राजा शरीक हुए जबकि यह दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण रहा कि कई राजा खुद को दरकिनार किए रहे। इस जंग के शुरुआती दौर में कई फतह हुईं, अन्तिम दौर में ही बड़ी ताकत के बल पर हमें पराजित किया गया। किसी क्रान्ति की तवारीख़ में ऐसा होना बिलकुल असामान्य नहीं है। दुनिया के इतिहास में यह मुश्किल से मिलेगा जब क्रान्ति पहले संघर्ष में ही कामयाब हो गयी हो। "आज़ादी की लड़ाई एक बार आरम्भ होती है तो पुश्त-दर-पुश्त चलती है"। बवक्तन यदि इंकलाब नाकामयाब भी होता है या दबा दिया जाता है तब भी उसके कुछ सबक हासिल होते हैं। आगे आने वाली पीढ़ियाँ इन सबक को लेकर अपनी लड़ाई ज्यादा असरकारक तरीके से, ज्यादा तैयारी के साथ फिर से खड़ी करती हैं। हम ने 1857 की नाकामयाबी से सबक लिया है और इस तजुर्बे का इस्तेमाल भारत की आज़ादी की इस आखिरी जंग में किया है।

यह सोचना भूल होगी कि 1857 में एक दिन अचानक लोगों ने अंग्रेजों के खिलाफ़ हथियार उठा लिए। कोई भी क्रान्ति जल्दबाजी में या अललटप्पू तरीके से नहीं लायी जाती है। 1857 के हमारे रहनुमाओं ने अपने तईं पूरी तैयारी की थी, लेकिन अफ़सोस कि वह पर्याप्त नहीं थी। उस पवित्र युद्ध के एक प्रमुख नेता नाना साहब ने मदद और सहयोग हासिल करने के मक़सद से युरोप तक की यात्रा की थी। दुर्भाग्यवश उन्हें इस कोशिश में कामयाबी हासिल नहीं हुई और नतीजतन 1857 में जब क्रान्ति शुरु हुई, तब अंग्रेजों का बाकी दुनिया से कोई झगड़ा नहीं था और वे अपनी पूरी ताकत और संसाधन हिन्द के लोगों को कुचलने में लगा सके। मुल्क की भीतर जनता और भारतीय सैनिकों के बीच काबिले गौर होशियारी के साथ गुप्त सन्देश प्रचारित कर दिये गये थे। इस वजह से संकेत होते ही देश के कई हिस्सों में एक साथ लड़ाई शुरु हो सकी। फ़तह पर फ़तह हासिल होती गयी। उत्तर भारत के महत्वपूर्ण शहर अंग्रेजों के चंगुल से मुक्त हो गये तथा उनमें इन्कलाबी फौज ने जीत का परचम लहराया। अभियान के पहले चरण में हर जगह इन्कलाब को कामयाबी मिली। दूसरे चरण में जब दुश्मन का जवाबी हमला शुरु हुआ तब हमारे सैनिक टिक न सके। तब ही यह पता चला कि क्रान्तिकारियों ने एक राष्ट्रव्यापी रणनीति नहीं बनाई थी तथा उस रणनीति के संचालन और समन्वय के लिए एक गतिमान नेता का अभाव था। देश के कई भागों के राजा निष्क्रीय और उदासीन रहे। बहादुरशाह ने इस बाबत जयपुर, जोधपुर, बिकानेर, अलवर आदि के राजाओं को लिखा :

"मेरी प्रबल आरज़ू है कि अंग्रेज किसी भी कीमत पर, किन्हीं भी उपायों से हिन्दुस्तान से खदेड़ दिए जायें। मेरी उत्कट कामना है कि समूचा हिन्दुस्तान आज़ाद हो। इस उद्देश्य से छेड़ा गए इन्कलाबी युद्ध के माथे पर विजय का सेहरा तब तक बँध नहीं सकता जब तक ऐसा कोई व्यक्ति सामने नहीं आता जो पूरी तहरीक की जिम्मेदारी अपने कन्धों पर ले सके, राष्ट्र की विभिन्न शक्तियों को संगठित कर सके तथा पूरी जनता को इस जागृति के दौरान राह दिखाये। अंग्रेजों को हटाने के बाद भारत पर राज करने की मेरी कोई तमन्ना नहीं है। आप सभी अपनी म्यानों से तलवार खींच कर दुश्मन को भगाने के लिए तैयार हो जायें तब मैं तमाम शाही-हकूक भारतीय राजाओं के संघ के हक़ में छोड़ने के लिए तैयार हूँ।"

यह ख़त बहादुरशाह ने अपने हाथ से लिखा था। देशभक्ति और त्याग की भावना से सराबोर इस पत्र को पढ़कर हर आज़ादी-पसन्द हिन्दुस्तानी का सिर प्रशंसा और अदब से झुक जाएगा।

बहादुरशाह बूढ़े और कमजोर हो चुके थे और इसलिए उन्हें लगा कि खुद इस जंग का संचालन करना उनके बूते के बाहर होगा। उन्होंने छ: सदस्यीय समिति गठित की जिसमें तीन सेनापति और तीन नागरिक-प्रतिनिधि थे। इस समिति को पूरे अभियान को संचालित करने की जिम्मेदारी दी गई। उनके द्वारा किए गए तमाम प्रयास निष्फल रहे क्योंकि भारत की पूर्ण आजादी के लिए परिस्थितियाँ परिपक्व नहीं हुई थीं।

एक और तथ्य इस बुजुर्ग नेता के इन्कलाबी जज़्बे और जोश का द्योतक है। उत्तर प्रदेश के बरेली शहर की दीवारों पर अंकित बहादुरशाह का यह फ़रमान गौरतलब है :

" हमारी इस फौज में छोटे-बड़े का भेद भूलकर बराबरी के आधार को नियम माना जाएगा चूँकि इस पाक जंग में तलवार चलाने वाला हर शक्स समान रूप से प्रतापी है। इसमें शामिल सभी लोग भाई-भाई हैं, उनमें अलग-अलग वर्ग नहीं होंगे। इसलिए मैं अपने सभी हिन्दुस्तानी भाइयों से आह्वान कर रहा हूँ जागो तथा दैवी आदेश और सर्वोच्च दायित्व का निर्वाह करने के लिए रण भूमि में कूद पड़ो। "

मैंने इन तथ्यों का हवाला इसलिए दिया है ताकि आप यह जान सकें कि मौजूदा आज़ाद हिन्द फौज की बुनियाद 1857 में पड़ चुकी थी। आज़ादी की इस आखिरी जंग में हमें 1857 की जंग और उसकी खामियों से सबक लेना होगा।

इस बार दैव-योग हमारे पक्ष में है। शत्रु कई मोर्चों पर जीवन-मृत्यु के संघर्ष में उलझा हुआ है। देश की जनता पूरी तरह जागृत है। आज़ाद हिन्द फौज एक अपराजेय शक्ति है और उसके सभी सदस्य अपने राष्ट्र की मुक्ति के साझा प्रयत्न के लिए एकताबद्ध हैं। पूर्ण विजय हासिल करने तक चलने वाले इस अभियान के लिए हम एक दूरगामी साझा रणनीति से लैस हैं। हमारा आधार-अड्डा अच्छी तरह संगठित है और सबसे महत्वपूर्ण है कि अपना जौहर दिखाने की प्रेरणा के लिए हमारे पास बहादुरशाह की यादें और मिसाल है। अंतिम विजय हमारी होगी इसमें क्या कोई शक रह जाता है?

यदि आप चाहते हैं कि आपके देशवासी अतिमानवीय साहस और शौर्य की ऊँचाइयों को छू सकें तब आपको उन्हें देश के प्रति प्रेम के साथ - साथ शत्रु से घृणा करना भी सिखाना होगा।

जब मैं 1857 के घटनाक्रम का अध्ययन करता हूँ और क्रान्ति के विफल हो जाने के बाद अंग्रेजों द्वारा ढाये गए जुल्म और सितम को याद करता हूँ तब मेरा खून खौल उठता है। अगर हम मर्द हैं, तब 1857 और उसके बाद के वीरों पर अंग्रेजों द्वारा ढाये गए जुल्म और बर्बरता का पूरा बदला ले कर रहेंगे। अंग्रेजों ने निर्दोष व आज़ादी पसन्द हिन्दुस्तानियों का खून न सिर्फ युद्ध के दौरान बहाया बल्कि उसके बाद भी अमानवीय अत्याचार किए। उन्हें इन अपराधों की कीमत चुकानी होगी। हम भारतीय, शत्रु से पर्याप्त घृणा नहीं करते। यदि आप चाहते हैं कि आपके देशवासी अतिमानवीय साहस और शौर्य की ऊँचाइयों को छू सकें तब आपको उन्हें देश के प्रति प्रेम के साथ - साथ शत्रु से घृणा करना भी सिखाना होगा।

इसलिए मैं खून माँगता हूँ। शत्रु का खून ही उसके अपराधों का बदला चुका सकता है। किन्तु हम खून तब ही ले सकते हैं जब खून देने के लिए तैयार हों। इस युद्ध में बहने वाला हमारे वीरों का खून ही हमारे किए पापों को धो डालेगा। हमारा आगामी कार्यक्रम खून देने का है। हमारी आजादी की कीमत हमारे वीरों के खून की कीमत है। हमारे वीरों के खून, उनकी बहादुरी और पराक्रम ही भारत की जनता द्वारा ब्रिटिश आतताइयों और जुल्मियों से बदला लेने की माँग पूरा करना सुनिश्चित करेंगे।

वृद्ध बहादुरशाह ने पराजय के बाद इसी पैगम्बरी अन्तर्दृष्टि के साथ कहा था :

" गाजियों में भी रहेगी, जब तलक ईमान की,
तख़्ते लन्दन तक चलेगी, तेग हिन्दुस्तान की। "

जय हिन्द

http://www.nirantar.org/0507/vatayan/netaji

2007-08-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Remembering a unique mutiny

Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1858, just after his show trial in Delhi and before his departure for exile in Rangoon. This is possibly the only photograph ever taken of a Mughal emperor.Courtesy British Library

This year was the 150th anniversary of the bloody events of 1857. The year marks the beginning of the end (for 90 years) of South Asia ruled by the sons of soil. The events that followed led the symbolic power change seat from the imperial palace in Delhi to Buckingham Palace in London by 1858. It was then even the Peacock Throne of the Indian emperors as well as the legendary dazzling diamond of the imperial crown, known as Koh-i-Noor (literally: the mount of light) was looted and physically taken to Britain by the mutineers.

In this year's commemorations in India and Pakistan, since most of the areas where conflagration started or the heaviest fighting took place, like Delhi, the imperial capital, Agra, Khansi, Ahmadabad and Meerut, lie in present day India, celebrations there were much more emotional.

Tens of thousands of Indian people marched from Meerut to Agra to trace the path of the imperial troops who came to succor the ailing emperor, exactly 150 years ago, and had declared his sovereignty over the whole of India.

At the Red Fort in Delhi, the prime minister of India Manmohan Singh addressed the celebration and paid rich tributes to the warriors of 1857 who laid down their lives for the defense of the empire. The prime minister reminded the South Asians that it was in the true spirit of inter-faith unity between Muslims and Hindus that all came together to defend the emperor who was a Muslim. In fact, all the seven major dynasties that ruled India since it started its journey towards a political unity had been Muslim ones.

In Pakistan, the National Commission for Historical and Cultural Research held a widely attended symposium in which the historians debated the causes and effects of the war and its real nature. President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan also in their messages paid rich tributes to the defenders of South Asia who tried to resist impending colonization of their land and tried to sustain the moribund empire from the Western powers' "scramble for Asia." Calls were made to make a monument to remember the countless heroes and heroines, five hundred thousands of whom were butchered mercilessly by British troops after the defeat of the emperor who was exiled to Rangoon, where he died and got buried five years later in 1862. It was also demanded that the remains of the emperor be brought back and re-buried with full military honours either in India or in Pakistan.

The British call the war of 1857 as the great Mutiny. Mutiny, it definitely was, but not a "great" one. It was a mutiny of British officers of the company in the service of the Indian emperor against him, and not the other way round. That is why I have chosen the word "unique" for this mutiny since it is the first major mutiny the facts of which have been so disfigured by the new British rulers that our own textbooks sixty years after independence still call it as a mutiny of the Indian emperor against his British servants/subjects. What a mutilation and dishonesty towards history as well as a linguistic paradox. Mutiny is a rebellion by servants against master. A master cannot be said to be rebelling against servants.

Let us understand the nature of the 1857 war first. In many parts of the Indian empire, it had been a franchise issue just like the governance itself in the last century of the imperial rule had been. Most provinces were fully or semi-independent and owed little or nominal allegiance to the emperor at Delhi. This all changed when the subjects of the emperor felt the existential threat to the empire due to the division and fragmentation. Bakht Khan, a military general from the independent state of Awdh, descended in and defended Delhi, while taking over the command of the imperial forces on the emperor's behalf. The Rani of Jhansi, Satay Ram, Maulvi Ahmadullah Khan, and many local political and military leaders rose to the occasion, professed their allegiance to the emperor and tried to expel the rapacious British servants of the East India Company from the India soil. It is a misfortunate that neither in India nor in Pakistan, any of the top military medals is named after the military heroes of the 1857 war.

Now, let us shed some light on theoretical part, on war's historiography, that is. 1857 was not a war of independence for the Indians since the British had not conquered India till that point in time. True, the Company was ruling three presidencies but that was area-wise less than one tenth of India, and in fact, even there it was ruling and collecting the taxes in the name of emperor to whom they paid an annual tribute.

Till as late as 1835, Persian had remained the imperial language for the court and the country and official one for the Company too. The Company's so-called governor of Bengal paid ritual obeisance to the emperor every year. The emperor's was the de jure government and Company was exercising de facto delegated authority mainly on revenue and law and order matters in a limited part of his domains.

Same was the case of around 564 other rulers, sultans, dukes and princes, who were ruling their own mini-kingdoms within the empire. Bahadur Shah Zafar, the 38th ruler of united India and the 17th and the last one from the Mughul dynasty, was on the throne.

