If we had a tradition of open threads here, I would just open one here today and ask all of y’all to share your thoughts on the Sepoy Mutiny, a.k.a. Rebellion, a.k.a. First War of Independence, a.k.a. perhaps some other name, depending on your viewpoint and the importance you assign to nomenclature in history. I know shamefully little about this fundamental event in the history of the Indian Subcontinent, and even less about the debates that it has spurred among historians, except that I know that these have been complicated and sometimes heated.
But today marks the official sesquicentennial commemoration of the start of the Mutiny/Rebellion/War, and by way of launching the conversation, I present three different takes that are in the news today. First we have Mani Shankar Aiyar, India’s Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, who gave the official start to a youth march from Meerut to Delhi a couple of days ago. His remarks to a RediffNews correspondent emphasized the secular nature of the uprising; he observed that India today can learn from the uprising the importance of pluralism, secularism and religious understanding:
The significance of 1857 for today’s youth is that it makes you realise that we all are one people in spite of our diversity.
The freedom-fighters who revolted against the British in 1857 were mostly Hindus in Meerut. After disobeying their British superiors they went straight to the Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and made him their king.
They had no ill-feeling for the Mughal king though he was a Muslim. This is the kind of secular bonding these soldiers had in them.
Our young generation must remember that united we stand, and though we are a diverse people we have to maintain our unity. That is what the message of 1857 was to all Indians. …
This is another message that Bahadur Shah Zafar and the freedom-fighters of 1857 wanted to pass on to the future generations. No matter what your religion and region be, respect all religion and maintain harmony. …
We have to remember the fact that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world. We have more Muslims than in Pakistan and Bangladesh but we Indians live together peacefully and I am proud to say all Muslims are my brothers.
Next up is the White Mughal himself, William Dalrymple Saheb. You knew he’d turn up somewhere! In an opinion piece today in the Guardian he argues that 1857 bears lessons for certain other interventions and occupations that Britain might happen to be involved in today. Here’s one of the similarities he points out:
The British progressed from removing threatening Muslim rulers to annexing even the most pliant Islamic states. In February 1856 they marched into Avadh, also known by the British as Oudh. To support the annexation, a “dodgy dossier” was produced before parliament, so full of distortions and exaggerations that one British official who had been involved in the operation described the parliamentary blue book (or paper) on Oudh as “a fiction of official penmanship, [an] Oriental romance” that was refuted “by one simple and obstinate fact”, that the conquered people of Avadh clearly “preferred the slandered regime” of the Nawab “to the grasping but rose-coloured government of the company”.
Dalrymple concludes:
Yet the lessons of 1857 are very clear. No one likes people of a different faith conquering them, or force-feeding them improving ideas at the point of a bayonet. The British in 1857 discovered what the US and Israel are learning now, that nothing so easily radicalises a people against them, or so undermines the moderate aspect of Islam, as aggressive western intrusion in the east. The histories of Islamic fundamentalism and western imperialism have, after all, long been closely and dangerously intertwined. In a curious but very concrete way, the fundamentalists of all three Abrahamic faiths have always needed each other to reinforce each other’s prejudices and hatreds. The venom of one provides the lifeblood of the others.
Before we go too far down that track, here’s a third perspective, from Rudrangshu Mukherjee in the Telegraph:
[I am] surprise[d] at the sudden burst of enthusiasm among historians about the great uprising. There is nothing like a state-sponsored anniversary to stoke the interests of historians in a subject. The adjective, state-sponsored, is used advisedly. In a country with as rich and as diverse a history as India’s, every year is an anniversary of something or the other. In June will come the 250th anniversary of the battle of Plassey. Is the Indian state celebrating that anniversary? The answer is no. The decision to celebrate the revolt of 1857 with some fanfare is based on the conclusion — put forward by some historians and accepted by the government of India — that the rebellion is worth celebrating because it represented India’s first war of independence.
Mukherjee argues that “1857 should be remembered but not commemorated,” because of the extreme violence of both the insurrection and the counter-insurrection.
The events of 1857 churned around a vicious cycle of violence. The rebels killed mercilessly without considerations of gender and age. Witness the massacre on the river in Kanpur where nearly the entire British population was killed in a spectacular show of rebel power. The British killed indiscriminately to punish a population that had transgressed the monopoly of violence that rulers have over the ruled.
He concludes:
Today, as the celebrations begin to mark the 150th anniversary of the rebellion, some questions need to be asked: is 1857 an occasion to celebrate? Can the Indian state uphold the violence that is inextricably linked to that year? Can the Indian state say that it is loyal to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, and in the same breath celebrate 1857 when so many innocent people, on both sides, were brutally killed?
The questions are important because in India, there is no mode of remembering without celebrating. We commemorate to remember, sometimes even to forget. Eighteen fifty-seven is an event to remember, as all events of the past are; it is an event to comprehend and analyse because, as Jawaharlal Nehru wrote, it showed “man at his worst”. That comprehension and analysis is best done outside the aegis of the State.
I present these three perspectives somewhat arbitrarily. I imagine there are many others and I hope people will share them, honest in their opinions and generous with their explanations.
The South Indians were not affected very much.
