12-30-2006, 06:00 AM
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20061230/3012302.htm
1857 mutiny- a global Moslem conspiracy?
India is celebrating 150th anniversary of the 1857 mutiny which has been described by Veer Savarkar as India's 1st war of Independence. The 1857 war resulted in the termination of the Mughal rule in India and the establishment of the direct Crown rule. The causes of the mutiny are stated to be the use of Cow's and Pig's meat in the grease prepared for cartridges which infuriated Hindus and Muslims alike and which was regarded as an attempt by the British to convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Bahadur Shah Zafar was the nominal Mughal Emperor at that time. The mutineers overthrew the Britishers but later on the Britishers made their entry into Delhi. Delhi was plundered by the mutineers as well as the triumphant British soldiers. The lanes and by-lanes of old Delhi and the Civil Lines area, Flag Staff road, Jama Masjid, Delhi Gate, Ajmeri Gate, and Khuni darwaza bore witness to massive blood shed and loot of property.
Willian Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal-the fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857" bears testimony to the ghastly events in and around Delhi. The book is the result of four years of research and is based on the material- Urdu, Persian translations of the manuscripts stored in the National Archives and other information not available to the earlier writers. The book challenges the locus standi of the East India Company in trying Bahadur Shah Zafar. The company was not the ruler of India. The company took the position that Zafar received pension from the company and therefore was company's pensioner and thus a subject.
<span style='color:blue'>
However the actual factual position was considerably more ambiguous. While the company's 1599 charter to trade in the East derived from Parliament and the Crown, its authority to govern in India actually legally flowed from the person of the Mughal emperor who had officially taken on the company as its tax collector in Bengal, in the years following the battle of Plassey on 2nd August 1765.</span>
The illegality of the Trial abinitio is obvious. However, it was a trial by the military tribunal. The charge against him was of treason against the British. When the company was not the ruler, how could there be a treason. He was accused of leading the revolt which he denied stating that he was protecting his subjects. The charges against him were much wider and serious in scope than one could have thought of. The Emperor was accused of religious bigotry. The conspiracy, from the very commencement, was not confined to the sepoys, and did not even originate with them, but had its ramifications throughout the palace and city....Harriott in his prosecution speech stated.
"[Was Zafar] the original mover, the head and front of the undertaking, or but the consenting tool..the forward, unscrupulous, but still pliant puppet, tutored by priestly craft for the advancement of religious bigotry? Many persons, I believe, will incline to the latter. The known restless spirit of Mahommedan fanaticism has been the first aggressor, the vindictive intolerance of that peculiar faith has been struggling for mastery, seditious conspiracy has its means, the prisoner its active accomplice, and every possible crime the frightful result...The bitter zeal of Mahommedanism meets us everywhere... Perfectly demonic in its actions.." It was a part of a global Muslim conspiracy. He closed his two and a half hour speech about the uprising being an international Islamic conspiracy thus "I have endeavored to point out" he declaimed how intimately the prisoner, as the head of the Mahommedan faith in India, has been connected with the organisation of that conspiracy, either as its leader or its unscrupulous accomplice...". He added "If we now take a retrospective view of the various circumstances which we have been able to elicit during our extended inquiries, we shall see how exclusively Mohommedan are all the prominent points that attach to it. A Mohommedan priest, with pretended visions, and assumed miraculous powers- a Mohommedan King, his dupe and accomplice- a Mohahmmedan clandestine embassy to the Mahommedan powers of Persia and Turkey- Mahommedan prophecies as to the downfall of our power-Mohommedan rule as the successor to our own- the most cold blooded murders by Mohommedan assassins- a religious war for Mahommedan ascendancy- a Mahommedan press unscrupulously abetting- and Mahommedan sepoys initiating the mutiny. Hinduism, I may say, is nowhere either reflected or represented....." (pages 440-443)This charge gives a new twist to the interpretation of 1857 mutiny. This version reminds us of the present onslaught of global terrorism (mainly Muslim) on the Western world and India.
<span style='color:red'>Why the English rulers became soft towards the Muslims after the mutiny?. They did not find Hindu hand in the mutiny, then why did they give step motherly treatment to Hindus by way of separate electorates and weightage to Muslims in government services and India's polity, remain an unanswered question politicians and historians.</span>
RS Khanna, (The author is former Chief Secy GoMP) Manuj Features
1857 mutiny- a global Moslem conspiracy?
