10-05-2006, 12:50 AM
One more from Deccan Chronicle, 1 oct., 2006
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Black September
Â
Itihaas: By Akhilesh Mithal
April, for the English poet was âa cruel monthâ. But the cruel month in the history of Dillee, the beloved city, is September. In 1857, the well-equipped, professionally-led and hungry for loot British stormed into the then Nai Dillee (New Delhi) built two hundred years earlier by Shah Jahan. Called Shahjahanabad, the city was built between 1639 to 1650 by a ruler endowed with superlative good taste and greater wealth than anyone else in the whole wide world. It was designed to rival Paradise. The countries in the Indian consciousness of the 17th century were all Asian and Persia was prominent amongst them.
The inhabitants of Isfahan in Persia used to say, âIsfahan nisf jahaanâ (Isfahan is half the world). Dilleewalas soon dropped the âShahâ of Shahjahanabad and called their city Jahanabad â the city which encompasses the whole world. In September 1857, the gunpowder happy Brits blew their way through Kashmere Gate to its citadel destroying life-size mirrors, hundred armed chandeliers, doors made of sandal, teak, ebony and mahogany and embellished with gold and silver, whole mansions made by master architects, gardens, aqueducts, and bridges. They massacred all they found without consideration of age, gender or physical condition.
On September 20, 1857, the aged emperor and a few of his direct descendants took refuge in Humayunâs Tomb outside the city. Bakht Khan commanding the remnants of the rebel army, some five to six thousand sepoys, suggested that they all make their way to Lucknow to join Begum Hazrat Mahal and continue the struggle. The Emperorâs hakim (physician) opposed this suggestion and cited the emperorâs age (82 years) as the reason against travel. He offered to negotiate a treaty which would guarantee the lives of the scions of the House of Timur and enable the emperor to return to the Red Fort and resume the life he led before the sepoys from Meerut burst into it and made him a titular leader of the struggle to oust the British from India.
The intermediary was Major Hodson, head of the British spies group. On receiving assurance that everything was going according to the plan, the emperor bid farewell to Bakht Khan and the hakim sent a word to Major Hudson that there would be no resistance to his taking the emperor prisoner. The emperor was startled by the aggressive manner of his captors. He was, however, in no position to protest even mildly. Hodson led him and the begums (queens) away to the city and having got them there, returned and asked the three princes still in the sanctuary of Humayunâs Tomb to accompany him without guards, ostensibly to join the emperor. As they got to what used to be Kabuli Gate of Humayunâs Dillee, Hodson suddenly alighted. He then shot the princes one by one in cold blood. As they fell, the princes cried out Haay Dughaa (Alas! Betrayal).
In the legend and folklore of Dillee, Hodson cut off the heads of the princes and suspended the headless bodies upside down on the wall of the Kabuli Darwaza. Their blood stained the stone. Whenever the rainwater washes away the grime and dust, the blood stains reappear. Dilleewalas believe that come the day of judgement the princes will collar Hodson and take him to the Kabuli Gate to demonstrate evidence of his treachery.
The folklore asserts that the severed heads of the princes were arranged in one of the gold plates (thalis) looted from the palace and covered with gold brocade before being placed as nuzzer (offering) from the East India Company to the emperor. The age-weary eyes of the emperor moistened at the sight of the blood-stained, lifeless heads of his sons and grandsons. He paused but for a moment to say â Al Hamdolillaah! Taiymour kee awlaad eisay hee surkhroo hoakar baap kay saamney aaytee haiy (No one deserves praise except Allah! Timurâs progeny always comes into the presence of their father with their faces flushed with victory).