I guess they had their own War of Independence in Tipu Sultan’s four Mysore battles against the British. The last of those battles (where Tipu was killed) was almost 60 years before the “First War of Independence.”
FYI
TMBWITW is going to play Rani Laksmibai in Ketan Mehta‘s Jhansi Ki Rani
TMBWITW is going to play Rani Laksmibai in Ketan Mehta’s Jhansi Ki Rani
NOOOOOO! That’s so wrong on so many levels.
I guess they had their own War of Independence in Tipu Sultan’s four Mysore battles against the British. The last of those battles (where Tipu was killed) was almost 60 years before the “First War of Independence.” Right. There was a rebellion against the British in Vellore in the 19th century as well. Somnath Chatterjee (thanks, Ponniyin Selvan!) should simply have dropped the word ‘First’. I don’t deny that it was a landmark event.
and there was also Kittur Chennamma
Uh, can we just not having any discussions about Zionists, etc? It’s completely irrelevant (and I suspect trollery as well).
The month of May 2007 marks the 150th anniversary of a popular uprising in the Indian subcontinent against the English East India Company. It has been described as the Sepoy Mutiny by British writers because it originated among the native soldiers employed and trained by the Company. The sipahis (Urdu-Hindi word for soldiers) were dissatisfied with the way the British officers treated them, and were particularly enraged over the introduction of a cartridge, allegedly laced with cow and pig fat, to be used in the new Enfield rifles. It had to be chewed open and the gunpowder was poured into the rifle. Both Hindu and Muslim sipahis found such a procedure disgusting since those fats subverted their rules of purity.
There were a number of local rebellions among the sepoys in Bengal already in early 1857, which were crushed and the rebel leaders hanged. Similar incidents took place elsewhere. The revolt climaxed when the sepoys in Meerut rose in arms on May 9-10, 1857. They killed their officers and called for a general mutiny. The rebels proclaimed the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, as their sovereign and demanded the British to leave India. Meerut, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi and Bereilly were the main centres of revolt.
Some rulers of princely states also joined the uprising. Under the Doctrine of Lapse introduced by the Company it could annex states under its protection if the ruling family had no male heir to succeed. Some rulers had no male heir to succeed them. Other disgruntled forces that joined the movement were local leaders and warlords. The descendants of Shah Waliullah issued a fatwa calling it a jihad. But most rulers of princely states, Hindus and Muslims, kept away or even sided with the British.
The Sikh warlords and princes also sided with the British. Only eight years earlier in 1849 the English had defeated the successors of Ranjit Singh (1799-1839) and annexed the Sikh Kingdom of Lahore. The Company had deployed soldiers from northern India, called Purbi Bhiyas, against the Sikh armies. Now, the British played upon Sikh anger against the Purbi Bhiyas and made them crush the sepoys with a vengeance. Also, Muslim tribal and clan leaders from the Punjab and the NWFP helped the British. Afterwards all of them were rewarded with titles and land grants.
But not all Punjabis sided with the British. In some places there were uprisings. On January 4, 2005 I interviewed Maulana Habibur Rahman Sani in the main Friday mosque in Field Ganj, Ludhiana, East Punjab (currently there is a sizable Muslim labour force from Bihar and the UP in Ludhiana). Maulana Sani’s grandfather, Maulana Habibur Rahman, was one of the founders and main leaders of the Majlis-e-Ahrar. He told me the fascinating story of his ancestor, Shah Abdul Qadir Ludhianvi, who he said led the revolt in the Punjab against the Company.
I was told that Shah Abdul Qadir Ludhianvi was able to drive out the British from Ludhiana. He took his forces to Panipat and from there to Chandni Chowk in Delhi, but was defeated and died fighting. Maulana Sani’s theory was that because Shah Abdul Qadir was an Arain the British later put a ban on that tribe from being employed in their Indian army.
In any event, the rebels lacked coordinated leadership and the participation of the people was sporadic. There was no clarity on ideology beyond the common programme of driving the British out of India. Ultimately the Company fought back and regained its pre-eminent position in India. Bahadur Shah Zafar was sent into exile to Rangoon. His sons and many other relatives were captured and killed. All this was done in a most brutal and vicious manner.
In a hundred years — from the battle of Plassey of 1757 to the uprising of 1857 — the English East India Company had extended its power in all of northern India while it had become the main power in the south even earlier.
The gold, silver, precious stones and other riches transferred during that period helped to a point to finance the British industrial revolution. Thus by 1833 the Board of Directors of the East India Company had been transformed from one dominated by importers to exporters.
Some radical scholars believe that India was ripe for large-scale production. Had its wealth not been taken away it would have successfully entered the era of industrial production. Some people even suggest that literacy was as high as 85 per cent and 20-25 per cent of world trade originated in the subcontinent (it is 1 per cent at present for all of South Asia while the region is house to 25 per cent of the total world population). I have not been able to find reliable data to support these claims but there is no doubt that it was the wealth of India that brought the Europeans to it.
The 1857 uprising profoundly transformed the nature of British rule. India was formally annexed by the Crown in 1858 and became a part of the empire. Thus began the process of integration of different parts of India into a modern bureaucratic state. The new centres of political revival and economic activity were not the old towns and cities of northern India but coastal towns such as Madras, Bombay and Calcutta — all located in Hindu majority areas.