India is celebrating 150th anniversary of the 1857 mutiny which has been described by Veer Savarkar as India's 1st war of Independence. The 1857 war resulted in the termination of the Mughal rule in India and the establishment of the direct Crown rule. The causes of the mutiny are stated to be the use of Cow's and Pig's meat in the grease prepared for cartridges which infuriated Hindus and Muslims alike and which was regarded as an attempt by the British to convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Bahadur Shah Zafar was the nominal Mughal Emperor at that time. The mutineers overthrew the Britishers but later on the Britishers made their entry into Delhi. Delhi was plundered by the mutineers as well as the triumphant British soldiers. The lanes and by-lanes of old Delhi and the Civil Lines area, Flag Staff road, Jama Masjid, Delhi Gate, Ajmeri Gate, and Khuni darwaza bore witness to massive blood shed and loot of property.
Willian Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal-the fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857" bears testimony to the ghastly events in and around Delhi. The book is the result of four years of research and is based on the material- Urdu, Persian translations of the manuscripts stored in the National Archives and other information not available to the earlier writers. The book challenges the locus standi of the East India Company in trying Bahadur Shah Zafar. The company was not the ruler of India. The company took the position that Zafar received pension from the company and therefore was company's pensioner and thus a subject.
<span style='color:blue'>
However the actual factual position was considerably more ambiguous. While the company's 1599 charter to trade in the East derived from Parliament and the Crown, its authority to govern in India actually legally flowed from the person of the Mughal emperor who had officially taken on the company as its tax collector in Bengal, in the years following the battle of Plassey on 2nd August 1765.</span>
The illegality of the Trial abinitio is obvious. However, it was a trial by the military tribunal. The charge against him was of treason against the British. When the company was not the ruler, how could there be a treason. He was accused of leading the revolt which he denied stating that he was protecting his subjects. The charges against him were much wider and serious in scope than one could have thought of. The Emperor was accused of religious bigotry. The conspiracy, from the very commencement, was not confined to the sepoys, and did not even originate with them, but had its ramifications throughout the palace and city....Harriott in his prosecution speech stated.
"[Was Zafar] the original mover, the head and front of the undertaking, or but the consenting tool..the forward, unscrupulous, but still pliant puppet, tutored by priestly craft for the advancement of religious bigotry? Many persons, I believe, will incline to the latter. The known restless spirit of Mahommedan fanaticism has been the first aggressor, the vindictive intolerance of that peculiar faith has been struggling for mastery, seditious conspiracy has its means, the prisoner its active accomplice, and every possible crime the frightful result...The bitter zeal of Mahommedanism meets us everywhere... Perfectly demonic in its actions.." It was a part of a global Muslim conspiracy. He closed his two and a half hour speech about the uprising being an international Islamic conspiracy thus "I have endeavored to point out" he declaimed how intimately the prisoner, as the head of the Mahommedan faith in India, has been connected with the organisation of that conspiracy, either as its leader or its unscrupulous accomplice...". He added "If we now take a retrospective view of the various circumstances which we have been able to elicit during our extended inquiries, we shall see how exclusively Mohommedan are all the prominent points that attach to it. A Mohommedan priest, with pretended visions, and assumed miraculous powers- a Mohommedan King, his dupe and accomplice- a Mohahmmedan clandestine embassy to the Mahommedan powers of Persia and Turkey- Mahommedan prophecies as to the downfall of our power-Mohommedan rule as the successor to our own- the most cold blooded murders by Mohommedan assassins- a religious war for Mahommedan ascendancy- a Mahommedan press unscrupulously abetting- and Mahommedan sepoys initiating the mutiny. Hinduism, I may say, is nowhere either reflected or represented....." (pages 440-443)This charge gives a new twist to the interpretation of 1857 mutiny. This version reminds us of the present onslaught of global terrorism (mainly Muslim) on the Western world and India.
<span style='color:red'>Why the English rulers became soft towards the Muslims after the mutiny?. They did not find Hindu hand in the mutiny, then why did they give step motherly treatment to Hindus by way of separate electorates and weightage to Muslims in government services and India's polity, remain an unanswered question politicians and historians.</span>
RS Khanna, (The author is former Chief Secy GoMP) Manuj Features