08-08-2006, 08:48 PM
x-posted
Book review In Pioneer, 8 August 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rising for a lesser cause
If one believes the account of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the revolt of 1857 was nothing more than the last and desperate attempt by Muslims to reimpose their superiority over Indian politics, write Prafull Goradia and KR Phanda
An Eye Witness Account of The Indian Mutiny, Field Marshall Lord Roberts of Kandahar; Mittal Publications, $60
<b>This book, An Eye Witness Account of the Indian Mutiny, by Field Marshal Lord Frederick Roberts of Kandahar needs to be read for more than one reason. First, it proves that the 1857 uprising was a sepoy mutiny. Second, it was the last attempt by Muslims to recover their own rule from the British. The epicentre of the mutiny was the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh. The role of the Hindu princes was only peripheral. Third, the decision of the Government of India to celebrate now the Mutiny as the First War of Independence would amount to heaping insult on the sacrifices made by the Rajputs, the Marathas, the Jats and the Sikhs to throw out the Muslim invaders from India. </b>
Between Lord Roberts and his father Major General Sir Abraham Roberts, they had spent almost 90 years in India. Frederick was in India from 1852 to 1893. He participated in quelling the mutiny at several places including Delhi. In his own words:
<b>"The first threatening of coming trouble were heard in the early part of 1857. During the months of February, March and April rumours reached us at Peshwar of mysterious chapattis (unleavened cakes) being sent about the country with the object, it was alleged, of preparing the natives for some forthcoming event. We heard that the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore, a military station about 100 miles from Calcutta, had broken open the bells-of-arms... that a sepoy named Mangal Pandey at Barrackpore had wounded the Adjutant and Sergant Major of his regiment;</b> and that Sepoys at the Schools of Musketry had objected to use the cartridges served out with new rifles" (p-34).
<b>As the news spread, the native regiments based in Peshwar, Naushera, Umbala, Mian Mir (Lahore), Multan, Ferozpore and other places were disarmed. </b>The happenings at Meerut triggered the revolt elsewhere; and, it is from there that the sepoys marched to Delhi and declared Bahadur Shah as badshah. Soon, thereafter, some 85 soldiers refused to receive the rifle cartridges on the suspicion that these were greased with lard and cow fat. On enquiry, they were found guilty and punished severely. In retaliation, the British officers, their wives and children and every European on the outskirts of the Meerut Cantonment were massacred. Meanwhile, Delhi fell into Muslim hands. It took three months before General Wilson established his headquarters at the Red Fort. "Every eye," Lord Canning wrote, "is upon Oudh as it was on Delhi.''
<b>The Gurkhas and the Sikhs helped in the recapture of the Imambara in Lucknow. The city was recaptured on March 14, 1858. But for the sagacity of diplomacy and the cleverness of strategy, the British would not have been able to recapture north-west India. They received cooperation from the Amir of Afghanistan, the Sikhs and the Gurkhas of Nepal.</b> Commissioner of Lahore Division Sir John Lawrence had strongly advocated the policy of trusting the Maharaja of Patiala and the Rajas of Jind and Nabha. Douglas Forsyth, the Deputy Commissioner of Ambala, met the Maharaja and addressed him thus:
<b>"Maharaja Sahib answer me one question: Are you for us or against us?" The Maharaja's reply was: "As long as I live, I am yours."</b>
To the question what brought about the cataclysm, Roberts says: "The causes which brought about the mutiny were so various and some of them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as concisely as I could wish. Mahommedans looked back to the days of their empire in India but failed to remember how completely. Their maulvis taught them it was only lawful for true Mussalmans to submit to the rule of an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme. The late Sir George Campbell says that the mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion" (p-231-24).
The annexation of Oudh by the British was considered unjust by Muslims. Their other grievance was the treatment meted out to Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal emperor. In this context, it needs to be pointed out that when Lord Lake captured Delhi in 1803, it was made clear to him that his place of residence would be shifted out of the Red Fort; and his successors would not be called badshah. Thus, the Muslims were aggrieved on several counts and the Meerut mutineers marched to Delhi and proclaimed him as the badshah of India.
Indian historical episodes have seldom been looked upon from the Hindu, as distinct from the Muslim, view point. Most of the time studies have been as if the communities were incidental and they were actually one people with a common heritage. If anything, it is the British who did not hesitate to make distinction. For example, Roberts quotes Sir John Campbell summing up that the mutiny was not a Hindu rebellion. On the other hand, the author himself has highlighted that other than the sepoys, the two great political causes were Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah and the Nawab of Oudh, both Muslim and both perceived to have been deprived of their hereditary thrones.
<b>Although it was not the soldier's business to analyse politics, a professional historian should not miss the point that the primary losers at the hands of the British were Muslims and not Hindus. Most of north India, except Rajasthan, was ruled by a badshah or a nawab who, in turn, had gifted large tracts of lands to his allies and satellites who were also mostly Muslim. The Hindu, on the other hand, had benefited from the advent of the East India Company, which demonstrated since the Battle of Plassey, 1757, that it had the military capability to defeat nawabs.
True, the sepoys must have had their grievances such as the new Enfield cartridges, but the substantive economic interests that were lost had belonged to Muslims. Due to the permanent land settlement of Lord Cornwallis, most of the zamindaris that were auctioned were taken up by Hindus, although earlier most of the land had been the jagirs of Muslims. </b>
The book is, in any case, a ready diary on he basis of which those decades of Indian history can be interpreted by students of history.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is in this context that W.W. Hunter's book on the "Indian Mussalman" and Edmund Blunt's book and the Pakistan project have to be understood.