The Indian National Congress, founded originally in 1885 on British prompting to counter the radical terrorist tendencies in Bengal, later began to organise mass opposition to colonial rule under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. In turn the British played upon the fears of the Muslim minority and encouraged them to found the All-India Muslim League in 1906. But all such machinations could not prolong British rule beyond mid-August 1947, when two independent states of India and Pakistan came into being.
Indian nationalists, who until 1947 included Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others, celebrated the 1857 uprising as the First Independence Struggle, some used stronger words such as the ‘First War of Independence’. Their main argument is that those who took part in that struggle wanted an end to alien rule; they were seeking to restore the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, as the emperor of all the people of India.
They were not looking for the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra or an Islamic Caliphate. Therefore, the argument goes, it was a manifestation of a genuine desire to be free as a pluralist nation comprising all communities. Whatever the truth, I think some symbolic gesture to mark the 1857 uprising must be made jointly by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Oh come on. It was called that because when soldiers in uniform rise against the army it is a mutiny. The Spithead mutiny in the British navy is called, well a mutiny.
Had it started, say among the peasants it would not have been called a mutiny.
No idea about this chart’s accuracy, but it shows that England’s share of global GDP, after three centuries of strong — and sharply accelerating in the last 100 years of that period — growth, peaked at 9% around 1870.
Shankar,
I knew that none of the people I mentioned supported the “upper caste sepoys + Muslim” mutiny.. It is ridiculous that we waste time and money in celebrating this feudal and jihadi fight against a bunch of “kafirs” in 2007. As I mentioned in my blog, people needed some myths to motivate other people in the early 1900s against the Brits and thus created the “first war of independence” mythology..
Just a word on the soldiers that mutinied…they were part of the so-called ‘Bengal Army’, which was sort of a misnomer since in fact there were few Bengalis actually in the army. It was mostly people from U.P and Bihar, and was a disproportionately ‘high-caste’ army. V.S Naipual talks about this in one of his books. Brahmins were represented in high numbers…Mangal Pandey being a notable example. In fact apparently there were so many Pandeys (a common Brahmin name) in the army that ‘pandy’ became a slang British term for Indian soldier in general. It’s fascinating to realise that Brahmins, when properly-trained, made excellent mercenaries. It’s also fascinating to dwell on the economic necessity that drove so many young Brahmins to join the army…breaking just about every rule there was (the rules themselves having been created by Brahmins in the first place). This was in the first half of the 19th century, when ritual purity was about a thousand times more important than it is today. There were also a lot of Rajputs in the army (also very caste and ritual purity conscious), and a good portion of UP/Bihar Muslims as well. This was the army that fought all the major battles for the British for DECADES and won them most of their territories in India. Including Punjab. In the Anglo-Sikh wars that took place shortly before the Mutiny, it was the Bengal Army (again, composed mostly of high-caste UP/Bihar soldiers though) that was used to defeat the Khalsa army (there was a lot of internal treachery leading to those defeats, as well as general chaos in Punjab after the death of Ranjit Singh but that’s another story). If there’s one thing that defeats the Martial Races Theory, it’s the excellent fighting abilities of this so-called Bengal Army, which had so many soldiers from non-military backgrounds as recruits. Anyway, after the Anglo-Sikh Wars, Sikhs got incorporated into the British Army as well (in separate divisions)…and when the Mutiny broke out later, Sikhs were more than happy to settle scores not only with the Sepoy Mutineers (who had fought with them just a decade or so earlier) but also with the newly resurrected banner of the Mughal Empire (which was the figurehead adopted by the Mutineers). As Chachaji and Camille have pointed out, Sikh opposition to the British Empire came later, during the early 20th Century…but in 1857, there was NO WAY Sikhs could have supported the Mutiny.
.but in 1857, there was NO WAY Sikhs could have supported the Mutiny.
Maybe, in general sense and from the power-brokers you are correct, but as I said earlier, they were exceptions. Here is an excerpt on Namdharis.
Then there is massacre of 1872 of Namdharis.
Sure, the politics of 1857 was driven by self-interest (as always is), but somehow, it was the first time different people with their own self-interest in mind for a brief moment found a common enemy, and were willing to kick them out together.
“It’s also fascinating to dwell on the economic necessity that drove so many young Brahmins to join the army…breaking just about every rule there was (the rules themselves having been created by Brahmins in the first place).”
This is the sort of statement that make me think how little we know of the past. What do we really know of the day-to-day life of ordinary people 150 years ago? What clothes did they wear? What jobs did they do? What games did children play? This ritual purity business—why do we think it was prevalent or that it was widely observed? Are our historians really doing research on this? Or are they merely passing off their speculations as history?
One thing that cannot be disputed here – the mutiny with the exception of Rani Laxmibai (whom the British called the only man among the rebels) was marked by less then steller performance on the field. So what are we to make of that? Poor leadership? Lack of conviction? Bad luck?
Regarding the Sikhs, I don’t mean this to flame…but ..I know they had a spiritual leader but didn’t the religion at least partially weld itself to Muslim resistance the same way Catholicism in Spain did in resistance to Moorish rule, or currently Islam in resistance to Zionism and Western incursions into “Arabia”. Doesn’t the tradition of not cutting the hair stem from oaths to drive out every drop of Muslim blood?