18 or 21 members of the Imperial family, including the emperorâs 80-year-old brother, Mirza Babur were hanged to death at the Kotwaali in Chandni Chowk. Mirza had been bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis for more than twenty years and had to be taken for cremation in a charpoy. <b>The English East India Company was founded on September 24, 1599. And September 24, 1857, saw it most powerful in the richest country of the world.</b> For Dilleewalas, the month of September has echoes of Muharram.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Black September
Â
Itihaas: By Akhilesh Mithal
April, for the English poet was âa cruel monthâ. But the cruel month in the history of Dillee, the beloved city, is September. In 1857, the well-equipped, professionally-led and hungry for loot British stormed into the then Nai Dillee (New Delhi) built two hundred years earlier by Shah Jahan. Called Shahjahanabad, the city was built between 1639 to 1650 by a ruler endowed with superlative good taste and greater wealth than anyone else in the whole wide world. It was designed to rival Paradise. The countries in the Indian consciousness of the 17th century were all Asian and Persia was prominent amongst them.
The inhabitants of Isfahan in Persia used to say, âIsfahan nisf jahaanâ (Isfahan is half the world). Dilleewalas soon dropped the âShahâ of Shahjahanabad and called their city Jahanabad â the city which encompasses the whole world. In September 1857, the gunpowder happy Brits blew their way through Kashmere Gate to its citadel destroying life-size mirrors, hundred armed chandeliers, doors made of sandal, teak, ebony and mahogany and embellished with gold and silver, whole mansions made by master architects, gardens, aqueducts, and bridges. They massacred all they found without consideration of age, gender or physical condition.
On September 20, 1857, the aged emperor and a few of his direct descendants took refuge in Humayunâs Tomb outside the city. Bakht Khan commanding the remnants of the rebel army, some five to six thousand sepoys, suggested that they all make their way to Lucknow to join Begum Hazrat Mahal and continue the struggle. The Emperorâs hakim (physician) opposed this suggestion and cited the emperorâs age (82 years) as the reason against travel. He offered to negotiate a treaty which would guarantee the lives of the scions of the House of Timur and enable the emperor to return to the Red Fort and resume the life he led before the sepoys from Meerut burst into it and made him a titular leader of the struggle to oust the British from India.
The intermediary was Major Hodson, head of the British spies group. On receiving assurance that everything was going according to the plan, the emperor bid farewell to Bakht Khan and the hakim sent a word to Major Hudson that there would be no resistance to his taking the emperor prisoner. The emperor was startled by the aggressive manner of his captors. He was, however, in no position to protest even mildly. Hodson led him and the begums (queens) away to the city and having got them there, returned and asked the three princes still in the sanctuary of Humayunâs Tomb to accompany him without guards, ostensibly to join the emperor. As they got to what used to be Kabuli Gate of Humayunâs Dillee, Hodson suddenly alighted. He then shot the princes one by one in cold blood. As they fell, the princes cried out Haay Dughaa (Alas! Betrayal).
In the legend and folklore of Dillee, Hodson cut off the heads of the princes and suspended the headless bodies upside down on the wall of the Kabuli Darwaza. Their blood stained the stone. Whenever the rainwater washes away the grime and dust, the blood stains reappear. Dilleewalas believe that come the day of judgement the princes will collar Hodson and take him to the Kabuli Gate to demonstrate evidence of his treachery.
The folklore asserts that the severed heads of the princes were arranged in one of the gold plates (thalis) looted from the palace and covered with gold brocade before being placed as nuzzer (offering) from the East India Company to the emperor. The age-weary eyes of the emperor moistened at the sight of the blood-stained, lifeless heads of his sons and grandsons. He paused but for a moment to say â Al Hamdolillaah! Taiymour kee awlaad eisay hee surkhroo hoakar baap kay saamney aaytee haiy (No one deserves praise except Allah! Timurâs progeny always comes into the presence of their father with their faces flushed with victory).
18 or 21 members of the Imperial family, including the emperorâs 80-year-old brother, Mirza Babur were hanged to death at the Kotwaali in Chandni Chowk. Mirza had been bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis for more than twenty years and had to be taken for cremation in a charpoy. <b>The English East India Company was founded on September 24, 1599. And September 24, 1857, saw it most powerful in the richest country of the world.</b> For Dilleewalas, the month of September has echoes of Muharram.
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