Books

The Musketeers Of Hind

1857—the time that's become a place in our minds

Advertisement

The Musketeers Of Hind
info_icon
N

It is true that Bahadur Shah, the last of the Mughal rulers, was edged off the stage. It is also true that one could gaze down from the top of the ridge to see the rebels in disarray, humbled and defeated. But how could this capitulation take place in so short a time? The Reigning Indian Crusade, as the men of 1857 viewed their own struggle, collapsed owing to disunity, lack of leadership, inferior generalship, and poor military expertise. There was no coherent ideology or programme to channel the people’s aspirations. Peasant millenarianism could not provide a common platform even to the extent that it did in the first stages of the contemporary Taiping Revolt in China. Too many representatives of the old order were involved from the start.

Advertisement

We now have an authoritative account of the Great Rebellion from Rudrangshu Mukherjee, who wrote the first big book on the revolt in Awadh, the home of Wajid Ali Shah. Dateline 1857 may be an unwieldy shape, but the quality of text is not in doubt. And the illustrations add richness and depth. There is a glorious map of Lucknow city, and vivid portraits of Jwala Prasad, a loyal follower of Nanda Saheb, and Durzee Singh.

In so rich a pictorial representation of the rebellion, I don’t like seeing the jubilant faces of Canning, the governor-general, Field Marshal Hugh Henry Rose, Colin Campbell and James Outram. Let us celebrate our heroes until such time as the British put up a statue of Rani of Jhansi at Trafalgar Square.

Advertisement

Mukherjee’s text is lucid and authoritative. The details of the military operation, including the recapture of Delhi, are readable. The story unfolds in an uncomplicated manner.

As for its legacy, the revolt produced many cult figures that have become part of the nationalist mythology: Mangal Pandey in Barrackpore, the largest garrison town in the area around Calcutta; Kunwar Singh in Bihar; Nana Saheb, son of the dispossessed ruler of Poona, who held court at Bithur; Tantya Tope and the Rani of Jhansi in central India; and Ahmadullah Shah, the maulvi of Faizabad who harassed Campbell’s forces during the summer campaign in 1858. Rani Beni Rao Madho, a folk hero, was exalted in rustic songs at carnival time. So were the Rani of Jhansi and Kunwar Singh, the father of the Bhojpuris. The British wrote at length on Kunwar Singh’s historic march.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, minister of education in free India and sponsor of an "official" history of the rebellion, referred to the two communities standing "shoulder to shoulder" to liberate themselves from the British yoke. Why did Azad and others think that it was worthwhile to make this point? Probably to record the regret that "the British swept away and rooted out the late Mughals’ pluralistic and philosophically composite nationalism, and to bemoan that common action by Hindus and Muslims would in future not be accomplished easily".

The ravages caused by the rebellion and the reprisals that followed were healed. Yet, the interpretations of that great episode figured prominently, and its lessons lingered on, almost inarticulately, over generations. No wonder the 1857 patriots found a place in the proclamation of the Provisional Government of Azad Hind (October 21, 1943), headed by Subhash Chandra Bose. There was even a ‘Rani of Jhansi Regiment’ made up of Indian women in his ina. It was to be a link to "a glorious tradition of Indian heroines".

Advertisement

The rebellion did not end with the British siege of Delhi. The Indian Empire, now under the Crown, was to be shaken by one violent upheaval after another, from the local to the national. To us, therefore, the rebellion will always be of immediate interest; our national movement borrowed many ideas from that upheaval.

(Mushirul Hasan has recently edited Mutiny Memoirs: Being Personal Reminiscence of the Great Revolt of 1857 by Colonel A.R.D. Mackenzie.)

Tags

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement

    Advertisement