08-28-2005, 06:32 PM
Subaltern studies stream of the Indian National Movement, at least the Ranajit Guha type, focuses on the "little people" who were a part of the INM but were overshadowed by the "middle class dominated" INC. Its not an out and out "revolutionary proletariat and teeming peasantry" type of historiography, but it preaches "history from below". They aren't entirely Commie, but the red hue is of course there.
How these guys would see an upper caste Brahmin sepoy kicking off the 1857 Rising, a restorative and backward looking affair (led by monarchy, zamindars etc to boot) is to be seen. AFAIK, they tend to focus on trade movements, peasant studies and the mass movement campaigns of the INC. At least we can be pretty sure that the registered commies will inject their usual venom into all this.
Urban legends speak about a large scale conspiracy....the chapathis and lotus thingie, number of native regiments having many sympathisers, machinations of the Begum and Minister of Awadh, Maulavi Ahmadullah, Wahabis, a certain Swami Dayanand(?), Nana Saheb and important landed elements of UP and Bihar. The Mangal Pandey episode seemingly preponed this uprising, before things could crystalise and before they could rope in Jang Bahadur of Nepal (who was sympathetic for all his public posturing), the Sikhs who lost their kingdom just 9 yeras ago and maybe even the Afghans, not to mention other native rulers like Holkar, Scindia, Nizam, the Rajput chiefs etc.
Maybe it was not a large scale conspiracy, entire India was pissed at the Brits...... some were so angry that they made unholy alliances with former rivals to throw the Brits out. The religious issues were especially explosive.... But still some were dead against the return of Muslim rule in India, even if it means the British stay. Scindia, Holkar etc were once a part of the Maratha confedracy who once went as far as Attock, held the Mughal emperor hostage. They would never let a scion of their mortal enemies run things in India again. The Sikhs were understandably even more virulent. The way the Rising was horribly crushed in Punjab bears testimony to this fact.
Marx and Engels saw this as an expression of anti-imperialism and merchantilism/free-trade capitalism that they fought against all their life. This was true in the sense that it was mainly mercantilist ideas of trade and commerce and national economy that made the British carve out their colonies. However, Marx and Engels never imagined that there would be an *Imperialism* of a "proletariat state", as we saw during the Cold War and in China presently. In fact he loathed the Russians and considered them untrustworthy... Communism was meant for Germany and Britian you see. Due credit must be given to them to reveal the true vicious face of capitalism/imperialism of those times.... even though their predictions of rise of the workers etc came to a naught. And this was during a time when even educated Indians of British India viewed the British rule as benevolent and Mai-Baap. Once we realised by around 1870s that the Brits were simply bleeding India, everything changed....
How these guys would see an upper caste Brahmin sepoy kicking off the 1857 Rising, a restorative and backward looking affair (led by monarchy, zamindars etc to boot) is to be seen. AFAIK, they tend to focus on trade movements, peasant studies and the mass movement campaigns of the INC. At least we can be pretty sure that the registered commies will inject their usual venom into all this.
Urban legends speak about a large scale conspiracy....the chapathis and lotus thingie, number of native regiments having many sympathisers, machinations of the Begum and Minister of Awadh, Maulavi Ahmadullah, Wahabis, a certain Swami Dayanand(?), Nana Saheb and important landed elements of UP and Bihar. The Mangal Pandey episode seemingly preponed this uprising, before things could crystalise and before they could rope in Jang Bahadur of Nepal (who was sympathetic for all his public posturing), the Sikhs who lost their kingdom just 9 yeras ago and maybe even the Afghans, not to mention other native rulers like Holkar, Scindia, Nizam, the Rajput chiefs etc.
Maybe it was not a large scale conspiracy, entire India was pissed at the Brits...... some were so angry that they made unholy alliances with former rivals to throw the Brits out. The religious issues were especially explosive.... But still some were dead against the return of Muslim rule in India, even if it means the British stay. Scindia, Holkar etc were once a part of the Maratha confedracy who once went as far as Attock, held the Mughal emperor hostage. They would never let a scion of their mortal enemies run things in India again. The Sikhs were understandably even more virulent. The way the Rising was horribly crushed in Punjab bears testimony to this fact.
Marx and Engels saw this as an expression of anti-imperialism and merchantilism/free-trade capitalism that they fought against all their life. This was true in the sense that it was mainly mercantilist ideas of trade and commerce and national economy that made the British carve out their colonies. However, Marx and Engels never imagined that there would be an *Imperialism* of a "proletariat state", as we saw during the Cold War and in China presently. In fact he loathed the Russians and considered them untrustworthy... Communism was meant for Germany and Britian you see. Due credit must be given to them to reveal the true vicious face of capitalism/imperialism of those times.... even though their predictions of rise of the workers etc came to a naught. And this was during a time when even educated Indians of British India viewed the British rule as benevolent and Mai-Baap. Once we realised by around 1870s that the Brits were simply bleeding India, everything changed....