At the beginning of the outbreak of hostilities, history tells us, the old and ailing poet-emperor was not hopeful of winning the war to expel the British intruders, but seeing the zeal of his subjects, he gave in and accepted to lead them as their symbolic head. Since it was the emperor who wanted to get rid of the British, it would be frivolous to call it as an independence struggle since emperor is not supposed to be getting "independence" from disloyal subjects. We can call his campaign as the one of retribution towards his British subjects who had shown seditionist tendencies, i.e. the officers of the British East India Trading Company that was operating under a license by the great ancestor of the incumbent, Emperor Shah Jehan in consideration of medical help that the British doctors had provided in a serious burn injury to a princess.

It may be recalled that Indian sub-continent boasts of one of the oldest civilisations of the known history. The Indus valley civilisation whose relics are found in Punjab province of what is now Pakistan, date back to 2500 BC when people lived in properly designed urban settlements and were fairly advanced in arts and learning. The Arab Muslims first conquered and annexed parts of India between 668 to 712 AD. The latter date marks the conquest of Deebal a town near the present day Karachi, now a bustling port metropolis of 12 million people, by the Arabs. Between 998 and 1030 AD the Afghans, who had by then turned Muslims under Sultan Mahmood of Gazna, invaded India seventeen times for plunder. By 1206, the Muslims had captured Delhi and at least the northern half of the sub-continent had become a political unity under Sultan Qutbuddin Aibak, the first Muslim ruler of Delhi and the founder of slaves' dynasty. The rule continued for around seven centuries under successive dynasties like the Tughlaqs, the Khiljis, the Syeds, the Lodhis, and the Suris. It was under the Mughals that the whole of India came under a single rule. By the early 19th century, anarchy and chaos best described Indian political landscape. A trading company, named East India Comapny became powerful and a time came that even the emperor was apprehensive of its power. Though the trouble started with Indian soldiers of the Company over the use of gun-lids allegedly made of cow fat, but once the emperor saw his opportunity to throw his weight behind and try to get rid of the British it became a national struggle. Now it was emperor and his loyalists fighting against the ones, whom the emperor wanted out of his realms.

Let's un-write the British-centric history of the 1857 war and let's unread their interpretation. Let us call it a mutiny on board HMS (sic) Indian empire, where the British servants mutinied, captured the palace, deposed the emperor, murdered the crown prince and four other princes, and than went on to slay countless of men and women on the streets in cold blood. The Company captured the Red Fort and turned for political guidance to Windsor Castle which decided to annex India to British domains and company's rule ended no sooner had it formally began. British rule had some positive effects, but, by and large, it was a 90 year-long spell of oppression and suppression.

Saad S. Khan

The writer is a Research Consultant with Juris-Consults and an Oxford-published scholar on politics of the Muslim world

The Daily Star

2007-08-27T01:54:00.000-07:00

1857 mutiny revisited

India's secret history: 'A holocaust, one where millions disappeared...'

Author says British reprisals involved the killing of 10m, spread over 10 years

A controversial new history of the Indian Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions of people who dared rise up against them.

In War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, Amaresh Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an "untold holocaust" which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years beginning in 1857. Britain was then the world's superpower but, says Misra, came perilously close to losing its most prized possession: India.

Conventional histories have counted only 100,000 Indian soldiers who were slaughtered in savage reprisals, but none have tallied the number of rebels and civilians killed by British forces desperate to impose order, claims Misra.

The author says he was surprised to find that the "balance book of history" could not say how many Indians were killed in the aftermath of 1857. This is remarkable, he says, given that in an age of empires, nothing less than the fate of the world hung in the balance.

"It was a holocaust, one where millions disappeared. It was a necessary holocaust in the British view because they thought the only way to win was to destroy entire populations in towns and villages. It was simple and brutal. Indians who stood in their way were killed. But its scale has been kept a secret," Misra told the Guardian.

His calculations rest on three principal sources. Two are records pertaining to the number of religious resistance fighters killed - either Islamic mujahideen or Hindu warrior ascetics committed to driving out the British.

The third source involves British labour force records, which show a drop in manpower of between a fifth and a third across vast swaths of India, which as one British official records was "on account of the undisputed display of British power, necessary during those terrible and wretched days - millions of wretches seemed to have died."

There is a macabre undercurrent in much of the correspondence. In one incident Misra recounts how 2m letters lay unopened in government warehouses, which, according to civil servants, showed "the kind of vengeance our boys must have wreaked on the abject Hindoos and Mohammadens, who killed our women and children."

Misra's casualty claims have been challenged in India and Britain. "It is very difficult to assess the extent of the reprisals simply because we cannot say for sure if some of these populations did not just leave a conflict zone rather than being killed," said Shabi Ahmad, head of the 1857 project at the Indian Council of Historical Research. "It could have been migration rather than murder that depopulated areas."

Many view exaggeration rather than deceit in Misra's calculations. A British historian, Saul David, author of The Indian Mutiny, said it was valid to count the death toll but reckoned that it ran into "hundreds of thousands".

"It looks like an overestimate. There were definitely famines that cost millions of lives, which were exacerbated by British ruthlessness. You don't need these figures or talk of holocausts to hammer imperialism. It has a pretty bad track record."

Others say Misra has done well to unearth anything in that period, when the British assiduously snuffed out Indian versions of history. "There appears a prolonged silence between 1860 and the end of the century where no native voices are heard. It is only now that these stories are being found and there is another side to the story," said Amar Farooqui, history professor at Delhi University. "In many ways books like Misra's and those of [William] Dalrymple show there is lots of material around. But you have to look for it."

What is not in doubt is that in 1857 Britain ruled much of the subcontinent in the name of the Bahadur Shah Zafar, the powerless poet-king improbably descended from Genghis Khan.

Neither is there much dispute over how events began: on May 10 Indian soldiers, both Muslim and Hindu, who were stationed in the central Indian town of Meerut revolted and killed their British officers before marching south to Delhi. The rebels proclaimed Zafar, then 82, emperor of Hindustan and hoisted a saffron flag above the Red Fort.

What follows in Misra's view was nothing short of the first war of Indian independence, a story of a people rising to throw off the imperial yoke. Critics say the intentions and motives were more muddled: a few sepoys misled into thinking the officers were threatening their religious traditions. In the end British rule prevailed for another 90 years.

Misra's analysis breaks new ground by claiming the fighting stretched across India rather than accepting it was localised around northern India. Misra says there were outbreaks of anti-British violence in southern Tamil Nadu, near the Himalayas, and bordering Burma. "It was a pan-Indian thing. No doubt."

Misra also claims that the uprisings did not die out until years after the original mutiny had fizzled away, countering the widely held view that the recapture of Delhi was the last important battle.

For many the fact that Indian historians debate 1857 from all angles is in itself a sign of a historical maturity. "You have to see this in the context of a new, more confident India," said Jon E Wilson, lecturer in south Asian history at King's College London. "India has a new relationship with 1857. In the 40s and 50s the rebellions were seen as an embarrassment. All that fighting, when Nehru and Gandhi preached nonviolence. But today 1857 is becoming part of the Indian national story. That is a big change."

What they said

Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race."

Karl Marx: "The question is not whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton."

L'Estaffette, French newspaper: "Intervene in favour of the Indians, launch all our squadrons on the seas, join our efforts with those of Russia against British India ...such is the only policy truly worthy of the glorious traditions of France."

The Guardian: "We sincerely hope that the terrible lesson thus taught will never be forgotten ... We may rely on native bayonets, but they must be officered by Europeans."

Randeep Ramesh

Guardian

2007-06-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

250 years of the Battle of Plassey

In Kolkotta on June 23, a play, "Plassey" marked the completion of 250
years of the Battle of Plassey.

The Battle of Plassey took place on June 23, 1757, at Palashi, India,
on the banks of the Bhagirathi River, about 150 km north of Calcutta,
near Murshidabad, then the capital of the Nawab of Bengal. The
opponents were Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal,
and the British East India Company. The battle was waged during the
Seven Years' War in Europe (1756�1763); the French East India Company
sent a small contingent to fight against the British East India Company.

Siraj-ud-Daulah's army commander defected to the British, causing his
army to collapse. As a result, the entire province of Bengal fell to
the Company. The enormous wealth gained from the Bengal treasury
allowed the Company to significantly strengthen its military might.
Today, Plassey is judged to be one of the pivotal battles leading to
the formation of the British Empire in India.

P�lash, an extravagant red flowering tree (Flame of the forest), gives
its name to a small village near the battlefield. A phonetically
accurate romanization of the Bengali name would be Battle of Palashi,
but the spelling "Plassey" is now conventional.

Background

The ostensible reason for the Battle of Plassey was Siraj-ud-Daulah's
capture of Fort William, Calcutta (which he renamed Alinagar) during
June, 1756, but the battle is today seen as part of the geopolitical
ambition of the East India Company and the larger dynamics of colonial
conquest.

This conflict was precipitated by a number of disputes [2]:

* The illegal use of Mughal Imperial export trade permits
(dastaks) granted to the British in 1717 for engaging in internal
trade within India. The British cited this permit as their excuse for
not paying taxes to the Bengal Nawab.
* British interference in the Nawab's court, and particularly
their support for one of his aunts, Ghaseti Begum. The son of
Ghaseti's treasurer had sought refuge in Fort William, and Siraj
demanded his return.
* Additional fortifications with mounted guns had been placed on
Fort William without the consent of the Nawab; and
* The British East India Company's policy of favouring Hindu
Marwari merchants such as Jagat Sheth .

During this capture of Fort William, in June 1756, an event occurred
that came to be known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. A narrative by
one John Zephaniah Holwell, plus the testimony of another survivor,
Cooke, to a select committee of the House of Commons, coupled with
subsequent verification by Robert Orme, placed 146 British prisoners
into a room measuring 18 by 15 feet, and only 23 survived the night.
The story was amplified in colonial literature, but the facts are
widely disputed[3]. In any event, the Black Hole incident, which is
often cited as a reason for the Battle at Plassey, was not widely
known until James Mill's History of India (1817), after which it
became the grist of schoolboy texts on India.

As the forces for the battle were building up, the British settlement
at Fort William sought assistance from Presidency of Fort St. George
at Madras, which sent Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Charles Watson.
They re-captured Calcutta on January 2, 1757, but the Nawab marched
again on Calcutta on February 5, 1757, and was surprised by a dawn
attack by the British [4]. This resulted in the Treaty of Alinagar on
February 7, 1757 [5].

Growing French influence

At the connivance of the enterprising French Governor-General Joseph
Fran�ois Dupleix, French influence at the court of the Nawab was
growing. French trade in Bengal was also increasing in volume. The
French also lent the Nawab some soldiers to operate heavy artillery
pieces.

Ahmad Shah Abdali

Siraj-Ud-Daulah faced conflicts on two fronts simultaneously. In
addition to the threat posed by the British East India Company, he was
confronted on his western border by the advancing army of the Afghan,
Ahmad Shah Abdali, who had captured and looted Delhi in 1756. So,
Siraj sent the majority of his troops west to fight under the command
of his close friend and ally, the Diwan of Patna, Ram Narain.

Court intrigue

In the midst of all of this, there were intrigues at Siraj Ud Daulah's
court at Murshidabad. Siraj was not a particularly well-loved ruler.
Young (he succeeded his grandfather in April, 1756 at the age of 23)
and impetuous, he was prone to make enemies quickly. The most
dangerous of these was his wealthy and influential aunt, Ghaseti Begum
(Meherun-Nisa), who wanted another nephew, Shawkat Jang, installed as
Nawab.

Mir Jafar, commander-in-chief of the army, was also uneasy with Siraj,
and was courted assiduously by Ghaseti. Eventually, through the
connivance of traders such as Amichand (who had suffered as a result
of the siege of Calcutta), and William Watts, Mir Jafar was brought
into the British fold.

Company policy

The Company had long since decided that a change of regime would be
conducive to their interests in Bengal. In 1752, Robert Orme, in a
letter to Clive, noted that the company would have to remove Siraj's
grandfather, Alivardi Khan, in order to prosper [6].

After the premature death of Alivardi Khan in April, 1756, his
nominated successor was Siraj-ud-Daulah, a grandson whom Alivardi had
adopted. The circumstances of this transition gave rise to
considerable controversy and the British began supporting the
intrigues of Alivardi's eldest daughter, Ghaseti Begum against that of
his grandson, Siraj.

Instructions dated October 13, 1756 from Fort St. George instructed
Robert Clive, "to effect a junction with any powers in the province of
Bengal that might be dissatisfied with the violence of the Nawab's
government or that might have pretensions to the Nawabship".
Accordingly, Clive deputised William Watts, chief of the Kasimbazar
factory of the Company, who was proficient in Bengali and Persian, to
negotiate with two potential contenders, one of Siraj's generals, Yar
Latif Khan, and Siraj's grand-uncle and army chief, Mir Jafar Ali Khan.

On April 23, 1757 the Select Committee of the Board of Directors of
the British East India Company approved Coup d'�tat as its policy in
Bengal.

Mir Jafar, negotiating through an Armenian merchant Khwaja Petruse,
was the Company's final choice. Finally, on June 5, 1757 a written
agreement was signed between the Company, represented by Clive, and
Mir Jafar. It ensured that Mir Jafar would be appointed Nawab of
Bengal once Siraj Ud Daulah was deposed.

Troops

The British army was vastly outnumbered, consisting of 2,200 Europeans
and 2,100 native Indians and a small number of guns. The Nawab had an
army of about 50,000 with some heavy artillery operated by about 40
French soldiers sent by the French East India Company.