No matter how revisionists like to see him, the fact is that Ranjit Singh remained servile to the British. The British had taken some solid whipping at the hands of the Nepalis in 1816 CE. The Nepalis proposed a treaty with Ranjit Singh [which they again repeated in 1824 CE] and given the bashings that the British took in Burma in 1824 CE, any such pact would’ve weakened the British and actually strengthened Ranjit. But he declined and remained loyal to the British. Likewise, he declined to join forces with the Maratha [deposed] and the Bharatapur rulers in 1824 and 1825 CE respectively.
Of course, despite their outward shows of friendships � donating horses and going on a poaching mela � the British had no respect for Ranjit Singh. They actually aided and abetted the Wahhabi uprising against the Sikhs, which certainly weakened Ranjit Singh. Despite the death of Sayyid Ahmad at Bareilly in 1831 CE, the Wahhabis had proved to be formidable and treacherous enemies of the Sikhs. So, if at all the Sikhs had any animosity, it was towards the Muslims, who were also fighting the British in the mutiny. It was not against the practically defunct Mughal.
Contrary to what most revisionists like to believe, the origins of the Mutiny were in Vellore, Tamilnadu in 1806 CE. The British had banned the use of Hindu caste and religious marks, including wearing of the tilak or vibhuti on the forehead. Of course, the exiled family of Tipu Sultan was opportunistic enough to join hands with the mutineers. The substantial Muslim population of the Arcot district joined the mutiny once the Tipu Sultan connection was materialized. The British put the mutineers down.
The next phase of the uprising was in 1824 CE during the Burmese war. The Hindu soldiers at Barrackpur had been agitating against the unjust pay terms imposed by the British. The British reversals in Burma gave them the ideal setting to mutiny.
The 1857 Mutiny was merely a continuation of these two earlier revolts. Once again, the 1857 Mutiny started in the barracks of Dum Dum by the Hindu soldiers. The Muslims would join later. The trigger was again violation of religious code even though the discontent had been brewing for nearly 5 decades. Mangal Pandey made the first open call for the sepoys to unite for protecting their religious codes. In the ensuing dual, he knocked down the 2 British officers that combated him as thousands of soldiers watched. The sight of a Hindu soldier single-handedly fighting 2 horse-borne British officers and knocking them down set the adrenalin of the Hindu soldiers flowing. Till this point, the Mutiny was a Hindu affair , to be precise, remembering Ambedkar’s repeated pleas of Mahar loyalty to the British, it was largely an upper caste Hindu rebellion motivated by religion and exploitative pay terms.
After Pandey was executed, the British disbanded the 34th NI and the 19th, the predominantly Hindu regiments. No Muslim regiments were disbanded. The disbanded soldiers constituted the ideal recruiting base for the Mutiny. So, the Mutiny started entirely as a Bengal regiment Hindu rebellion against the British on 2 considerations: religion and pay. They simply didn’t have any vision for the long- term.
Even though the Bengal regiment Hindu soldiers had started the Mutiny in January 1857 CE, it would take them another 4 months to reach Delhi. The mutineers suffered some serious setbacks in Kanpur and Meerut en route. It was at that time that the proposals to declare Bahadur Shah as the emperor of India were heard for the first time. The reasons aren’t hard to figure: Once the Mutiny spread to UP, a large number of Muslim soldiers joined.
So, the declaration of the powerless Bahadur Shah as the emperor of India was rather a late development. It was not at all part of the original vision. It is worth noting that the Sikh contingents hadn’t supported the Mutiny even in its early stage from January to May. It is a travesty of facts to claim that this was due to the Bahadur Shah factor, as that simply didn’t exist then. A better answer is that as evident from the policies and practices of Ranjit Singh, the Sikhs found it beneficial to be loyal to the British. It may be right that the Sikh population may not have been disposed against the mutineers. But, we don’t have a way of evaluating that unless someone familiar with the primary sources from Punjab can discuss them. It is clear that the powers that be among the Sikhs had been loyal to the British as discussed above.
What was also happening in Punjab in 1857-58?
In fact, this is the wrong analogy. It is true that the last two Sikh Gurus clashed with the then Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb. But it is wrong to see this as a clash of Sikhism with the religion of Islam, except to the extent that Aurangzeb, a particularly orthodox Muslim, might have seen it as such.
It is important to realize that the theological basis of Sikhism was significantly influenced by elements of Islamic thought, and there is nothing within Sikhism’s theological basis that sustains any kind of confrontation with Islam at any level – the way X’ianity might.
No. It’s shocking how often this calumny comes up. It is true, however, that at the time Guru Gobind Singh instituted kesh as a practice, the Sikhs were fighting the Mughal emperor, who happened to be Muslim. The basis for instituting this practice, however is in long-practiced traditions of ascetism all over India, as well as being a ritualistic accomodation to the rigors of military life and serving as an informal ‘uniform’.
