Ties that bind 1857 and 1947: Indian Express column

The year 2007 is special in that it marks both the 150th
anniversary of the first war of Indian independence and the 60th
anniversary of achieving it. The link between these two events,
however, seems tenuous, since they appear to arise from different
historical impulses. But new research reveals that there was in fact a
semblance of continuity between them. Alex Von Tunzelmann’s new book,
The Indian Summer, with plenty of hitherto unpublished material,
suggests as much. Two other books by well-known British historians
Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, entitled Forgotten Armies: Britain’s
Asian Empire & the War with Japan, and Forgotten Wars: The end of
Britain’s Asian Empire, also emphasise this point.

During the centenary celebrations of 1857, Nehru in his famous Red
Fort speech argued that British colonialism was fundamentally different
from other armed incursions into India: while the Mughals made India their home and contributed to its prosperity, the British drained India’s wealth, enslaving the country.

here is an interesting episode related by Forbes Mitchell, who
was part of the 93rd Highlander Regiment which fought in 1857-8 in
Kanpur, Lucknow and other theatres. In 1891, Mitchell visited India and
was struck by a story doing the bazaar rounds. It was said that Suffur
Ali, a sepoy who was humiliated and hanged by Brigadier Neill at Kanpur
in July 1857, had issued a revenge call on Neill’s descendants in the
name of his infant son, Mazar Ali. In the 1870s Mazar Ali joined a
British regiment and became close to Major A.H.S. Neill, Brigadier
Neill’s son, without knowing his antecedents. One night, a fakir
visited Mazar Ali and informed him of Major Neill’s background. On
March 14, 1887, in Augur, Ali shot Neill’s son in broad daylight.

Bayly and Harper’s work showcase the rumblings in the Indian army
that made the British realise the possibility of ‘another 1857’. In
1915, Indian army units revolted in Singapore following the Ghadar
party propaganda. Then during the 1930-32 Civil Disobedience movement,
the Garhwal Regiment refused to fire on Indian freedom fighters in
Peshawar. Bayly and Harper also profile how Indian army personnel
fighting for the British in the 1940s were “nationalists” and “made
clear to their British officers early on in the war that the writing
was on the wall for Imperial rule”.

During the 1942 Quit India Movement, T.B. Dadachanji, a Parsi
VCO, “disobeyed an order to take a mobile column into a riotous city on
the grounds that he might be forced to shoot his own people”. Yet
Dadachanji was not court-martialled. Drawing a parallel between 1857
and 1942, Bayly and Harper note wryly that “if a new Indian Mutiny were
to break out, would it not be in Lucknow where the Union flag still
waved over the ruins of the old British residency?”

~ by amareshmisra on January 7, 2009.