Principal officers - British

* Major Killpatrick
* Major Grant
* Then Major Eyre Coote, later Lieutenant-General, and then Sir
Eyre Coote
* Captain Gaupp
* Captain Richard Knox, 1st CO of the 1st Bengal Native Infantry

Principal officers - Nawab

* Mir Jafar Ali Khan - commanding 16,000 cavalry
* Mir Madan
* Manik Chand
* Rai Durlabh
* Monsieur Sinfray - French artillery officer

British East India Company Regiments

* 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot, 1st Battalion
* 1st Bombay European Fusiliers, also known as 103rd Regiment of Foot
* Royal Madras Fusiliers, also known as 102nd Regiment of Foot
* Royal Bengal Fusiliers, also known as 101st Regiment of Foot
* 1st. Bengal Native Infantry (BNI), also known as the Lal Paltan
(Hindi for Red Platoon)
* 9th Battery, 12th Regiment, Royal Artillery [7]
* 50 naval ratings from HMS Tyger [8]

Battle details

The battle opened on a very hot and humid morning at 7:00 a.m. on June
23, 1757 where the Nawab's army came out of its fortified camp and
launched a massive cannonade against the British camp. The 18th
Century historian Ghulam Husain Salim describes what followed:
" Mīr Muhammad Jafar Khān, with his detachment, stood at a distance
towards the left from the main army; and although Sirāju-d-daulah
summoned him to his side, Mīr Jafar did not move from his position. In
the thick of the fighting, and in the heat of the work of carnage,
whilst victory and triumph were visible on the side of the army of
Sirāju-d-daulah, all of a sudden Mīr Madan, commander of the
Artillery, fell on being hit with a cannon-ball. At the sight of this,
the aspect of Sirāju-d-daulah's army changed, and the artillerymen
with the corpse of Mīr Madan moved into tents. It was now midday, when
the people of the tents fled. As yet Nawāb Sirāju-d-daulah was busy
fighting and slaughtering, when the camp-followers decamping from
Dāūdpūr went the other side, and gradually the soldiers also took
to
their heels. Two hours before sun-set, flight occurred in
Sirāju-d-daulah's army, and Sirāju-d-daulah also being unable to stand
his ground any longer fled. "
[9]

At around 11:00 a.m., Mir Madan, one of the Nawab's most loyal
officers, launched an attack against the fortified grove where the
East Indian Company was located, and was mortally wounded by a British
cannonball. This cannonade was essentially futile in any case; the
British guns had greater range than those of the French.

At noon, a heavy rainstorm fell on the battlefield, wherein the tables
were turned. The British covered their cannons and muskets for
protection from the rain, whereas the French did not.

As a result, the cannonade ceased by 2:00 p.m. and the battle resumed
where Clive's chief officer, Kilpatrick, launched an attack against
the water ponds in between the armies. With their cannons and muskets
completely useless, and with Mir Jafar's cavalry who were closest to
the English refusing to attack Clive's camp, revealing his treachery,
the Nawab was forced to order a retreat.

By 5:00 p.m., the Nawab's army was in full retreat and the British had
command of the field.

The battle cost the British East India Company just 22 killed and 50
wounded (most of these were native sepoys), while the Nawab's army
lost at least 500 men killed and wounded [10].

Aftermath

The Battle of Plassey is considered as a starting point to the events
that established the era of British dominion and conquest in India.

Mir Jafar's fate

Mir Jafar, for his betrayal of the Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah and alliance
with the British, was installed as the new Nawab, while Siraj Ud
Daulah was captured on July 2 in Murshidabad as he attempted to escape
further north. He was later executed on the order of Mir Jafar's son.
Ghaseti Begum and other powerful women were transferred to a prison in
distant Dhaka, where they eventually drowned in a boat accident,
widely thought to have been ordered by Mir Jafar.

Mir Jafar as Nawab chafed under the British supervision, and so
requested the Dutch East India Company to intervene. They sent seven
ships and about 700 sailors up the Hoogley to their settlement, but
the British led by Colonel Forde managed to defeat them at Chinsura on
November 25, 1759. Thereafter Mir Jafar was deposed as Nawab (1760)
and they appointed Mir Kasim Ali Khan, (Mir Jafar's son-in-law) as
Nawab. Mir Kasim showed signs of independence and was defeated in the
Battle of Buxar (1764), after which full political control shifted to
the Company.

Mir Jafar was re-appointed and remained the titular Nawab until his
death in 1765, while all actual power was exercised by the Company.

Rewards

As per their agreement, Clive collected � 2.5 million for the company,
and � 234,000 for himself from the Nawab's treasury [11]. In addition,
Watts collected � 114,000 for his efforts. The annual rent of � 30,000
payable by the Company for use of the land around Fort William was
also transferred to Clive for life. To put this wealth in context, an
average British nobleman could live a life of luxury on an annual
income of � 800 [12].

Robert Clive was appointed Governor of Bengal in 1765 for his efforts.
William Watts was appointed Governor of Fort William on June 22, 1758.
But he later resigned in favour of Robert Clive, who was also later
appointed Baron of Plassey in 1762. Clive later committed suicide in
1774, after being addicted to opium.

Terms of agreement

These were the terms agreed between the new Nawab and the Company:

1. Confirmation of the mint, and all other grants and privileges in
the Alinagar treaty with the late Nawab.
2. An alliance, offensive and defensive, against all enemies whatever.
3. The French factories and effects to be delivered up, and they
never permitted to resettle in any of the three provinces.
4. 100 lacs of rupees to be paid to the Company, in consideration
of their losses at Calcutta and the expenses of the campaign.
5. 50 lacs to be given to the British sufferers at the loss of Calcutta
6. 20 lacs to Gentoos, Moors, & black sufferers at the loss of
Calcutta.
7. 7 lacs to the Armenian sufferers. These three last donations to
be distributed at the pleasure of the Admiral and gentlemen of Council.
8. The entire property of all lands within the Mahratta ditch,
which runs round Calcutta, to be vested in the Company: also, six
hundred yards, all round, without, the said ditch.
9. The Company to have the zemindary of the country to the south of
Calcutta, lying between the lake and river, and reaching as far as
Culpee, they paying the customary rents paid by the former zemindars
to the government.
10. Whenever the assistance of the British troops shall be wanted,
their extraordinary charges to be paid by the Nawab.
11. No forts to be erected by the Nawab's government on the river
side, from Hooghley downwards.

* One of members of Clive's entourage at Plassey was a young
volunteer called Warren Hastings. He was appointed the British
Resident at the Nawab's court in 1757. Warren later became the first
Governor-General of India for the British East India Company between
1773 to 1786 when he was impeached for corruption.
* Clive was later awarded the title Baron of Plassey and bought
lands in County Limerick and County Clare, Ireland naming part of his
lands near Limerick City, Plassey. It retains this name to this day
and is now the site of the University of Limerick.
* The French guns captured at this battle can still be visited at
the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta.
* The infamous meeting between Mir Jafar and Watts took place at
Jaffarganj, a village close to Murshidabad. Mir Jafar's palace now
stands in ruins at the place, but close to it is a gate called
Namakharamer Deori (literally traitor's gate) where Watts is supposed
to have entered the palace disguised as a purdanasheen (Urdu for
veiled) lady in a palanquin.
* One of the unseen protagonists of the court drama was a wealthy
Sikh trader who went by the family name Jagat Sheth (Hindi: World
Banker (actual name - Mahtab Chand)). He was a hereditary banker to
the Mughal Emperor and the Nawab of Bengal and thus well conversant
with court intrigues. He negotiated a 5% commission from Clive for his
assistance with the court intrigue to defeat Siraj. However, when
Clive refused to pay him after his success, he is supposed to have
gone mad. The family (i.e. Jagat Sheths) remained bankers to the
Company until the transfer of the British head quarters to Calcutta in
1773 [13].
* The Indian rebellion of 1857 began almost exactly a century
later during May, 1857
* Plassey Day is still celebrated by 9(Plassey) Battery, Royal
Artillery

Quotes

* "A great prince was dependent on my pleasure, an opulent city
lay at my mercy; its richest bankers bid against each other for my
smiles; I walked through vaults which were thrown open to me alone,
piled on either hand with gold and jewels! Mr. Chairman, at this
moment I stand astonished at my own moderation" - Baron Robert Clive
commenting on accusations of looting the Bengal treasury after
Plassey, at his impeachment trial in 1773 [14] [15]
* "Heaven-born general" - British Prime Minister William Pitt 'The
Elder', Earl of Chatham referring to Robert Clive
* "It is possible to mention men who have owed great worldly
prosperity to breaches of private faith; but we doubt whether it is
possible to mention a state which has on the whole been a gainer by a
breach of public faith." - Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, later
British Secretary at War, who condemned Clive's actions

References

1. ^ a b c Paul K. Davis (1999). 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient
Times to the Present. Santa Barbara, California. ISBN 1-57607-075-1.
2. ^ Dirks, Nicholas. Scandal of the Empire - India and the
creation of Imperial Britain London, Harvard University Press, 2006,
ISBN 0-674-02166-5
3. ^ Dalley, JanThe Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire,London, Fig
Tree, June 2006, ISBN 0-670-91447-9
4. ^ Robert Clive reports to his father on his victory over
Sirajuddaulah, 23 February 1757
5. ^ Bad Link
6. ^ Hill,S.C. The Indian Record Series, Bengal in 1756-7., 3 vols.
London, 1895-1905, Vol. 2:307
7. ^ The British Army
8. ^ 9 (PLASSEY) BATTERY ROYAL ARTILLERY, THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY, 23
JUNE 1757
9. ^ Ghulam Husain Salim Riyazu-s-Salatin (Calcutta) 1902 Fasc. IV
Available Here
10. ^ Robert Clive's letter to the Select Committee of the Board of
Directors of the British East India Company reporting on the battle,
26 July 1757 - at the Project South Asia
11. ^ This requested article does not exist
12. ^ Prices & Money, The Salacious Historian's Lair
13. ^ Macaulay, Thomas Babbington Critical and Historical Essays,
London, 1828, Part III
14. ^ Bad Link
15. ^ Dirks, Nicholas. Scandal of the Empire - India and the
creation of Imperial Britain London, Harvard University Press, 2006,
ISBN 0-674-02166-5

[edit] Further reading

* Chaudhury, S. The Prelude to Empire; Palashi Revolution of
1757,, New Delhi, 2000.
* Datta, K.K. Siraj-ud-daulah,, Calcutta, 1971.
* Gupta, B.K. Sirajuddaulah and the East India Company, 1756-1757,
Leiden, 1962
* Harrington, Peter. Plassey 1757, Clive of India's Finest Hour,
Osprey Campaign Series #35, Osprey Publishing, 1994.
* Hill, S.C. The Three Frenchmen in Bengal or The Commercial Ruin
of the French Settlement in 1757, 1903
* Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. New York:
Norton and Company, 1999.
* Marshall, P.J. Bengal - the British Bridgehead, Cambridge, 1987.
* Raj, Rajat K. Palashir Sharajantra O Shekaler Samaj, Calcutta, 1994.
* Sarkar, J.N. The History of Bengal, 2, Dhaka, 1968.
* Spear, Percival Master of Bengal. Clive and His India London, 1975
* Strang, Herbert. In Clive's Command, A Story of the Fight for
India, 1904

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey

2007-06-13T06:39:00.000-07:00

P.C. Joshi and 1857

It is gratifying that Mainstream has published a few interesting and instructive articles as a mark of respect to the memory of the distinguished Communist leader, P.C. Joshi, on his birth centenary (April 14, 2007). The article ‘Remem-bering Puranda’ written by his cousin and namesake, a leading intellectual, captures with sensitivity the anguish and sorrows which P.C. Joshi bore stoically before he died. Until the last moment of his life, there was burning within him a passionate love for his country and countrymen, whose lot he was ever anxious to ameliorate.

I did not know P.C. Joshi nor was I drawn to the ideology of Marixt thought to which he was firmly committed, though, like many others, I benefited from it for understanding the social and economic forces operating in the vicissitudes of human affairs.

In early 1968 I was consulting the archival records in the research room of the old National Archives of India building when my eyes fell on a person bearing a dignified carriage, clad in short pant and shirt, wearing thick glasses, and peering into the Hansard volumes (the British Parliamentary debates), and taking copious notes in his old notebook. As he was leaving after an hour or so, I saw in his hand a book edited by Horst Kruger on K.M. Ashraf, and that aroused my interest. After some hesitation, I asked him whether I could see the volume for a while to which he said, ‘How are you interested in it?’ I said that ‘I had the privilege of being Dr Ashraf’s colleague in Delhi University, teaching history, and written an article for this volume’. Seeing the contents of the volume he said, ‘Well, the volume is yours. You are the author.’ I hesitated to accept his kind gift (Ashraf had died in Berlin and Kruger had brought out a volume in his honour). Joshi’s gift still occupies a prominent place in my bookshelf.

As a part of the celebration of 150th anniversary of the Revolt of 1857, the National Book Trust under the chairmanship of Professor Bipan Chandra organised a symposium on the new edition of Joshi’s book ‘Rebellion 1857’ which was published fifty years ago to commemorate the centenary of 1857. At the symposium Professor Irfan Habib, the eminent historian who had written a succinct foreword to the book, presided. A large number of people attended the seminar held in the Auditorium of India International Centre, New Delhi.

Appreciating the significance of Joshi’s book, Irfan Habib maintained that Joshi took a view of the events of 1857 completely different from those existing then and included elements that were new. Habib emphasised that being a confirmed Marxist, Joshi tried to look at Indian history on its own terms. ‘He stuck to this position in coming out with the book,’ he said. Professor K.C. Yadav, a well-known historian, pointed out that generally historians have neglected the regional dimensions of the mutinies that had challenged the British forces in different parts of the of the country. He supported Joshi’s contention that the Rebellion of 1857 was national, and not a military or sepoy.

In his Preface Joshi was modest enough to write:

I am not a professional historian and had to resort to the old fashioned method of speaking through lengthy quotations. If I annoy the modern stylist my only defence is that I am supplying the younger readers with documentation from older books, etc. which are not easily available.

Joshi’s own essay ‘1857 In Our History’, which covers less than one-third of his book, provides ample evidence of his wide scholarship, analytical skills, and lucidity of expression. In support of his views, he cites 217 sources drawn from first-class primary sources including even the Parliamentary Papers. At times he casts a dice in favour of even those historians whose views he contests while maintaining the tenor of his arguments.

Of course, Joshi was right in saying that he was not a specialist in history in the sense that he was not a professional historian nor was he trained in the austerities of historical discipline. But why should he be so modest in saying so? In fact, in many ways, non-specialists have written better history than professional historians who tend to produce their works within a narrow framework, circumscribed by the well-regulated canons of conventional research methodology that is followed with rules of the thumb.