Amitabh – very nice contribution at #111. And Kush, appreciated your several contributions, and particulalry the Saul David reference. (BTW, David is his last name)
@ Anuradha Some rosy view for a tyrant, Aurangzeb a zealot who killed Guru Tej Bahadur (the 9th Sikh guru). His rule was marked by rebellion of Sikh, Marathas, Jats and any one brave enough. Aurangzeb was as liberal as Osama Bin Laden, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab and Sayyid Qutb amongst others
The mughals had ceased to be powerful after 1737 when the Maratha armies entered and took Delhi
Map of India 1760 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/India1760_1905.jpg
Kalavai Venkat (#115): You make some excellent points, and I think your analysis is correct in many ways, especially the demographics and timeline of the Mutiny. I agree that the earlier South Indian discontent, and the Barrackpur incidents do not get the attention they deserve. And along with the (poorly-named) Bengal Army, there was also the Madras Army which has its own storied past. But I think you misunderstand Ranjit Singh. While he did make some (in retrospect) tactical mistakes, and missed the chance to rule Delhi, his story is really quite remarkable. In a land where for ages, foreign invaders had swept in and destroyed everything, he was the first indigenous, non-Muslim, desi native to successfully go in the opposite direction, and invade and conquer the land of the invaders and conquerors. As well as protect the people of his own land. He had a huge empire, which was over 60% Muslim. In fact Sikhs were only 13% of the total at that time. He believed in building coalitions and bridges with people, as well as religious tolerance. During his reign, the British kept a respectful distance. After his death, there was infighting, treachery, poor leadership, etc. which led to defeat in the Anglo-Sikh wars. There is an apocryphal story about Ranjit Singh, that he was shown a map of India, with British possessions in red. He is reported to have said ‘ikk din sab laal ho javega’ (one day it will all be red), implying he knew exactly the type of people the British were, and probably exactly the type of people his successors would be. I think he’s an Indian hero. It’s not a great article but there’s more on him here.
I would have to agree with this. A very very cruel man. And don’t forget what he did to his father and brothers too. The fact that there is a road in post-1947 New Delhi named Aurangzeb Road of all things, to me is as bad as the restaurant in Mumbai named ‘Hitler’.
Excellent post and discussion!
The BBC website has some pictures taken during the uprising here.
What he did to Chatrapati Shabhaji is beyond what belief
When they were brought face to face with Aurangzeb, the latter offered to let Sambhaji live if he surrendered all the Maratha forts, and converted to Islam. Sambhaji refused to convert to Islam, and instead sang praises of Mahadev. Aurangzeb ordered him and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death. Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were brutally tortured for over 40 days. The torture involved plucking of eyes, pulling out nails, scraping out large pieces of skin and dismemberment. Sambhaji succumbed to the cruel torture and was beheaded on March 11, 1689 near the confluence of the Bheema and Indrayani rivers at Tulapur near Pune. Despite the torture, [Sambhaji]] refused to convert to Islam. In so doing he earned the title of Dharmaveer by which he is known to this day. Aurangzeb ordered to cut Sambhaji’s body into pieces and throw it into river water. Residents of nearby village named ‘Vadhu’ collected as many pieces of his body as they found, sewed them together and performed the final rites on his body. These villagers later went on to use the surname ‘Shivle’ or ‘Shivale’, as per spelling preference, which means sewing in the Marathi language.
Thanks to Siddharta for the post and to everyone for the excellent discussion.
I’ve written an article about 1857 in a book called Marxism, Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies. It’s about Marx’s writings about the Revolt as the London correspondent for a paper called the New York Daily Tribute in the 1850s. In short, it’s an assessment of how Marx’s writings change over time, from a fairly common Eurocentric position in the beginning to a much more dynamic one that comes out squarely in defense of the rebels.
One of the events that shifts Marx’s perspective is the utter hypocrisy of the British who go off on rants against the rebels’ violence while they themselves are guilty of the brutality of colonialism and its processes over a much longer period of time.
In an article called “The Indian Revolt†(16 September 1857), Marx argues: “However infamous the conduct of the sepoys it is only the reflection, in a concentrated form of England’s own conduct in India […] Torture formed an organic institution in [Britain’s] financial policy. There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not only by the offended but by the offender himself.”
In another article investigating how the British used torture as policy (17 September 1857), Marx concludes: “We have here given but a brief and mildly-colored chapter from the real history of British rule in India. In view of such facts, dispassionate and thoughtful men may perhaps be led to ask whether a people are not justified in attempting to expel the foreign conquerors who have so abused their subjects. And if the English could do these things in cold blood, is it surprising that the insurgent Hindoos [sic] should be guilty, in the fury of revolt and conflict, of the crimes and cruelties alleged them?”
SG, thanks for the post. Interesting analysis from Marx, and fairly spot-on.Not that we need to belabor how little value the British had for their colonized subjects, but these are the same people who starved Bengal and killed truckloads of people around the world. Their use of violence was often strategic, merciless, and horrific. In many ways, violence is an inherent foundation of colonization.
Hey Amitabh (#111):
Not to be overly picky, but I think Sikh resistance had been ongoing. We just don’t see large, organized levels of resistance until later in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I think it took Punjabis/Sikhs a long time to begin to recover from British occupation to be able to even get organized to do anything.
114 (…questions):
I think chachaji answered this sufficiently (i.e. “No”), but I’ve never heard this before. Is this a common misconception about Sikhs/Sikh history?