Book review In Pioneer, 8 August 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rising for a lesser cause
If one believes the account of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the revolt of 1857 was nothing more than the last and desperate attempt by Muslims to reimpose their superiority over Indian politics, write Prafull Goradia and KR Phanda
An Eye Witness Account of The Indian Mutiny, Field Marshall Lord Roberts of Kandahar; Mittal Publications, $60
<b>This book, An Eye Witness Account of the Indian Mutiny, by Field Marshal Lord Frederick Roberts of Kandahar needs to be read for more than one reason. First, it proves that the 1857 uprising was a sepoy mutiny. Second, it was the last attempt by Muslims to recover their own rule from the British. The epicentre of the mutiny was the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh. The role of the Hindu princes was only peripheral. Third, the decision of the Government of India to celebrate now the Mutiny as the First War of Independence would amount to heaping insult on the sacrifices made by the Rajputs, the Marathas, the Jats and the Sikhs to throw out the Muslim invaders from India. </b>
Between Lord Roberts and his father Major General Sir Abraham Roberts, they had spent almost 90 years in India. Frederick was in India from 1852 to 1893. He participated in quelling the mutiny at several places including Delhi. In his own words:
<b>"The first threatening of coming trouble were heard in the early part of 1857. During the months of February, March and April rumours reached us at Peshwar of mysterious chapattis (unleavened cakes) being sent about the country with the object, it was alleged, of preparing the natives for some forthcoming event. We heard that the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore, a military station about 100 miles from Calcutta, had broken open the bells-of-arms... that a sepoy named Mangal Pandey at Barrackpore had wounded the Adjutant and Sergant Major of his regiment;</b> and that Sepoys at the Schools of Musketry had objected to use the cartridges served out with new rifles" (p-34).
<b>As the news spread, the native regiments based in Peshwar, Naushera, Umbala, Mian Mir (Lahore), Multan, Ferozpore and other places were disarmed. </b>The happenings at Meerut triggered the revolt elsewhere; and, it is from there that the sepoys marched to Delhi and declared Bahadur Shah as badshah. Soon, thereafter, some 85 soldiers refused to receive the rifle cartridges on the suspicion that these were greased with lard and cow fat. On enquiry, they were found guilty and punished severely. In retaliation, the British officers, their wives and children and every European on the outskirts of the Meerut Cantonment were massacred. Meanwhile, Delhi fell into Muslim hands. It took three months before General Wilson established his headquarters at the Red Fort. "Every eye," Lord Canning wrote, "is upon Oudh as it was on Delhi.''
<b>The Gurkhas and the Sikhs helped in the recapture of the Imambara in Lucknow. The city was recaptured on March 14, 1858. But for the sagacity of diplomacy and the cleverness of strategy, the British would not have been able to recapture north-west India. They received cooperation from the Amir of Afghanistan, the Sikhs and the Gurkhas of Nepal.</b> Commissioner of Lahore Division Sir John Lawrence had strongly advocated the policy of trusting the Maharaja of Patiala and the Rajas of Jind and Nabha. Douglas Forsyth, the Deputy Commissioner of Ambala, met the Maharaja and addressed him thus:
<b>"Maharaja Sahib answer me one question: Are you for us or against us?" The Maharaja's reply was: "As long as I live, I am yours."</b>
To the question what brought about the cataclysm, Roberts says: "The causes which brought about the mutiny were so various and some of them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as concisely as I could wish. Mahommedans looked back to the days of their empire in India but failed to remember how completely. Their maulvis taught them it was only lawful for true Mussalmans to submit to the rule of an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme. The late Sir George Campbell says that the mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion" (p-231-24).
The annexation of Oudh by the British was considered unjust by Muslims. Their other grievance was the treatment meted out to Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal emperor. In this context, it needs to be pointed out that when Lord Lake captured Delhi in 1803, it was made clear to him that his place of residence would be shifted out of the Red Fort; and his successors would not be called badshah. Thus, the Muslims were aggrieved on several counts and the Meerut mutineers marched to Delhi and proclaimed him as the badshah of India.
Indian historical episodes have seldom been looked upon from the Hindu, as distinct from the Muslim, view point. Most of the time studies have been as if the communities were incidental and they were actually one people with a common heritage. If anything, it is the British who did not hesitate to make distinction. For example, Roberts quotes Sir John Campbell summing up that the mutiny was not a Hindu rebellion. On the other hand, the author himself has highlighted that other than the sepoys, the two great political causes were Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah and the Nawab of Oudh, both Muslim and both perceived to have been deprived of their hereditary thrones.
<b>Although it was not the soldier's business to analyse politics, a professional historian should not miss the point that the primary losers at the hands of the British were Muslims and not Hindus. Most of north India, except Rajasthan, was ruled by a badshah or a nawab who, in turn, had gifted large tracts of lands to his allies and satellites who were also mostly Muslim. The Hindu, on the other hand, had benefited from the advent of the East India Company, which demonstrated since the Battle of Plassey, 1757, that it had the military capability to defeat nawabs.
True, the sepoys must have had their grievances such as the new Enfield cartridges, but the substantive economic interests that were lost had belonged to Muslims. Due to the permanent land settlement of Lord Cornwallis, most of the zamindaris that were auctioned were taken up by Hindus, although earlier most of the land had been the jagirs of Muslims. </b>
The book is, in any case, a ready diary on he basis of which those decades of Indian history can be interpreted by students of history.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is in this context that W.W. Hunter's book on the "Indian Mussalman" and Edmund Blunt's book and the Pakistan project have to be understood.