The greatest work on the history of the Roman Empire was written by a non-professional historian. Lord Macaulay, a prominent public figure in British politics, wrote the History of England, which established him as a pioneer in the reconstruction of British social history. In our times, Michael Foot, a leader of the Labour Party, published some of the finest essays on British public life and institutions. As part of his father Winston Churchill’s biography, his son Randolph Churchill, a member of the British Conservative Party, wrote the first two brilliant volumes, which have become authoritative works of reference. In our country, Jawaharlal Nehru showed a pro-found historical sense in his books, especially in his Discovery of India, which is a testimony to India’s cultural unity in its diversity. And I have yet to find a more candid and brilliant review of the range of India’s’ history than K.M. Panikkar’s A Survey of Indian History, which, with some excisions and editing, would perhaps have served as a far better textbook for schools and colleges in the country than the kind of stuff doled out in a scissor-and-paste manner by the so-called panel of expert professional historians.

—

THE question is: why did P.C.Joshi hold a symposium on the 1857 Rebellion, and bring out a volume on it, a corporate work to which several well-known writers made contributions? What gave an impulse to his thought of making the 1857 a theme of his historical enquiry? I think that Joshi was completely disenchanted with the kind of historical works that were being produced to mark the first centenary celebrations of the 1857 Rebellion.

Joshi felt that the most widely quoted British historians, Sir John William Kaye and Lt.Col. G.B. Malleson, the authors of the History of the Indian Mutiny (in six volumes), were primarily the historians of the British Empire who ascribed the British victory over the Indian rebels to the British character of masculinity.

According to Joshi, Kaye and Malleson had provided largely a British perspective to the Rebellion of 1857. But Joshi acknowledges that Kaye did underline the disastrous effects of the British land settlement policy which brought untold misery to the peasantry in Oudh, causing unrest and rebellion against the British authority, the viewpoint which Joshi and Eric Stokes elaborated later. Joshi thought that V.D. Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence lauded, glorified and romanticised the role of the Indian rebels, and ignored the part the people played in the rebellion. Joshi held the view that Savarkar’s study, though inspired by a spirit of patriotism, lacked a critical rigour. Savarkar wrote in an ornate style, and modelled his history on the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott, which had evoked the memory of the historic struggles of his Scottish forebears and Scottish Highland society.

Joshi felt completely dissatisfied with Jawaharlal Nehru’s presentation of the Rebellion of 1857 as a ‘feudal outburst’ headed by feudal chiefs, and their followers, and aided by the widespread anti-British sentiments. Joshi’s main complaint was that, curiously enough, Nehru called the 1857 Rebellion the Indian war of Independence but he did not call it ‘national’. Obviously, there was some ambivalence in Nehru’s views on the Revolt of 1857. On the one hand, Nehru felt deeply moved by the patriotic spirit of a large number of people during the Revolt, but, on the other, he found an utter lack of coordination and unity among the Indian rebels. It seems that Nehru was largely influenced in his understanding of the revolt by S.N. Sen’s interpretation of the Rebellion. However, there was no ambiguity in the views of R.C. Majumdar on the Revolt of 1857. With a rhetorical flourish, he proclaimed that the Revolt was neither national, nor a war, nor of indepen-dence. Majumdar wrote:

The miseries and bloodshed of 1857-8 were not the birth-pangs of freedom movement in India, but the dying groans of an obsolete aristocracy and centrifugal feudalism of the medieval age.

I think that the immediate provocation for Joshi to produce his book was the publication of Eighteen Fiftyseven by Surendranath Sen whom the Government of India had commissioned to write for celebrating the 1857 centenary. Sen was a highly respected and reputed historian of long standing who had made a definite contribution to Maratha History. He also used some new archival material in the British libraries in England. It took nearly two years for Sen to complete his work. Sen’s story of the 1857 Revolt shows his profound scholarship, a wide perspective and analytical insights. He unfolds the 1857 Rebellion region-wise with meticulous care. Sen’s main argument is that originally the Indian sepoys, provoked by the sight of the greased cartridges, revolted at one swoop, but, as the Rebellion gained a wider base, it assumed especially in Oudh some form of a national dimension where, along with the sepoys, the peasantry and others, joined together to fight the British forces.

Sen has no sympathy for the rebel leaders whom he thought were a fusty musty lot, the reactionaries, and old liners; and he argues that if the leaders of such a medieval outlook had succeeded, then the progress of Indian’s social and educational development, which the British Government had initiated, would have ended. Amazed at Sen’s view that the British rule was a blessing for the people of India, Joshi draws the inference from Sen’s contention that under the circumstances, the right thing for the country is that the British rule should continue till eternity so that the task they had undertaken may be completed.

—

JOSHI’S essay on ‘1857 In Our History’ in his book is an antidote to the orthodox British and Indian historiography. Joshi had made use of Karl Marx’s writings on the Rebellion which had appeared in the New York Daily Tribune. In Marx’s view, the Rebellion of 1857 was a ‘national revolt’. Joshi has offered a Marxist interpretation of the Rebellion. Joshi maintains that originally the 1857 Rebellion was led by Indian feudals (not of them alone) but there were ‘other social forces of the common people in action during the struggle’. Joshi adds:

the popular forces are active enough, healthy in their aspirations, clear-headed in their ideas to prevent feudal restoration in India.

To substantiate his view that the rebels had devised a plan to subvert the British rule, Joshi refers to the activities of the ‘Court of Mutineers’ set up by the rebels. According to Joshi, the ‘Court of Mutineers’ represented the institution of the soldier-peasant democracy within the framework of constitutional monarchy. (p. 207) It is true that the Court acted at times like a Panchayat, but especially in Delhi there were strong dissensions among its members which adversely affected the unity of action at critical moments. The Court forced the King Bahadur Shah to sign proclama-tions, even though he was averse to the idea of doing so.

I think that Joshi has made too much of the role of the peasantry during the Rebellion, though he is absolutely right that the Rebellion took its most intense form in Oudh, where the peasantry was most adversely affected by the British land settlement policy. The Bengal Army that fought the British Army fiercely was largely drawn from Oudh, but in the Army there were also a large number of high-caste Brahmans. According to Joshi, the rebels offered the biggest challenge to the British in Delhi, the North-Western Provinces, Bundelkhand, Rohilkhand, Oudh, and in a large part of Bihar. I think that this aspect has generally been ignored that the Rebellion took its most violent turn in the areas where no British military regiments were stationed.

Joshi repudiates Talmiz Khaldun’s thesis which he had presented in his essay ‘The Great Rebellion’. He does not agree with Khaldun’s view that the Rebellion ended as ‘a peasant war against indigenous landlordism and foreign imperialism’. Joshi found no evidence to suggest that the Indian peasantry had freed itself from the feudal bonds politically and economically. Joshi throws light on the network of Indian spies who were operating in Delhi and from whom the British were obtaining secret information about the activities of the rebels, and of what was happening in the Mughal Court in the Red Fort. There is a need for the study of Indian espionage during 1857 like the high level work produced by F.H. Hinsley on the Intelligence Service in the Second World War.

Joshi tells us how the Mughal Princes, Nawabs, Zinat Mahal Begum and the King Bahadur Shah were playing a duplicitious role during the 1857 Rebellion, while supporting the rebels on one side, and negotiating with the British for a settlement when the weather is rough on the other. Here Joshi comes closer to R.C. Majumdar’s view that the only epithet which fitted Bahadur Shah’s role was that he was a traitor, no more no less.

I do not think that Bahadur Shah was a traitor. He was a mock-king; a puppet turned this way or that by the British and the rebels. He had no heart in the rebellion. He was dragged into it. He abhorred violence. He was a poet and a mystic who revered all religions. He was a humanist who bore no ill will to anyone. He was one of the finest representatives of Indo-Muslim culture and a true descendant of his great forebear, Akbar the Great, whose cardinal principle of statecraft was Suleh-e-Kul (peace to all). A full-scale biography on Bahadur Shah has been written by Aslam Parvez, which has been translated by Azra Kidwai.I Joshi is highly critical of the role of the greedy and selfish Mughal Princes who indulged in fleshy carnal adventures with prostitutes at night, and pillaged the Hindu and Jain moneylenders in day time in Chandni Chowk.

I think that the disagreement among historians regarding the character of the Rebellion has arisen due to a lack of adequate explanation on the concept of a ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’. The question arises whether there was cooperation or coordination of action among the rebels in different parts of the country. Did the rebels and their leaders devise a well-prepared plan or scheme and prepare a military strategy to fight the British authority? Did they possess adequate economic and military resources to sustain their struggle? The ideals were noble, but there was a wide gap between ideology and action. Did the rebels know what they were replacing, and whom they were setting up as their rulers in the country? What were their dreams? And what was their perspective? The poet Ghalib, a witness to the uprising, called the Revolt ‘Baija rastkhez (unnecessary resurrection)’. To put it differently, for Ghalib, the Revolt was a thoughtless venture. When I started this awhile, I mentioned Dr K.M. Ashraf’s association with Joshi. I cannot resist referring to Ashraf’s article on ‘Ghalib in the Revolt of 1857’. I will just focus on one point relating to Ghalib’s role in the Rebellion of 1857. Ghalib was, indeed, the greatest Urdu poet of his times, the last outstanding classical Persian poet, and the father of modern Urdu prose. When the mutiny burst forth in Delhi on May 11, 1857 he was living in Billimoran. Ashraf has presented in his article the anguish, despair and suffering of the poet, who confined himself to his room, and did not stir out. He had no water to drink. He felt chagrined at the death of his near and dear ones.

Ghalib started his Diary which he called Dastambu, a tendentious work, in which he tried to assure the British authorities that during the Revolt his loyalty to them remained firm. When thousands of his countrymen were dying, and, as he put it, only a thousand Muslims were left in Delhi while others had fled to save their lives, he was begging Queen Victoria to restore his pension, recognise him as a poet-laureate, and give him a due place in the Durbar to be held shortly for awarding honours to those who had stood by the British. I think Ghalib’s position in 1857 has to be explained as also Syed Ahmed Khan’s; Sir Syed’s house in Delhi had been ransacked, and his mother suffered a great deal, but for protecting several British lives, he was awarded a robe costing Rs 1000, and a pension for him and two of his succeeding generations.

—

HOW are we going to celebrate the 150th anniversary of 1857? Let us not make a ritual of the historic occasion only to laud the heroism of the rebels, and mourn the victims. History is serious business, a ruthless discipline which has no heroes. It is a rigorous mode of rational thinking. The best part of Joshi’s essay relates to the impact of the Revolt on the subsequent history of India. The Revolt is a turning point in the history of India. It led to the growth of a fervent spirit of India nationalism. It brought a parting of the ways between the Indians and the British. In about two decades of its occurrence, the Indian National Congress was founded which took it as a sacred mission to free India from the shackles of British rule.

I think that for the academics, there is a need for the evaluation of the historical works published on the 1857 Revolt. S.B. Chaudhuri had done a wonderful work on the historiography of British writings (1857-1858). I think a sequel to the volume is necessary to bring the story up to the present time. An anthology of folk songs and other poems and writings on 1857 in a single volume will be valuable for the general reader. Research on British espionage during 1857 still remains an open field for study.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, delivered a speech on the occasion of the first centenary of the Revolt at Ram Lila Grounds in Delhi on May 10, 1957. Nehru’s speech is one of the finest and most instructive documents on the 1857 Revolt. He derived some lessons from the events of 1857 as a historian, and warned the nation to rise above the evils of caste, religion and region and make the country a strong, vibrant and secular nation. I should like the text of this speech to be translated into Indian languages and distributed in the schools and colleges of the country, as also among the Members of Parliament, our rulers, who are expected to use their authority for the good and well-being of the people living in the country.

NOTES

I. William Dalrymple in his book ‘The Last Mughal: The Fall of the Dynasty, Delhi (2007) calls Islam Parvez’s biography of Bahadur Shah Zafar, ‘a wonderful work of secondary scholarship’. Why should Dalrymple call Parvez’s study a work of secondary scholarship? Parvez has used in his biography extensive primary materials of first-class importance including the Mutiny Papers with meticulous care worthy of a sound scholar. On page 498, footnote 20 of his book, Dalrymple concedes that some scholars have used the Mutiny Papers but he is the first person to have made a properly systematic use of the material.

Dalrymple has made all sorts of wild claims in his work; for example in his book on pp. 11-14, he wrote, ‘Discovering in the sheer scale of the treasures held by the National Archives was one of the highlights of the whole project.’ Surely, he is not the sole discoverer of the material. He wrote further that ‘one of the principal aims of the book (The Last Mughal) is to bring the voluminous Persian and Urdu primary and secondary sources on Delhi in 1857 before an English readership for the first time’. This claim also proves false because for his own study of the poet Ghalib and his life in 1857-1858, Dalrymple relies not on Ghalib’s own Persian and Urdu literature, but on the English translation of his works by Ralph Russell and Frau Pritchett.

The author is a Professor Emeritus of Modem History, Kurukshetra university, Kurukshetra

2007-06-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

Given is the text of the address by the first Prime Minister of independent India, at Delhi’s Ramlila Grounds, on May 10, 1957, to observe the centenary of our First War of Independence that the Britishers had contemptuously described as Sepoy Mutiny.

The First War of Independence

by Jawaharlal Nehru

Sisters and brothers,

…I am appearing before you after a long time to mark a special occasion. I would like to draw your attention to some issues which are especially relevant today.

The newly constituted Lok Sabha met today at 11 o’clock to take the oath of office to serve India honestly and sincerely within the parameters of our Constitution. Though it is a formality, it is of great significance because when someone takes an oath with honesty and integrity, he moves on to a higher plane from the mundane, day-to-day life. It is a coincidence that the second Lok Sabha was sworn in today on the 10th of May, exactly a hundred years from the day on which the first war of independence, or the mutiny as some people call it, began in the city of Meerut. We did not choose this date deliberately. But since it has coincided with that historic day, it adds to the importance of this occasion. The Lok Sabha observed a two-minute silence in memory of all those who laid down their lives in 1857.

The real work of the Lok Sabha will begin from the 13th of this month with the Presidential Address. As you know, the President has been re-elected for another term. According to our Constitution, the President addresses both Houses of Parliament every year. That will be on the 13th of this month. Again, by a strange coincidence, the 13th also happens to be a special day for Buddha Jayanti falls on that day. You will notice there is a striking coincidence in our newly constituted Parliament being sworn in on the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the first war of independence and in the actual commencement of the work of Parliament on the Buddha Jayanti day. We must keep both these things in mind. It is not enough to think of either in isolation.