I think there is some strange standing belief that Sikhs have a historic and deep-rooted hatred of Muslims and Hindus. I can see where some of these ideas come from, but honestly, it’s anachronistic to back (or forward) date explanations of Sikh political organization, in the Punjab specifically, based on isolated historical events or figures. This isn’t to discount any xenophobia (or whatever the appropriate term is) in the Sikh community. Just saying, I think it’s blown out of proportion and isn’t any greater than any other religious communities hesitations towards others in the subcontinent.
And lastly, Kalavai Venkat, you bring up really interesting points, but I, too, am not feeling you on the “Ranjit Singh kissed British ass.” In retrospect, there were things he definitely could have done differently. Overall, I think he was pretty aware of the amount of havoc the Brits would wreak, and I think he knew his kingdom would fall apart after this death. I know folks are all about ripping on the Sikhs/Sikh Empire, but at the time, they were one of the last kingdoms standing against the British army, and they had had their own share of internal and external drama. They’d also lived through incredible violence from the British, especially in the 50 years following the First Anglo-Sikh War. Not saying it was worse than other states (I don’t, in fact, know enough to be able to even quantify the difference), but it was concentrated and bad for a long time. All that said, I really do think Punjabis, esp. Punjabi Sikhs, are underrated in the independence movement. The proportion of Punjabi Sikhs who died in the independence movement, relative to their % on the subcontinent, is disproportionately high, but 9x/10 what you hear about Sikhs in the movement is “oh they put down the Sepoys, oh they kissed British ass, oh they joined the army and bought into the Martial Races mythos, oh they didn’t really sign onto independence until WWIish.” As always, history is more complex than that.
Good point. Brahmins in particular were beginning to feel really threatened by british interference in their religious practices. Widow burning and human sacrifices to Kali were banned by the white mlecchas, among other glorious brahminical customs:
Just imagine folks, these foolish creatures were “proud” of their priestly caste marks….while serving (non-dharmically) as slave sepoys/cannon fodder for non-hindu foreigners who looked upon them as a racially inferior breed! The rebellion was clearly motivated by religion as revealed in the mutineers own words:
And guess who the brahmin mutineers saw as the lawful monarch of India, and protector of their religious freedom:
What that proves is that the Muslim Mughals had long ago come to be accepted by hindu brahmins as the legitimate sovereign overlords of Hindustan. Recall that the brahmin Peshwas sacrificed an entire army of Marathas at the Third Battle of Panipat……in defense of Mughal Rule.
Widow burning and human sacrifices to Kali were banned by the white mlecchas, among other glorious brahminical customs:
Any references, prema/macacaroach/doordarshan?
Amazing that you need references to convince you of such well known historical facts as the british banning of widow burnings, human sacrifice etc:
http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/hindu/devot/kali.html
“There is a long tradition of human sacrifice to the Goddess in different parts of India, and there is evidence that this was practised regularly in some of the main Shakta temples of Bengal until the early nineteenth century when it was banned by the British. Occasional child sacrifices are still reported today. The Thugs strangled and robbed travellers in the name of Kali until the cult was eradicated by the British. Criminal associations continue, though, for Naipaul interviewed a group of murderous criminals in India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990) who were religious and worshipped Santoshi Mata, a form of Kali. The poem Bande Mataram, “I praise the Mother,” by the religious nationalist novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-94) is in his novel Ananda Math. The poem is a hymn to Kali as Bengal personified that became adopted as the Indian national anthem.”
http://www.cayuga-cc.edu/people/facultypages/felter/sepoy.htm
“William Howard Russell, correspondent for The Times, visited Cawnpore after its recapture and penned his reflections in My Indian Mutiny Diary ( 1860). British racism in India was apparent as was the dawn of a reconsideration of the British imperial mission: “Nana Sahib moving about amid haughty stares and unconcealed dislike. ‘What the deuce does the General ask that nigger here for?’ . . . . But one is tempted to ask if there is not some lesson and some warning given to our race in reference to India by the tremendous catastrophe of Cawnpore….[I]s India the better for our rule so far as regards the social conditions of the great mass of the people[?].…We have put down widow burning, we have sought to check infanticide; but I have traveled hundred s of mile through a country peopled with beggars and covered with wigwam villagesâ€
Look at my italics. You said that ‘human sacrifice’ was ‘brahminical’. I asked you for references – my understanding was that human sacrifice did not originate with bengali hindu brahmins, but with thugees.
Prema, people are not stupid or blind to attrocities that have happened or happen in India. Please modify your tone. It’s called being polite. Politeness makes a civil society or in this case, discussion.
You are fascinated by a falsehood. The British never thought of their underpaid brahmin slave sepoys as “excellent mercenaries”. They had a higher opinion of the outcaste Mahar sepoys, though neither the hindu brahmins nor the hindu untouchable Mahars qualified for the status of “martial race”. Of all south asians the british had (and still do) the highest regard for the martial spirit of the mongoloid nepalese Gurkhas. They alone were deemed worthy of the title riflemen, instead of the lowly native sepoy, and were allowed into british canteens unlike hindu, muslim or sikh mercenaries.