You must have heard about the war of independence which broke out in Meerut, Delhi, Lucknow and many other parts of India though very few people perhaps know the details. Almost all the earlier books and accounts of the events of 1857 were written by Englishmen. Therefore they are naturally biased: while the role of the Englishmen is praised, the Indians are dubbed as traitors and mutineers. It is true that some Englishmen have also accepted that the movement could have another aspect and praised the leaders of the movement. Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi in particular has been praised by the English officers of those days. Indians of course did not dare to write anything because during the period immediately following the events of 1857 great atrocities were committed and the people were crushed with a brutal hand. So they were afraid. Even the accounts written by Indians a little later were not very balanced historical records. They tended to lean the other way.

The time has come when we can view the events of a hundred years ago objectively and without heat. A new genre of books is now beginning to be published. One was released today.1 It was commissioned by the Government two or three years ago and is written by a very well known historian. Yet another book has been published, giving graphic details of the incidents of 1857.2 It goes into the question of whether what happened in 1857 can be called a war of independence or not. Opinions differ on that. Anyhow people must read these books.

I remember that when I was a child, which was a long time ago, there were still people around who had seen or heard about the incidents of 1857. When I was nine or ten years old, I used to listen to the tales of those old people about what happened in 1857-58 in Allahabad, Delhi, Lucknow and other places. They were real stories and the people recounting them had experienced them at first hand. As you know, such things make a deep impression on a child’s mind. It made a deep impression on me and filled me with anger.

Historians now write treaties full of complex arguments which is all right. We must read their works no doubt. But I have often wondered what impact the events of 1857 made on the minds of the common people in India. Later, when I had the opportunity of visiting Awadh and the rural areas of Allahabad district, I often heard tales of 1857 in those parts. People still talked about whole villages being burnt down as punishment. What I mean to say is that I found even the minds of the peasantry filled with the events of 1857. So there is no doubt about it that the events of 1857 did make an indelible impression on a very large part of the country. It is true that it was not the whole of India but the northern belt, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Bharat, Bihar, Delhi, and a part of Calcutta, Barrackpore, which was affected.

What led to this great outburst in 1857? It is obvious that it was an expression of the people’s anger against the British takeover of the country, and an attempt to get rid of them. Who was responsible—individuals or groups? As far as it is known, it was not a coordinated movement. But there was a general feeling of resentment spread over the whole of north India and one spark was enough to ignite a whole conflagration. There was an attempt at some coordination and you must have heard stories of chapatis being distributed, to spread the message among the people, to be prepared. But as far as it is known the movement was not organised. It was more a question of everyone taking advantage of the widespread resentment among various sections of society, particularly in the upper classes, the princes, zamindars and jagirdars and to some extent among the masses. If you say that it was an expression of deep-seated resentment against British rule and an attempt to oust it, you would be absolutely right. There is no doubt about it.

You must think a little of the circumstances which led to the establishment of British rule. That is a strange story too. It did not happen with a bang, after a great military victory, but came about gradually. People did not even realise that it was happening. The British came in search of trade and gradually acquired other rights. They bided their time for almost a hundred years and called themselves vassals of the Mughal emperor. Even their coins were issued in the name of theMughal emperor. For almost a hundred years they kept up a pretence of allowing things to go on unchanged. It was under the cloak of commerce that the British set themselves up in India. Ultimately a time came when the Mughal emperor was virtually a prisoner in the Red Fort at Delhi and his empire had diminished to just that Fort. It did not extend even to the city of Delhi. It took a long time for the common people to realise that someone else was in power. It was the same in Bengal too. In the beginning, the British were given diwani and gradually they assumed control over the State and established an empire. Just a short while before the events of 1857, they had annexed Awadh, ousting the Nawab, thus revealing their hand openly for the first time. The people were shocked to realise who their real rulers were. Until then, the British had remained in the background.

Anyhow, whatever the reasons, there can be no doubt about it that the revolt of 1857 was an expression of the people’s emotions against the establisment of British rule in India. It was not an organised movement when it began. But incidents in one place triggered off a chain reaction. But none of it would have been possible if a great deal of resentment had not already existed among the people.

I want you to bear in mind one thing in this context which people often fail to realise. India was attacked by foreign invaders, time and again, during her long history. It is believed that the Aryans came to India four to five thousand years ago crossing the mountains and settled down in this land. Then came invaders from other lands, the Huns, the Scythians and others. But all of them settled down in India and adopted it as their own country. Irrespective of their religion and their status as conquerors they came to regard India as their home. The Arabs came, though in small numbers, to the borders, and settled in Sindh. Then came the Turks, the Afghans and the Mughals. But in a very short while they had intermingled with the local people. They had no homeland except India. So they learnt to live in amity with the others. The establishment of British rule in India is of special significance because for the first time in the thousands of years of Indian history, the foreign invaders owed loyalty to another country. India was merely a country over which they ruled. It made a great difference. In a sense, before the coming of the British, no matter who ruled India, it was independent. It had anIndian Government with its roots in India’s soil and which owed no allegiance to anyone else. So, in a sense, in spite of the great upheavals which took place from time to time, India remained an independent nation. For the first time in thousands of years the trend was reversed. A nation which lay thousands of miles away ruled India through its representatives. This was the great difference which the coming of the British and the establishment of their empire in India made.

When the other invaders marched into India, there was fighting in the beginning, but gradually they settled down and mingled with the people. India became their home. The races and cultures intermingled and influenced one another, and gradually learnt to live together in amity. The Britsh however, came and stayed here for a certain length of time and went back. They did not mingle with the local population. You must bear in mind that the India of today is the product of the intermingling of various races and cultures over thousands of years. There is Scythian and Hun blood in the great Rajput clans. They came to conquer India two thousand years ago and within a generation or two, assumed Indian clan names and settled down. They realised that their stature was enhanced by claiming descent from the Sun and the Moon. It is absurd to think of ourselves as being of pure blood, separate from other races of the world. India has evolved as a nation through the intermingling of various races and cultures.

It is only the British who refused to mingle. If they had no other home to go back to constantly as it happened with other races, they too would have been absorbed in the melting pot of India. But their loyalty was to Britain and moreover the differences between the two cultures were great. So they could not mix. So India was for the first time conquered by a people which ruled us from a distant land.

It is obvious that the British came and conquered India because they were advanced in modern science and technology. They were tougher, more inquiring, disciplined and had the quality to work in unity. India had become stagnant and the people were divided into small compartments. So we became backward and weak. Individually, there were people of high quality. But as a nationwe had become stagnant. So, as was inevitable, the more advanced and stronger nation with superior weapons came and conquered us. They had great courage and the spirit of adventure, which is evident from the fact that they had to cross thousands of miles of ocean to come to India. It required great courage and endurance. Hundreds of people died on the way yet the others did not give up.

In India, on the other hand, things had become so bad that it was considered foreign to leave one’s own village. Crossing the seas was considered destructive of one’s religion and those who dared to do so were ex-communicated. It was extremely stupid and all the emphasis was on rituals and shibboleths. How could a people whose attention was constantly absorbed by such trivial matters hope to progress? Casteism grew more and more rigid and people lived in small compartments. So the fact of the matter is that though the feelings against British rule were strong, the spirit of nationalism amongst Indians was not strong. Few people thought in terms of India as a whole. Indian society in those times was extremely feudal, consisting of princes and talukedars and zamindars. Even the leaders of the revolt were the princes. Not that there was anything wrong in that. I am merely pointing out the kind of social organisation that prevailed then. The peasants followed their leaders. But in the India of those times only the princes and big landlords could be the leaders. They revolted because the British were gradually reducing them in stature. Some revolted in the name of their state or religion and others for personal benefits. All these factors came together in 1857.

I shall not go into its history. There are two or three broad facts to be kept in mind. One, there is no doubt about it that whatever the causes behind it may have been, it was an Indian struggle for independence. It was an expression of resentment against the yoke of foreign rule and an attempt to get rid of it. What might have followed if the movement had succeeded is a different matter. Secondly, it is true that the religious sentiments of the Hindus and the Muslims were hurt by the suspicion that the British were forcing them to use bullets which had pork in it. But it is wrong to say that that was the cause of the revolt. The real reason was people’s anger against British rule and other factors including religion were part of it. You will find that throughout those two years, there was nocommunal disharmony of any kind in spite of our ingrained habit of internecine feuds. Both Hindus and Muslims participated in the movement and in victory as well as in defeat, they marched shoulder to shoulder. This is something noteworthy.

But, when the British entrenched themselves strongly on Indian soil, a rift between the Hindus and Muslims developed. Is that not strange? Before the coming of the British, Muslims ruled over most parts of India. It is true that in the later years, Mughal power had weakened. Shivaji had dealt a great blow to it and weakened it considerably. When the British arrived, the Marathas ruled over many parts of India. Yet the people accepted Muslim rule. In fact for years after the British had entrenched themselves fully, they had to take the shelter of the Mughal rulers. They did not dare even to mint coins in their own name. They continued to use the Mughal emperor as the figurehead. The memory of the power of the Mughals was very strong both among Hindus and Muslims.

So the events of 1857 proved that by and large, except for stray incidents, there was communal harmony. The rift appeared only later and widened because the British followed a policy of divide and rule in order to maintain their hold over the empire. So they adopted the policy of deliberately fomenting communal passions and religious antagonism. They had separate regiments of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs because they did not want them to develop a spirit of nationalism. This went on for years.

About twenty-eight years after the revolt of 1857, the Indian National Congress was born. For nearly twenty years or so after 1857, the people were too afraid to raise their heads. Then gradually they regained their spirit and the Indian National Congress was born in 1885. There were Hindus, Muslims, Christians and people of all other religions in it. It had small beginnings but within two or three years it began to worry the British because Hindus and Muslims were uniting under one banner. Immediately they started a policy of intimidating the people in the Congress, most of whom belonged to the upper classes then. Their effort was mainly to prevent Muslims from joining the Congress. As a result, the Muslims were kept apart at many levels.

Some more years passed and, for the first time, the question of elections to the assemblies came up in 1909 and the Minto-Morley reforms wereintroduced. It was a very small step towards giving local autonomy. The concept of separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims was introduced then. You can see how the whole thing progressed from 1857 onwards. The British realised the havoc that the two united communities could cause. So they thought of separate electorates. The interesting thing is that the Viceroy called a few of the top Muslim leaders and zamindars and asked them to come to him in a deputation seeking a separate electorate for the Muslims. He indicated that he would agree to it. So a delegation under the leadership of the Aga Khan3 went to the Viceroy4—the very same gentleman who is alive to this day but has grown very old. Well, he declared that the Muslims would be suppressed unless they were granted a separate electorate. You can appreciate the cunning of the Viceroy. Having instigated the demand, he made a pretence of considering it and eventually accepted it.

This is how the seeds of communal hatred and bitterness were sown. Then it gradually spread among the Sikhs and others. Even today it is extremely dangerous to bring religion into politics and elections. I have tried to show you how, in spite of all the difficulties, there was complete harmony between the Hindus and Muslims in 1857. The rift appeared later, at the instigation of the British. This is one thing.

On the other hand, there is something else about 1857, which must not be forgotten though it is not very pleasant. We pay homage to the memory of the great men who gave their lives to free India from the yoke of foreign rule. But we must also remember that ultimately their efforts were foiled with the help of Indians themselves. Many of our countrymen helped the British against their own kith and kin. No nation, particularly a vast country like ours, could be defeated except through its own weaknesses. It is only when one’s own countrymen turn traitors and stab their own brothers in the back that a country falls. You will find innumerable instances in Indian history, on the one hand, of courage, sacrifice and bravery and, on the other hand, of treachery, disunity, deception and helping the enemy.

The story of Mir Jaffer and Umi Chand is famous in Bengal. If you read history, you will find that British rule was established in India not because of the superior might of the British except in some cases but by the cunning and the treachery of some Indians. Many big provinces were createdas a reward for treachery. Zamindaris and talukedaris were given as a reward for siding with the British. Is there some special weakness in us as a people that a few of us strike at the very roots of the nation’s existence by our treachery?

Well, very few people deliberately resort to treachery. But there are many people who are more than willing to foment disunity and create dissensions. That is almost commonplace. I will not call it treachery but the effect is the same for it weakens the nation and strengthens the enemy’s hand. This is a great shortcoming in us, lack of unity and the habit of getting carried away, of internal dissension and fissiparous tendencies, whether it is in the name of religion, province, language or caste. I am not saying anything new. These are very old habits of ours.

However, as far as the revolt of 1857 was concerned, though there were grave shortcomings, like the absence of one central leadership, the lack of proper arrangements or resources, there was no disunity. We as an independent nation are much more prone to give in to this weakness. Perhaps we have become complacent after getting freedom and feel that we can behave as we like. But that is absolutely wrong. Freedom can never be consolidated absolutely. It is always in danger and threats abound on all sides to submerge it. If a nation is not prepared or lacks unity, it is bound to flounder. This is the lesson that our entire history teaches us. If we forget the fundamental rules and become complacent or talk vaguely in the air, our freedom will be in peril.

This is what I am chiefly concerned about and I want you to share my concern because we are living in dangerous times. Not a day passes without a mention of nuclear weapons and missiles in the newspapers. You can destroy a city a thousand or two thousand miles away with the help of a missile. Experts believe that even the nuclear test explosions, which are undertaken regularly, pollute the atmosphere and increase the danger of atomic radiation. Nobody knows how many millions have been affected by it already. If the level of radiation increases even slightly the atmosphere could become poisonous. Radiation is an extremely dangerous things.

You may have heard that one atom bomb coulddestroy the whole of Delhi. What can you do to escape? Some people may be able to escape into the jungles. But the city will be finished. Today there are more powerful and lethal weapons in the arsenals of the nations of the world. A direct hit is of course lethal. But the effects of radiation are more long lasting and dangerous. It affects everything all around including food and water. It can cause cancer and other skin and bone diseases even four or five years later. If a hydrogen bomb is exploded 5000 miles away, it may not affect us directly. But radiation permeates the atmosphere for thousands of miles and persists for years to come. If a nuclear explosion takes place in the Soviet Union or the Pacific we could be affected by its fallout in Delhi. Anyhow, many people believe that unless nuclear tests are banned, they will harm the world greatly. You cannot escape the consequences of nuclear fallout. If there is a nuclear war, of course, it would mean total annihilation.

What is the course open to us in such a dangerous situation? We do not have the strength to take on the responsibilities of the whole world. It would be absurd for us to make tall claims. Our first priority is to make India economically strong so that our voice is heard with respect in the world. We must foster national unity and progress quickly through industrialisation. For one thing, it would mean economic betterment for the country and, secondly, we will acquire the strength to defend ourselves. I do not mean that we can escape the consequences of a nuclear war because nobody is safe from that. But we can do a great deal to make India economically strong.

On the other hand, though there has been tremendous progress in the field of science and technology in the world, what of man’s intellect and emotions? Einstein, one of the greatest scientists the world has produced, took the first great step towards the atomic age by discovering the way to split the atom. Mankind has acquired a great source of energy. But it has now become a genie, which threatens to go out of control. In his last years, Einstein was filled with remorse for what he had done. He said repeatedly that atomic power could not be kept under control by yet more nuclear weapons. It is such a lethal thing that a totally different kind of strength is necessary to keep it under control. The great scientist felt that ultimately it is only when there is a change in human nature for the better and mankind is rid of the feelings of hatred andbitterness and violence that atomic energy can be brought under control. Einstein was no religious person.

We have reached a point in history where, unless the whole of mankind adopts the right path and eschews violence, feelings of revenge and bitterness, whatever the leaders at the top do and say will be of no consequence. Even today, the great powers are not willing to give up nuclear weapons. They talk of partial test ban and what not. Such half measures are of no use. I want you to think about this. It is a strange thing that the power to wreak violence has increased to such an extent with the invention of nuclear weapons that it can no longer be kept under a leash by moving further down that path. The world needs something else. So we come around once again to the path shown by the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi. I do not know if the world will ever follow that path wholeheartedly. But I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that there is no alternative. I am not saying this as a religious dogma though every religion in the world, whether it is Islam or Christianity or Hinduism, advocates peace. I mentioned the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi because they were born in India. But Jesus Christ and Hazrat Muhammad also preached the same ideals. It is difficult to live up to those ideals in this world of harsh realities. It is now an imperative to prevent the impending doom.

We have just had the general elections. What I am going to say now is not limited to any one party. I am naturally parital to the Congress for I belong to it and I feel that it is very essential for the Congress party to remain at the helm of affairs to maintain India’s uity. But I am not referring to any party in particular. Apart from a few setbacks here and there, the Congress has won with a thumping majority. So I can have no complaint. But I have been perturbed by these elections, not in regard to any party but the trends, which have come to the fore, of narrowmindedness, casteism and disregard for the larger national interests. I would like to tell you that these evils are to be found in all the parties, including the Congress. I do not absolve the Congress. I dare to say this because I am not trying to exmpt myself or my party.

We must pay attention to this aspect because there is a grave danger that the country may be split up and weakened under the pretence of democracy if casteism and narrowmindedness became more rampant. This is an extremely serious problem. As I have often told you, India is one entity on the map, with one government and one law. But India can become a nation only when there is complete emotional integration. We talk of nationalism and patriotism and there is no doubt about it that we do have these feelings, for otherwise we could not have won freedom. But behind that thin veneer of nationalism, you find a strange hollowness and weakness.

Last year there were riots in many parts of India over the question of language. Every Indian language is a precious heritage. But why fight over it? There were riots and fighting and the language issue has coloured people’s thinking even in these elections. We are living in an era when the world is facing a grave crisis because if there is a nuclear war, it could lead to complete annihilation of human civilisation. We do not wish to go to war with anyone. But we cannot escape the consequences if there is a war. Internally, India is at a crucial stage of its development and there are tremendous problems. We are in the middle of the Second Five Year Plan. Now that we have taken the plunge, we cannot retreat in midstream. We have to go on somehow. India is in the middle of a great adventure just now with the Five Year Plans, industrialisation, community development schemes, etc. We have taken on these great tasks with confidence and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the country is brimming with activity.

You must bear in mind that these activities do not bear fruit immediately. For instance, take the steel plants that we are building. A poor country like India is investing 400 crores of rupees on three steel plants. We have taken loans and aid for we could not have gone ahead without that. But it will take four to five years before they go into production. Until then we have to tighten our belts and carry a heavy burden.

I can give you many more such examples. We have decided to set up a machine-building plant in India because until we do so, we will remain dependent on Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, England and others. We want to be able to build the heaviest machinery in our country. Once wehave the infrastructure we will become free and self-reliant. We do not have to go to anyone. We have decided to do this. But all this requires vast sums of money. The machine-building plant will cost ninety or a hundred crores. The machines will become available only six to seven years later. At the moment we have to invest the money which casts a great burden upon the nation. But there is no alternative. We will reap the benefit later. Unless we take these bold steps, we will continue to stagnate in the mire of poverty. So we have to keep a balance between two things: we have to ensure that while the future is bright the present should not be too burdensome. We have no choice. The burden of taxation has to be borne. On the one hand people’s expectations are rising which is a good thing. On the other hand, we can raise their standard of living only by laying strong foundations for the future, which means that we will reap the benefit only a few years hence.

It is in this context that I said that we took a great plunge when we started the Five Year Plans. Now we cannot stop midstream for we will be neither here nor there. We have to finish building the steel plants whether we have to invest a hundred crores or four hundred crores. Only then will we reap the benefit. Similarly, we have to complete the river valley schemes, like the Bhakra-Nangal, Damodar Valley, Hirakud, Tungabhadra and Nagarjuna spread all over the country. We could have decided right in the beginning that we do not have the strength and determination to do all this. But that would have meant continuing to be poor, weak and downtrodden. A great nation like India could not have taken such a decision. So we decided to wage a war against poverty which has meant shouldering a heavy burden. We are trying to achieve in a few years what the West did in 150 years and the Soviet Union did in thirty or forty years since the Russian Revolution. Naturally the burden upon us is great and we have to go ahead against tremendous odds. We want India to have a strong economy and we want to raise the standard of living of the people. In short, we have dared to take the plunge and now we have to swim to the other side.

So we have to pit all our energy into the task of completing the great projects that we have taken up. It means that we should strengthen the structure of our society by fostering unity and byengaging the attention of the people in the task of nation-building instead of frittering away their energy in futile squabbles. A disturbing trend during these elections was the stone-throwing indulged in by our youth in many places. What is the kind of education that we are giving them that they stoop to such things? The people of India are strong and brave. But they are easily misled and often do wrong things. That is why I am drawing your attention to all this.

Violence has always been bad. But I have reached the conclusion that the capacity of mankind to inflict violence has increased so much that violence can no longer be combated by violence.

Let me give you an example. If the great powers possessing nuclear weapons wanted to destroy India we would have nothing to defend ourselves with. We are not going to produce nuclear weapons. For one thing, even if we try we cannot acquire this capability for years. Secondly, we do not wish to go in for nuclear weapons. We will certainly produce atomic energy for peaceful purposes, not for war. There are only two or three great powers in the world which possess nuclear weapons and we have nothing to fear from them. But I am giving you an example to show that if one of them were to attack us or threaten to do so, it is obvious that we do not possess weapons to combat nuclear weapons. What can we do against a hydrogen bomb? But I have no doubt whatsoever that no country, no matter what powerful weapons it may possess, can overcome us if we are strong and united as a nation. We have an army, navy and air force for India’s defence. Our young men in the armed forces are excellent and it gladdens one’s heart to meet them. But I know that we cannot compete with the great powers in armed strength. It would be like combating guns and cannons with bows and arrows.

We have friendly relations with the great powers. That is not the question. I am giving you an example to show what we can do to defend our country. We cannot bow down before aggression and accept slavery no matter how great the other power is. Then what do we do? We must have the inner strength to be able to withstand any attack, whether we have the weapons or not, and not to bow down to aggression. Ultimately, if necessary, we will fight with sticks. But we will not tolerate aggression. I am telling you what our attitude ought to be. It is not a question so much of weapons but of emotional strength and unity. If we have that no power on earth can overcome us. We must not allow ourselves to indulge in hooliganism and violence. It is absurd to indulge in stone-throwing and other wrongful acts. It is positively dangerous.

As I said, by a strange coincidence, exactly a hundred years ago today on the 10th of May, our war of independence began in Meerut and shook up pactically the whole of north India to its foundation. At no time after that can it be said tht the people of India fully accepted foreign domination. It is true that the British rule went on for a long time after that. But the flame of freedom burnt bright at all times. Then the nation took another turn and, as you know, a great movement began under the banner of the Congress, particularly under Gandhiji’s leadership. A unique movement began which eschewed weapons completely. It is true that when I was in school, fifty years ago, there was a wave of extremism and bombs were thrown on English officers. But India could not shake off the yoke of foreign rule by stray bomb-throwing incidents. That was merely the expression of anger and the frustration of some brave youth. Even then those of us who condemned it admired their courage. Everyone was frustrated and angry for there seemed no way of freeing the country. Gandhiji showed a new path which required great courage and dignity and promised results—the nation followed him wholeheartedly. Ten, twenty and then thirty years went by and ultimately we succeeded by following the path of peace and non-violence. India acquired great fame not merely because we became free but because of the unique manner in which we had done so. It was our own personal experience. As you can imagine, that was before the dawn of the atomic age. That path is even more relevant now in the atomic age with its potential for unimaginable violence. Violence is stupid and the violence which nuclear weapons can inflict makes any other kind of violence completely meaningless. As I said, it would be like combating cannons with bows and arrows. It has become more than ever necessary to follow the path shown by Gandhiji. I am not talking of principles but of realstrength. That is the only way in which we can protect our freedom with dignity and courage.

The 10th of May is a landmark. Three days hence falls Buddha Purnaima, which is yet another landmark. They are reminders of two different ways of life and we will have to choose one in this age of nuclear weapons. An arms race is not the solution. Until the world opinion chooses the other path, the danger of nuclear weapons will continue to hang over our heads like the sword of Damocles. The nuclear weapons powers say that they are only for purposes of deterrence. But in the meantime the fate of the earth hangs in the balance. Since the path of violence is obviously wrong, the only alternative before the world is to take the other path.

Therefore, I appeal to you to think of all those brave warriors who had lit the torch of India’s independence. That torch continued to burn for a century until India became free. Let us pay homage to those brave heroes and the others who came after them and carried the torch. Let us think of Gandhiji and remind ourselves that unless we see reason and defeat violence, it will bring ruin to mankind. Enmity cannot be countered by enmity. The lesson of non-violence has special implications for us who fought for our freedom with that unique weapon. If we forget it and foment disunity and quarrel over petty matters we would be betraying the sacrifices and courage of all the people who fought for freedom, and betraying Gandhiji, Gautam Buddha and, finally, ourselves. Jai Hind.

Let us stand up and observe two minutes’ silence in memory of all those who laid down their lives in 1857 and since then for India’s freedom. n

References

1. S. N. Sen, Eighteen Fifty-Seven, Publications Division, Delhi, 1957.

2. 1857, a Pictorial Presentation, Publications Division, Delhi, 1957.

3. Aga Khan III (1877-1957); spiritual head of the Ismaili Khoja community. Aga Khan III founded the Aga Khan foundation, an international philanthrophic organisation offering educational and other services.

4. A delegation headed by the Aga Khan was received by the Viceroy Minto in Shimla in October 1906. The delegation asked for guarantees that the rights of Muslims should be protected and that in any case the Muslims should not be relegated to a position of a helpless minority by the assertion of the numerically superior Hindu population.

2007-05-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

1857-A Brief Political and Military Analysis

Maj (Retd) AGHA HUMAYUN AMIN from WASHINGTON DC gave an analysis of the 1857 war of Independence

(This is a piece from a Pakistani Defence Journal. Comments are invited on this piece in the light of books by V D Savarkar and PC Joshi on 1857)

INTRODUCTION

The rebellion of the Bengal Army in 1857 was a traumatic event in the history of British rule in India. Even today it is difficult to describe it as a 'War of Independence', 'Revolution', 'Religious War' or a 'Mutiny'. The discussion is made more complicated because of the fact that India is a jigsaw puzzle of races and ethnic groups made further complicated and confusing by the presence of a variety of religions, castes etc. Thus Indo-Pak History has always remained a far more confusing affair than lets say French or British History. Any event in Indian History is hard to judge because of presence of various aspects like diversity of race, religion etc.

The Indo-Pak Sub-Continent has the unique distinction of being invaded, colonised and ruled by a multiple number of actors motivated by racial, religious, economic or commercial reasons. Thus whenever we pick any book on Indo-Pak History we come across so many conflicting and confusing views like the Muslim view, the Hindu view, the British view etc. Behind every happening in Indo-Pak history there is some 'Conspiracy Theory', some ethnic or religious bias, some personal elements or grievances etc. One may think that this is true for all types of history. However in our case it is felt that these biases are much more pronounced because of the fact that we are still undergoing the historical processes through which many other parts of the world underwent five hundred or a thousand years ago.

Perhaps all this is there because India and Pakistan even today are not cohesive integrated states with a clearheaded Intelligentsia or Leadership in the real sense. Perhaps the Indo-Pak Sub-Continent cannot be called a country or two or three countries in the real sense. One may add that Bangladesh is less trouble or confusion free being a nation state in the real sense despite its junior vintage in terms of length of years. We may state with conviction that writing anything on any aspect of Indo-Pak History is a much more arduous task than writing history of any other country. Coming precisely down to Indo-Pak History 1857 is particularly a very challenging subject to write about.

The major difficulty in writing stems from the fact that little is available from the Indo-Pak side since most of the people who formed the core elements of the rebels or freedom fighters or whatever anyone may choose to call them were either hanged or blown off the mouths of guns or destroyed in the Terai Jungle by disease or tigers. All those who were left were either living in British India and thus rendered unable to state anything based on truth because of fear of life or forfeiture of liberty. Some were so overwhelmed by disgust and grief that they thought it pointless to leave anything for posterity. Some who managed to save their life by escaping were so much pressed by privation and misery that they died premature deaths and were unable to leave for the future historians anything which may have proved useful in arriving at a rational explanation of the design of events and may have enabled historians to understand whether the outbreak was based on deliberate planning or was a spontaneous outbreak.