Your understanding is wrong. Sacrifice to Kali, whether human or animal, did not originate with the theiving thugees. A boy was sacrificed every day at just one Kali Temple in Calcutta until the british to their credit banned this barbaric custom. Who do you think carried out this gruesome sacrifice if not brahmins the temple priests?
Human sacrifice is as ancient as the Purushamedha of the Vedas.
Can you please show me some sources about how it was not practiced by thugees but rather bengali brahmins? Is there any source that says human sacrifice was a brahminical custom?
Souces that state the contempory accounts of human sacrifice performed by bengali brahmins instead of thugees. Not something that is 3000 years old and is ambigous.Thanks.
Dumb question. Its not an either or proposition. Who do you think sacrificed little children in hindu temples to the hindu goddess Kali if not the hindu temple priests/brahmins?
Just imagine folks, these foolish creatures were “proud” of their priestly caste marks….while serving (non-dharmically) as slave sepoys/cannon fodder for non-hindu foreigners who looked upon them as a racially inferior breed!
Who exactly do you think these “folks” are? Look at it this way. A highly disproportionate number of NRIs are brahmins, and so their kids are brahmins as well. Are you really delusional enough to think this hysterical display of hatred against their heritage is going over well? 🙂
Is that what you are here for? Writing posts that “go over well” with whoever you think is represented in a “highly disproportionate number” here?
I, OTOH, am here for the sake of truth regardless of how bitter a pill it is to swallow. Living in delusion, or hate and hysteria, is exactly what I am opposed to.
And just FYI, most NRIs are not brahmins.
I think the comments here are not meant to please other commenters / bloggers. If you have problems with the truth value of any comment you can refute it. Brahmins could be proud of their “heritage”, but it really stinks for others, the same is true for Muslims who are proud of their “heritage”.
Personally, I think Bris banning Sati / killing a kid everyday in Kali temple / thuggees / etc.. were made to justify their continued presence in reforming the “heathens”. Sati was practised in a few upper caste households in Bengal and probably Rajputhana areas. At the same time Brits banned Sati in India, they were making laws in Britain to take out whatever little rights they were offering to women.
This “upper caste + Muslim mutiny” is glorified for some reasons sometime in the past and it is time to move forward. I think a number of MPs in India realise that and made themselves absent in the celebrations.. 🙂
that’s the way to go..
i would point out that citing the old codger Naipaul as a source on Indian history is like asking your local RSS cadre leader about the positive impact of Islamic immigration on Indian architecture. Invariably you will get a sensationalistic screed on any number of practices sure to bring a shudder to Moderns, brown or not.
descendants of Shah Waliullah.. ROFL.. read this from
Shah Wali0ullah ↑ Excerpted from Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times (Canberra, Australia: Ma’rifat Publishing House, 1980), pp. 294-96, 299, 201, 305
It has become clear to my mind that the kngdom of heaven has predestined that kafirs should be reduced to a state of humiliation and treated with utter contempt. … As I have learnt this unequivocally (from the divine) I spontaneously write to draw your attention to the great opportunity laid before you. You should therefore not be negligent in fighting jihad.
No wonder many people stayed away from this gang. we should celebrate the failure of the mutiny led by “jihadis and feudalists”..
hi i don’t have time just yet to read all these posts (most of which, if previous experience is an indication, will be illuminating/aggravating/interesting) so i just did a search in my browser on this page for “the devil’s wind”, which is a fictional account of nana saheb and the first rebellion, “told” by nana saheb himself. probably lots of people who know more about this subject will poo-poo this recommendation, but i found it a great read and very interesting. i suppose the next step would be to find out what really happened–which i will when i get some time to read these posts… debashis
I will not engage in any discussion with Prema (or any other commenter who I think might be Prema using a different handle) and I strongly encourage everyone to do the same. If I could, I’d ban her/him. That’s my last word on that.
Are you foolish enough to think that our resident Ann Coulter wants anything other than spew hatred in the name of “bitter truth”?
Great post and I thought the comments were very enlightening.
What irks me is how today’s politicians will use anything including the War of 1857 in their game of one-up-man-ship. Case in point, no invitation to the official celebrations was sent to anyone in BJP and to make matters HRD Minister Arjun Singh stated that a party that did not participate in India’s freedom struggle did not deserve an invite.
I talk about some of the controversies around the celebrations to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the War of 1857 at babunation.blogspot.com. Wander over if you are interested.
No wonder many people stayed away from this gang. we should celebrate the failure of the mutiny led by “jihadis and feudalists”..
I know this is off-topic, but speaking of coalitions, it looks like Mayawatis’ Dalit-Brahmin coalition is about to take power in UP. We have to wait for seat results, but it appears that she fractured the BJP vote base, and did this without even drawing up a manifesto or party platform. Up to a quarter of her cabinet could be Brahmins!? But instead of the Kangressi tie-ups where “lower castes” were patronizingly co-opted into an essentially upper caste power structure, she will be calling the shots. In addition, the nature of coalition politics means that she will most likely tone down the anti upper caste rhetoric. The Bahujan ideology was meant to unite dalits and backwards against upper caste hegemony, that coalition seems very outmoded at the moment. It looks like in North India the backwards and dalits will aim for power on their own.
old photographs
Greetings, O Mutineers! Thanks, everybody, for yesterday’s great discussion on the events of 1857. Good post, Siddhartha, and thanks for moderating this.