Thus we are left with three broad categories of historical accounts i.e. the 'Original British Viewpoint', the 'Indian Viewpoint while under Subjugation' and 'Modern Indo-Pak Reinterpretations'. Things are made yet more complex by other schools of thought like the 'Religious', 'Ethnic' and the 'Class Warfare' etc. Karl Marx called it the failure of the policy of divide and rule. Muslim revivalist historians call it Jehad, Hindus have their own explanations, Modern Nationalist Historians have further made it more colourful and glorious by liberally mixing myth with reality!

The British are ever keen to prove that it was a mutiny of troops. Thus anyone striving to write about history of 1857 has to struggle with various conceptual pitfalls and obstacles based on racial, religious and personal biases. The aim of this work is to interpret the events of 1857 not from the religious or racial or any other personal bias but from the pure historical point of view; so that correct conclusions can be drawn; not as a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh or as a North Indian or a Punjabi or as any other thing. It is important because today the countries of Indo-Pak Sub-Continent are going through a critical phase in terms of historical reinterpretation, today people are questioning various issues which were previously too sacred to be discussed; today history has again become much more crucial than it was fifty or hundred years ago. It is so because today we are less emotional and more objective than lets say in comparison with 1947 or in 1859.

Today there are less pressures and less compulsions than there were when Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was writing on 1857. At that time the issue was pure survival, today the issue is not immediate survival but long-term progress. Today religious divisions are less meaningful than they were in 1947 because today we are more clear about what motivated leaders to manipulate their followers in a certain direction to achieve certain ends! Today the issue is not confrontation but reduction of armies and economic progress in the real sense.

Another aspect of 1857 outbreak's importance was its influence on future British policy about India. In this sense this was in a way negative since the British reversed the policy of rapidly modernizing India and started supporting the feudal classes who Dalhousie was bent upon destroying. A foundation was laid for the communalization of the Indian Army. The policy of Divide and Rule received great impetus since the British realized that if the Hindus and Muslims combined like they had in 1857, India may prove to be very difficult to be ruled. Thus we see that after 1857 some very paradoxical policies were adopted by the British Government.

On one side it was held that the Muslims were the main culprits of 1857, whereas the majority of the troops of the Bengal Army which mutinied were Hindus. This led to reduction of the Hindustani i.e. East of Jumna troops both Hindu and Muslims while Punjab became the main area of recruitment with preference being given to Punjabi Muslims. Another effect of 1857 was that it induced Muslims to show greater loyalty to British in order to wipe out the stigma of disloyalty.

1857 remains a major landmark in the march towards Indian Independence since it convinced the Britishers that India could not be held at leisure and fear of another mutiny continued to haunt the British rulers right till 1947. On the other side another subtle effect on the freedom movement if it can be called one was the fact that Indians realized that the military option was not viable and thus Indians resorted to social reform and inner regeneration to prepare themselves for the challenges of the modern era. In this regard the main contribution of educating the Indians lies with the British.

The Great Rebellion of 1857 occupies a decisive place in the history of Indo-Pak Sub-Continent. It destroyed the English East India Company and destroyed a social order which was many centuries old. It was a highly complex event and even today many aspects of this phenomenal event defy comprehension. It influenced every class and section of the Indo-Pak Sub-Continent and acted as a primer for the complex set of events which finally led to the partition of India in 1947.

There is no dearth of works dealing with the events of 1857. These cover every aspect of this great event. However invariably all works suffer from either of the following handicaps : (1) The British writers even if they don't want to unconsciously keep on presenting it as yet another example of 'How Great the British were!' They magnify the odds which their countrymen faced and exaggerate the sepoy numerical strength. (2) The historians most of whom are civilians go into unnecessary details at the cost of the essentials. They try at times to fit inadvertently adopted British actions into subtle but essentially ridiculous theoretical frameworks. (3) The nationalist historians try to glorify it and while doing that endeavour without much success to present it as a super-human idealistic effort.

The fact is that this rebellion had little in common with the Congress or League. It did not have the remotest connection with the two Nation or Greater Bharat theories! (4) The Indo-Pak historians with a narrow regional approach try to project it as success of one ethnic group while condemning other ethnic groups who, in their opinion were misguided or collaborators or opportunists! (5) There is yet another class of outwardly impressive historians who are slaves of preconceived ideas they digested without much understanding at so-called elite universities in the western world. They are always attempting to submit 1857 to the servitude of tools of conceptual analysis, they learnt while studying overseas. When one sees them one is reminded about a remark which Gibbon, the great historian made about one of the so-called great universities of the western world, that the days that Gibbon had spent in that university were the most futile and barren days of his life!

1857 has been repeatedly analyzed by historians right from the year it took place. All historians or social scientists dealing with modern Indian history cannot get anywhere unless they study 1857. But then unfortunately 1857 has mostly been misunderstood. Thus correct conclusions have mostly not been drawn. Even today with so much of knowledge there are many misconceptions, half truths and sweeping judgements pertaining to 1857.

For the sake of posterity it is important to remove these prevalent misconceptions and misunderstandings. This is, thus, my aim which has compelled me to make a humble endeavour to write something about 1857. Unfortunately it is an absolutely clear fact that whenever anyone belonging to the Indo-Pak Sub-Continent reads Indo-Pak history he or she finds very little which is positive or inspiring and a lot which makes one feel disgusted and disillusioned. This region is rich not only in culture but also in contradictions and paradoxes. '1857' however is an inspiring saga whether it is the 'Rebel' or the 'British' side.

We see genuine, very inspiring and titanic figures on both sides struggling against seemingly impossible odds. We see genuine patriots who defied death and destruction. We see the triumph of 'Heroes' on the British side and the triumph of opportunism on the Indian side. We are tempted to be led to the conclusion that if Mangal Pandey had instead gone to the Grays or Lincoln's Inn he would have fared much better! Or if Lance Daffader Basharat Ali of 3rd Light Cavalry instead of rebelling had fought on the British side in perhaps the Hodson's Horse, may be his grandson may have become a Field Marshal in the Indian or Pakistan Army. How foolish were the sepoys of Bengal Army who mutinied! Had they remained proper their descendants may have had big Jagirs in Sargodha and Khoshab or in Rampur, Karnal, Mahmudabad or Nanpara, and would have been today's Senators! The history of India and Pakistan after 1857 till 1947 has been called 'Freedom Struggle'. But closer examination reveals that it was more of a series of debates conducted in posh drawing rooms and magnificent conference halls.

Indians and Pakistanis on both sides hardly shed any blood fighting against the British but much more blood fighting for the British in two World Wars or in cutting the throats of unarmed civilians during the transfer of power year of 1947. Thus, we see politicians spending a considerable amount of energy in downplaying the Indian National Army or the Bombay Naval Mutiny just because they did not want to be robbed of the phenomenal glory of having led a bloodless freedom movement which produced more bloodshed during partition than all combined unnatural deaths in Indian history from at least 1707 till 1947! But then all this is true in general for most parts and ages of the history of mankind. Man has always struggled in vain for utopian ideals which have mostly eluded him. Every titanic struggle only took us further away from the ideals for which we had aspired but this is how history is and so far historians have struggled in vain to arrive at an all encompassing theory of history.

Intellectual disgust with absolute distortion of history in Pakistan, in the name of religion, ideology hero worship and nationalism forced me to write this book. I have no axe to grind. I have no fervent desire to project any race or religion at the cost of history. An attempt has been made to tell the whole story without manipulating bits that support one side or the other. Naturally the picture which emerges as a result of this approach cannot be smooth and highly orderly

CHAPTER ONE

THE ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY'S CONQUEST OF INDIA 1757-1849

When the Uzbeks ejected Babur, the future Mughal Emperor of India from Central Asia, they knew little, what this great man or his descendants would achieve in India. The Mughal Empire was the predecessor of the British Empire in India. In between the demise of Mughals and the foundation of British Empire there was a dark period of anarchy which started from 1707 and continued almost uninterrupted till 1849 when the English East India Company conquered Punjab.

The term 'English East India Company's conquest of India' is both misleading and incorrect. The East India Company did conquer India single handedly but with the help of Indians who constituted some three fourth of their army. These Indian mercenaries were called 'Sepoys' by the British Company. An English form of the word 'Sipahi' in Urdu language which means a 'Soldier'. These 'Sepoys' were mercenaries who joined the English Company's army for a number of reasons in which the foremost one was economic necessity.

The process of engaging Indians in the English East India Company's military service started in the seventeenth century. In 1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the 'Company and Merchants of London trading with East Indies'1. 1n 1613 Jahangir, the Mughal Emperor granted the Company permission to establish a permanent trading station at Surat2. This was the start of a Company which laid the foundations of the British rule in India. The Company established its offices and factories and enrolled Indians as 'guards' or 'chowkidars' for local protection of their business premises. These 'chowkidars' were the beginning of the East India Company's Native Army3. It was cheaper to employ Indians than Britishers and thus economic necessity was as much the necessity of the Company to enrol Indians as it was for the Indians to agree to enrol. Later on regimental espirit de corps continued to gain greater importance as the Bengal Madras and the Bombay Armies gradually evolved into full time conventional armies.

Technically speaking the regular English East India Company's Native Army was established in 1748. Major Stringer Lawrence enrolled natives in Madras area in order to use them in the war which had started between France and Britain. Thus, the East India Company's native army was created basically to fight against the French. It is of interest to note that the French had started using natives as soldiers from 1676 when Francois Martin, the Governor of Pondicherry enrolled 300 native soldiers. Francois's successor Dumas enlarged this force in 1740 to some 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers, mostly Muslims armed and trained in the European fashion4.

The three main ports and trading stations of the English East India Company were Madras on the south east coast, Bombay on the western coast and Calcutta on the Bengal coast. Thus, from mid-eighteenth century all these three trading ports raised their separate Indian mercenary forces which were by late 18th century known as the 'Bombay', 'Madras', and 'Bengal' armies. These three were separate and distinct forces and were employed in their respective geographic theatres though many a times they supplemented and cooperated with each other. In the early days however the Bengal army was under the Madras administration. These three forces which later on came to be known as 'Presidency Armies' had two essential components i.e. a nucleus of European officers and soldiers which formed the core of the force and secondly a majority native component.

The European were of two types i.e. one was the component known as the Royal Army i.e. troops loaned on payment to the East India Company, the second were East India Company's own European soldiers and officers, these were mostly ex-officials of the Company or mercenaries, deserters, soldiers of fortune belonging to Britain and other countries of Europe. Bernadotte who became one of Napoleon's Marshals and subsequently King of Sweden was at one time a common private soldier in Madras5! The first regiment of the Regular British Army loaned to the Company was the 39th Foot which arrived in India in 1754 6.

The Development of the Armies of the English East India Company

Robert Clive, the hero of Plassey played an instrumental role in the formation of the native component of the East India Company's Army. Thus, Clive raised the first Battalion of the Bengal Army in 1757 consisting of various Indian free booters including Muslim Pathan, Rohillas, Rajputs etc. This battalion was known as 'Lal Paltan' because its troops wore the British Red Coats. Its strength/composition was as following7:-

a. One Indian Commandant (with nominal powers), one Indian adjutant, ten Indian Subedars, thirty Indian Jemadars and 820 Indian rank and file.

b. One European captain, two subalterns, one sergeant major and ten sergeants.

Subsequently this unit was known as the Ist Bengal Native Infantry or Ist Native Infantry. It took part in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 which laid the formation of British rule in India. It was in Cawnpore in 1857 and mutinied on 4th June, 1857. It is important to note that there were hardly any Bengalis in this unit. The EEIC (English East India Company) Regiments had a wide choice of applicants who wanted to enlist and they mostly consisted of Muslims from areas west of Bihar including Rohillas, Hindustanis, Pathans, Rajputs, Hindu Jats etc8. Captain Richard Knox of the Madras establishment was Lal Paltan's first commanding officer. This was the first unit of the Company's native army to be organized on a battalion basis of the British Royal Army pattern.

Robert Clive has been described as treacherous, greedy and selfish. I consider him far superior to most of Indo-Pak leaders of even today namely for one reason. He was a brave man and served his country 'Britain' well, and laid the foundation of British Empire in India just like Mohammad Bin Qasim or Ghauri laid the foundation of Muslim rule in India! In direct contrast to Clive most of the ruling classes of India and Pakistan are descendants are those who did not play significant role in Indo-Pak freedom movement during the period 1857-1942.

Thus this was the beginning of the Bengal Army which mutinied in 1857. Following the Battle of Plassey, Clive raised another sepoy battalion. Similarly he raised six battalions in Madras in 1759. In Bombay, also the same trend took strength and units composed of Muslim Arabs, African Abbysinians, Hindustani Mussulmans and Hindu Mahrattas were raised as independent companies in 1760 and as battalions in 1767 9. Thus the sepoys played an important role in establishing East India Company as a significant power in India in a direct manner and Britain as a world power by virtue of annexation of Bengal in an indirect manner! Eminent military thinkers like J.F.C Fuller placed 'Plassey' in the list of decisive battles of the western world. At this point in time, our supposedly north of Chenab martial races had not entered the stage.

In 1764 a predominantly Sepoy army defeated the Nawab of Oudh and the Mughal Emperor in the decisive battle of Buxar which brought Oudh state i.e. half of northern India under the vassalage of the English East India Company. In this battle just about one thousand Europeans, eight battalions of sepoys i.e. about 8,000 men and about one thousand Mughal mercenary cavalry decisively defeated an opposing Oudh Army with a sizeable Durrani contingent totalling some 50,000 men10. The battle was a convincing proof that discipline, superior training and superior leadership can offset numerical superiority in battle. The East India Company's force in this battle was commanded by Major Hector Munro. It is of interest to note that this same Munro was decisively defeated by Haider Ali in September, 1780. Sir John Fortescue, the official historian of the British Army called Munro's failure in 1780 as the 'greatest calamity that had ever befallen the British arms' 11 .

1764 was a very significant year for the Bengal Army. The first major sepoy mutiny took place in this year at Manji on 8th September, 1764 when Lal Paltan mutinied and imprisoned its officers. The mutiny was, however, quickly suppressed by the British using 6th Bengal Native Infantry. Munro tried the mutineers by court martial and had 20 of them tied to the artillery guns and blown off. This was probably a Mughal punishment which the British borrowed for punishing native mutineers. The effect of this scene was such that even the European soldiers watching the punishment had tears in their eyes12. In the end 20 were executed and four were sent to another station.

Many mutinies took place in the European units during this period but these were suppressed more easily since the Europeans were afraid that native troops may be employed against them. As a matter of fact one of the European officer mutineers a certain 'Fletcher' who Lord Clive wanted to have shot in 1766 subsequently became a member of British Parliament. Later on, Fletcher again came to India as Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army 13.

The three separate armies i.e. the Bengal, Madras and Bombay continued till 1895, however the overall Commander-in-Chief , India was the Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal Army14. By 1765, the sepoy battalions were organized as Brigades by Lord Clive15. In 1779 the English East India Company employed its three forces to defeat an almost all India alliance of Indian rulers against it16. In the year 1796 the first major reorganization of the English. East India Company's armies was undertaken. At this time following was the strength of the English East India Company's Army17 :-

a. Europeans - 13,000
b. Natives - 57,000
1) Bengal Army - 24,000
2) Madras Army - 24,000
3) Bombay Army - 9,000

In the Bengal these troops were organized as :-18

a. European Artillery :- Three Battalions of five companies each.
b. European Infantry :- Three Regiments of ten companies each.
c. Native Cavalry:- Four Cavalry Regiments of six Troops each.
d. Native Infantry:-Twelve Regiments of two battalions each.

By 1805 the English East India Company had used the three armies to subjugate whole of India except Sikh Punjab and Sindh and Baluchistan. Following was the strength of the East India Company's armies in 1805 19 :-
BRITISH / EUROPEAN NATIVE TOTAL
BENGAL 7,000 57,000 64,000
MADRAS 11,000 53,000 64,000
BOMBAY 6,500 20,000 26,500
TOTAL 24,500 130,000 154,500

During this period certain changes took place in the recruitment pattern in the Bengal Army20:

a) Till 1764 most men of Bengal Army were Muslims who travelled all the way from Oudh, Rajputana and even Punjab to join the Company's service.

b) After the battle of Buxar the Company started recruiting from the Oudh Brahman and Hindu Rajputs. Muslims were recruited but they were from 20% to 25%. The reason for recruiting more Hindus was simple. The Hindus formed the vast majority of the population of the Bengal presidency area and after 1764 the army was considerably expanded.

c) In 1774-75 the English East India Company annexed the Benares area of Oudh state. This brought more Oudh Hindu Brahman and Rajputs into the Bengal Army.

d) In 1801 the English East India Company annexed the bulk of Ganges Jamna Doab, Rohailkhand and Eastern districts of Gorakhpur belonging to the Oudh state. This region as even now contained the bulk of India's population. This annexation further increased the number of Oudh Hindu Rajputs and Brahmans.

Thus as the Company expanded westwards its recruitment pattern changed. The size of the Bengal Army also increased because after 1803 since the principal threat to the East India Company was in the north; in the shape of the Sikhs and the Afghans. Thus after 1805 the Bengal Army started becoming bigger than the Madras and the Bombay armies.

The Role of the Bengal Army in the British Conquest of India

The British employed the Bengal Army in various campaigns starting from the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The major campaigns were as follows 20a:-

a) Plassey 1757.

b) Campaign against the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam from 1758-1761.

c) Campaign against Mir Qasim from 1763-1764.

d) Campaign against Nawab of Oudh 1764-1765.

e) The First Mahratta War 1778-1782.

f) The Rohilla War 1774.

g) The Second Mysore War 1782, Third & Fourth Mysore Wars.

h) The Second Mahratta War 1803-1805.

i) The Anglo Nepalese War 1814-1816.

j) The First Burma War 1824-1826

k) The First Afghan War 1839-1842.

l) The Conquest of Sindh 1843.

m) The First Sikh War 1845-1846.

n) The Second Sikh War 1848–1849

o) The Second Burma War 1852

p) Various expeditions against the Trans Indus Frontier Tribes 1849-57.

In addition the Bengal Army also went on following overseas expeditions21:-

a) Expedition to Malaca (Malaysia) 1791

b) First Egyptian Expedition 1801

c) Expedition to Macao 1808

d) Capture of Mauritins 1810

e) Expedition to Java 1811-13

Thus the Bengal Army bore the brunt of the British wars in India from 1757 to 1857 and proved their mettle against a wide variety of races ranging from the Afghan, Sikh, Gurkha, Mahratta to the Sindhi Baluchi and Frontier tribesmen. The rationale behind listing all these campaigns is to illustrate that the post-1857 British theory that the Bengal Sepoy of the pre-1857 army were no good has no basis. The Oudh sepoy fought well without a cause whether it was Kabul or Nepal or Punjab or in the Kohat hills. Statistically more Bengal Sepoys were in British service till 1857 than Bombay or Madras Sepoys, yet after 1857 it became fashionable to brand them as poor soldiers and non-martial. Philip Mason described this state of the mind in the following words:-

'From now on, it was even more common for officers to divide the people of India sharply into two classes, good and bad, and in the good classes fell the people of the north who had come to their help during the mutiny. What had first been a tendency hardened into a doctrine. These were the martial classes, and only they would make a soldier 22.'

The illogical myths in Pakistan that Hindus are less martial or east of Jamna races are less martial are similarly baseless. But for this we do not have to go as far as 1849 since we have the example of the 1965 war!

Purely Military Mutinies in the Native Units before 1857

Mutiny has been a very normal feature in armies all over the world. Mutiny can be based on many factors, however broadly speaking a mutiny may take place due to the following broad reasons (1)Racial/religious factors like in 1857. (2) War weariness combined with class warfare as in the Russian Army in 1905 and in 1917 or in the German Navy in 1918. (3) As a protest against the behaviour of an individual commander with his troops. (4) As a protest against payment of arrears of pay or over allowances as in Bengal Army in 1841-42, or in Ahmad Shah Abdali's army after Panipat22 a . Various mutinies had been taking place in the native army ever since the Lal Paltan was raised in 1757 as we have seen in the preceding pages. There were many purely British mutinies like in 1765-66.

Sir Robert Fletcher later the C-in-C Madras Army was described by Foretescue the official historian of the British Army as one 'always on side of mutiny' 23 In 1806 a mutiny took place at Vellore in the Madras Army area. This mutiny was, however, swiftly suppressed by virtue of decisiveness and resolution on part of a British officer Gillespie 24. The Vellore mutineers had planned to capture Vellore Fort where Tipu Sultan's sons were lodged. They rose at Vellore where they were on duty on 10th July 1806 and over powered the 370 Europeans. The Indians were 1500 in number. Europeans survivors took the news of this disaster to Arcot 16 miles away. Colonel Rollo Gillespie the Commanding Officer of 19th Dragoons at Arcot was a man of action. Gillespie rushed to Vellore with his troops. The rebellion was crushed after some 350 Indians were killed25. Subsequently many were court martialled and executed or awarded life imprisonment etc. The significance of this mutiny was two fold (a) The Indians were overawed due to the swiftness and decisiveness of Gillespies's measures.

A proof that it is the man on the spot who matters during crisis situations and the outcome depends on the conduct of each man. It may vary from resounding success to total failure.(b) Serious reforms were instituted in the Madras Army in order to ensure that the Sepoys are not provoked into a situation where they decide that the only course open is mutiny. The Dress Regulations which had contributed to the mutiny were declared null and void. On 24th September 1806 a general order was published which prohibited any orders which lead to interference with the natives religious or social norms. The Commander-in-Chief, Madras Army was recalled 26.

Thus in 1857 not a single unit of the Madras Army mutinied. Here it is worth-examining the broad reasons which led to mutiny/rebellion in the Sepoy units- (1) Perception that religious customs or beliefs are being prejudiced or outraged. (2) For increase in pay and allowances or as a protest against decrease in pay and allowances.

Thus we see two major factors i.e. one that was connected with religion or caste and the second which had a material basis. While in Madras Army a precedent was established at Vellore which discouraged rebellion in future, in the Bengal Army a different trend was being set. In 1824 General Edward Paget, a British Regular Army Officer who was then commanding the Bengal Army laid the foundation of a chain of events which contributed a significant deal to Sepoy distrust of the British as far as the Bengal Army was concerned. Paget had taken over as Commander-in-Chief Bengal Army with no prior experience of India or the Sepoy Army. He mishandled the 47th Native Infantry over a minor administrative matter and without any visible provocation on 47th Native Infantry's part used force against them while trying to disarm them.

In the process he ordered European artillery to open fire on them without prior warning resulting in killing of between 60 to 100 Sepoys. The next day he instituted a court martial which sentenced 41 Sepoys to death. All this happened just because 47th Native Infantry had genuinely complained about their knapsacks being old and torn while under orders to march to Burma. Paget's conduct was severely criticized in Britain 27. The mishandling of 47th Native Infantry was a symbolic event for the Sepoys of the Bengal Army. It increased their distrust of the British rule and definitely contributed in a way towards all that happened in 1857.

After the first Burma war, various economy measures were introduced by the Governor General Lord Bentinck. These economy measures further affected the general discipline of the Bengal Army. Several financial privileges and allowances were discontinued. Thus during the First Afghan war, the 64th Bengal Native Infantry refused to accept its pay and to advance into Afghanistan as ordered until its allowances were increased and warm clothing was issued.

After considerable persuasion however the 64th accepted its pay and obeyed the orders given to it. In February, 1844 the 34th Bengal Native Infantry and 7th Bengal Light Cavalry disobeyed orders to proceed to Sindh unless they were paid additional allowances. The British were thus forced to disband the 34th Native Infantry at Meerut28. The 4th and 69th Native Infantry also subsequently became mutinous and many of their soldiers were forcibly discharged.

The 64th Native Infantry also again mutinied in 1844. The British dealt severely with this mutiny and various soldiers were executed or imprisoned. It is significant to note that the 64th had at this time just returned after having fought in the First Afghan war and was now under orders to proceed to Sindh to take part in the Sindh campaign. In 1850 the 66th Bengal Native Infantry mutinied at Govindgarh near Amritsar and was disbanded29. In 1855 Brigadier General Mackenzie, the Commander of the Hyderabad contingent was attacked and severely injured by Shia Oudh Muslims of 3rd Light Cavalry when he tried to interfere with the Tazia procession which was crossing in front of his house. Lord Dalhousie declared Mackenzie's conduct as 'indiscreet'.

All these were pointers towards a general mutiny, which finally came in 1857 30 . The economic factor was well explained by a retired British Officer in his paper titled 'Mutiny in the Bengal Army' published in 1857; 'The entire army of India amounts to 315,520 men costing 9,802,235 pounds. Out of this sum no less than 5,668,110 pounds are expended on 51,316 European officers and soldiers. Moreover the European corps takes no share in the rough ordinary duties of the service. They are lodged, fed and paid in a manner unknown to other soldiers'31. The important factor which distinguished the Bengal Army from both the Madras and Bombay armies was a large percentage of Hindu Brahmans and Rajputs who had the highest status in Hindu society and who were fussy about their daily rituals and caste prejudices.

1 Page-332- Concise Oxford History of India- Edited by Percival Spear-First Published 1919-Revised Edition Oxford University Press-New Delhi-June 1957
2 Page-333-Ibid.
3 Page-326-The Imperial Gazetteer of India-Volume Four-Administrative-New Edition-Published under the Authority of His Majesty's Secretary of State for India in Council.Oxford –Clarendon Press-1907-The Essay on the Evolution of the Indian Army in Chapter Eleven of this volume was written based on material supplied by Lieutenant General Sir Edward Collen.
4 Ibid.
5 Page-47- Sketch of the Services of the Bengal Native Army to the Year 1895 –Lieutenant F.G Cardew—Office of the Superintendent of the Government Printing-India-Calcutta-1903.Bernadotte was then a sergeant in the French East India Company's Army !
6 Page-327-Ibid.
7 Page-10- Fidelity and Honour- Lieutenant General S.L Menezes-Viking-New Delhi-1990.
8 Page-328-Imperial Gazetteer-Op Cit.
9 Pages-326, 327 & 328-Ibid.
10 Page-99-J.W Fortescue-Op Cit.
11 Page-448- History of the British Army-Volume Three-1763-1793 –Hon J.W Fortescue.Macmillan and Company London- 1911.
12 Page-195- The Decisive Battles of India-Colonel G.B Malleson-Oxford-1885.
13 Page-34-F.G Cardew-Op Cit .Pages 169, 170 & 171- Lord Clive –Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot-T.Fisher Unwin- Paternoster Square-London-1899 and Page-91 –Lieut General S.L Menezes-Op Cit.
14 Initially the Bengal Establishment was under Madras Presidency ( Page-327-Imperial Gazetteer-Op Cit).However later on the C in C of Bengal Army was also the overall British C in C in India.
15 Page-30-Lieut F.G Cardew-Op Cit.
16 Page-329-Imperial Gazetteer-Op Cit.
17 Page-333-Imperial Gazetteer-Op Cit.
18 Ibid.
19 Page-335-Ibid.
20 Page-329-Imperial Gazetteer-Op Cit. And Page-5- Lieut F.G Cardew –Op Cit.
20 a Pages-1 to12, 36 to 48, 70 to 89, 117 to 144, 145 to 198, 205 to 218, 244 to 268, 305 to 388, 412 to 499-Lieut F.G Cardew-Op Cit.
21 Ibid.
22 Page-314- A Matter of Honour- Philip Mason-Jonathan Cape -London-1974.
22 a 426- The Cambridge History of India-Volume Four-The Mughal Period –Edited by Richard Burn-Reprinted by S.Chand and Company-New Delhi-1987.
23 Page-430-J.W Fortescue-Op Cit.
24 Page-240 & 241-Philip Mason-Op Cit.
25 Ibid.Gillespie an extremely bold and dashing officer was killed in the Anglo-Nepalese or Gurkha War of 1814-16 and was buried at Meerut.
26 Political and Secret Department-L/P & S/3/3 OF 18 May 1807.-British Library-Oriental and India Office Collection.
27 Page-108 & 109-Lieut Gen S.L Menezes-Op Cit.
28 Page-113 to 118-Ibid.
29 Page117 to 122-Ibid.
30 Page 120 & 121-Ibid and
31 Page-6-Mutiny in the Bengal Army- by a Retired Officer-London-1857

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