Ponniyin Selvan (@ #110), You make a good point that the revolutionary war of 1857 was not a mass movement like Gandhi’s which, in my opinion, only underscores what a difficult task it was to get such a mass movement started in the first place.
The grievances that led to 1857 were legitimate – various British policies such as the Doctrine of Lapse, the excessive taxation to support foreign wars, the inappropriately evangelical flavor of the process, etc., etc. were all not very fair ones. There is also the small matter of “taxation without representation” throughout the British colonization of India, but I will not get into that for now only because it might cause a digression.
I will be assuming the Englightenment model that I have consistently assumed in discussions so far, and one that is minimalist enough that positions can be taken without reference to specific ideologies such as capitalism. I am offering nothing more than plain arguments and Common Sense.
A political action can be placed into one of two buckets : one, a political action by one political entity which affects the internal political organization of the other (the political entity in question might be a democracy, a constitutional monarchy, a monarchy or other form of government) in which the second entity perceives the political action to be illegimate, and two, a political action by a political entity that is viewed as legitimate by the second (and which may or may not be positive gains for the second political entity).
The response of Rani Lakshmi Bai was a direct response to the Doctrine of Lapse, a doctrine which holds that a princely state would automatically be annexed if the ruler was ‘[either manifestly incompetent or] died without a direct heir’. I am using the second clause of the doctrine here, as this clause was applied by the British in the 19th century towards Jhansi. For the sake of consistency, it is possible to argue that if the doctrine were applied today, then such a political action would definitely be considered illegitimate. If country X (or even worse, an oligarchic entity within country X, say, a company Y belong to a group of people Z) decided to annex the country of Jordan or Kuwait because the king failed to produce a direct heir, then such an annexation would not be considered legitimate. One day, gas prices are going to hit 10 bucks a gallon but I still don’t think person/entity A should be annexing Saudi Arabia because of that. It just ain’t right!
When such an illegitimate political action is undertaken by the first political entity, (that is, illegitimate control, forced occupation -> first bucket), then the response of the second political entity will often be through the military and other mechanisms available to it within it. If company Y decides to annex Kuwait, then you cannot rule out the response of the Kuwaiti army as an elitist/”upper class”/”primarily Muslim” response. If you look at the history of Lakshmi Bai’s response, her first challenge was from the kings of Datia and Orchha. When they invaded Jhansi, she led the assault that ultimately repulsed it, but she already had a clue that the attack had the implicit support of the British. She continued her correspondence with the British, but as she keenly perceived, the lack of satisfactory response from them indicated that they had designs on Jhansi. When she learnt about the British army advancing from Bombay towards Jhansi, she established contact with Tantya Tope and the other revolutionaries. (Tantya Tope had escaped from Awadh along with Nana Saheb, and was at the time at Kalpi.) The subsequent military response by Jhansi must therefore be viewed in these terms.
Sure, 1857 did not find support from each and every person, but it seems that some people perceive things differently when political actions apply to Indians versus when they apply to other countries (and that obviously doesn’t apply to you). There is something very absurd in supposing a subcontinent to be perpetually governed by an island. It defies common sense.
PS #138:
Smart folks. The same should be done for 15th August, the so-called “Independance Day” of India.
When I was a kid in school, I would steadfastly refuse to sing the National Anthem, participate in the Independance Day celebrations and other such activities, and consequently would be severely caned by the Principal.
Let’s say you have a nice life for many decades, with friends and relatives. You are comfortable economically and spiritually. Then one day, a man from some island comes in, kidnaps you/your kith and kin, and enslaves you for a few months. Eventually, you shake him off and he runs back to his island. For you, things slowly go back to normal.
Would you, year after year after year, celebrate the day you regained your freedom from that man? Or would you just compile the lessons learnt(for future generations), consider that event as an unfortunate roadbump, and continue the remaining decades of your life?
India had millennia of freedom and culture before the British took over. Their rule is an unfortunate by-product of living in a world where stiffling ideologies keep coming and going, like viruses. All that has happened is that we Indians have gained immunity to one more virus (that of colonialism). Indian leaders should educate this to the younger generation, and eventually phase out August 15th celebrations.
However, this does not mean that Independance Day has no meaning for other countries. Countries which did not have much of a past are right in celebrating their own Independance days. I for one, enjoy and participate in July 4th celebrations. This is because, the idea of America did not exist (at least in concrete form) until it became independant from the British. Americans did not have millennia of freedom in their past. Hence, this event should hold special importance for all Americans.
M. Nam
148
the idea of India did not exist (at least in concrete form) until it became independant from the British.
If you go by Bharata’s/Ashoka’s/Many other emporer’s rule, then you will see that the idea of India(Bharat) did exist. If you go by ancient Greek writings, Buddha’s writings, Shankara’s verses, then too you see the idea of India with geographical boundaries very close to what its today. And I am not even including various other philosophical works which talk about Saraswati to Vanga(Bengal), Himalayas to Lanka etc etc.
On August 15th, India became a nation-state, not independant. By all means, celebrate it as a Nation-State day. Just don’t call it Independance day. We had independance, grassroots democracy, rule of law, etc much much before.
M. Nam