First war of independence: 1857

ramana · 01-27-2008, 05:46 AM

Link:

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/encounter/encounter4.htm

QUOTE1857: not a jihadi uprising

By Hassan Jafar Zaidi

The documentary, Clash Of The Worlds: Mutiny, telecast by BBC-1 on January 7, carried some distortions of historical facts. It suggested that the 1857 uprising against the British was motivated, organised and fought by the jihadi Muslims of India. The background of jihad was linked to 1830-31 Wahabi movement led by Syed Ahmed Brelvi who was a disciple of Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab of Arabia (1704-92).

The documentary traced the roots of Wahabism as an anti-British movement, leading finally to an armed struggle against the British in India; establishing a jihadi camp in Peshawar âagainst the Britishâ under the command of Syed Ahmed who was killed in 1831 without telling âwho he was fighting againstâ and who really killed him. Some important facts have been ignored or misrepresented because they did not fit into what the documentary was trying to impress upon i.e. the Islamic Jihad always targeted the British, irrespective of time and space in the history of mankind.

It is important to set the historical records straight. History must be viewed in its true perspective rather than an instrument of propaganda for the persecution of a religious community.

Sir W.W. Hunter, a great British annalist and an ICS officer, was assigned to prepare a report about discontentment among the Muslims of India (published as Our Indian Musalmans or The Indian Musalmans). It was considered an authentic document on Syed Ahmedâs Wahabi Jihad movement. According to Hunter, Syed Ahmed, under the influence of Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab, recruited during early 19th century, the Jihadis, the fighters of Holy War, from Bengal, Bihar, Awadh and Agra, the areas which were under the administration of East India Company.

British officers had the knowledge of this recruitment and they let it happen because the target of this recruitment was not the British but the Sikh empire of Ranjeet Singh spread over Punjab, the present day North West Frontier Province and Kashmir.

Hunter narrates stories of young Muslims, doing menial jobs in the East India Company, applying for long leave and the Companyâs officers granting them. Syed Ahmed was successful in conquering Peshawar and its surrounding areas up to Mansehra and Balakot.

Battles between the Sikh armies and the jihadis continued; the Sikhs were officered by the French generals to support Maharaja Ranjeet against the British expansion. Thus, this local war became a proxy war between the British and the French ââ the jihadis enjoying tacit support of the British and the French helping the Sikh armies.

Syed Ahmed and many of his companions were killed at the hands of the Sikhs (and the French) in a battle at Balakot in 1831. To some extent, it resembled the recent proxy war between the Soviets and the western bloc fought under the guise of jihad by Osama bin Laden and other jihadi organisations. It was only after the fall of Sikh empire in 1849 that a minor group led by Patna-based brothers Wilayat Ali and Inayat Ali, the Wahabis began to work against the British just as the Taliban, once favourite Mujadideen of the West, turned against the West after the demise of the Soviet Union.

The BBC documentary does not reveal several facts about the real contending forces. The 1857 uprising, mutiny for the British and war of independence for the Indians, has been portrayed in the documentary as Jihad by Muslims/Wahabi terrorists against the British, and there is no mention of the participation of Hindus and other Indian communities in it ââ a crucial omission.

There exists a general consensus among historians that 1857 war was a secular uprising. It united Muslims and Hindus against the colonialist British who, by their policies, had sowed the seeds of rebellion in all the communities for different reasons. The uprising was inevitable when the Indian section of the army was allocated cartridges greased with the fat of cows and pigs, unacceptable to both Hindus and Muslims. The vanguard of the rebellion consisted of all the communities. The mutiny lasted thirteen months: from the rising at Meerut on May, 10, 1857 to the fall of Gwaliar on June 20, 1858.

Thomas Lowe, a contemporary British chronicler who was in Central India during the rebellion, wrote in 1860: "The infanticide Rajput, the bigoted Brahmin, the fanatic Musalman, had joined together in the cause; cow-killer and the cow-worshipper, the pig-hater and the pig-eaterâ¦ had revolted together." The combatants in the uprising comprised the rebellious East India Company sepoys, several small princely states mostly ruled by Hindu rajas, and deposed rulers of big princely states of Oudh (Muslim) and Jhansi (Hindu).

A closer look into the uprising reveals little presence of Wahabi extremists. There were calls for jihad by Muslim leaders like Maulana Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi and Ahmedullah Shah which were responded by Muslim artisans of Oudh. In May 1857 the Battle of Shamli took place between the forces of Haji Imdadullah and the British in Thana Bhawan in Oudh. These few eruptions led by religious Muslim leaders could not and did not change the overall secular complexion of the Rebellion.

The origins of Wahabi movement of late 18th and early 19th century in Arabian peninsula were not anti-British sentiments. The movement targeted the Turkish Ottomans who, as believed by the Wahabis, were responsible for polluting the fundamentalist Islam of Arabia with the traditionalist rituals of Ajam (non-Arabs). Wahabism was a political movement, with religious overtones, seeking freedom for Arabs from the occupation of Ottoman Turks.

The British wanted to destabilise and demolish the Ottoman Empire; they facilitated and supported the Wahabis in Arabian peninsula. The rulers of Najd, the House of Saud (Al-Saud), were the disciples of Wahabism. The Indian Viceroy i.e. the representative of British Crown as Governor General, provided money and arms to Al-Saud rulers of Najd and other Gulf Sheikhdoms to brew this rebellion against Ottomans (The Kingdom: The Arabia and the House of Saud by Robert Lacy).

During World War1, John Philby, an Intelligence Officer of the British Foreign Service was sent in 1917 to Abdul Aziz, the Wahabi ruler of Najd, to serve as his advisor. Aziz succeeded in deposing Sherif Hussain of Makkah from Hijaz to establish Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after the collapse of Ottoman Empire. Philby served as a minister in the government of Al-Saud. He changed his name as Abdullah apparently after embracing Islam but still served the British Intelligence. He was exiled by King Saud in 1955.

That is how Wahabism was supported and sponsored by the British in 19th and 20th century in the Arabian peninsula which later became the breeding ground of jihadis. After 9/11, the world changed and the allies became aliens. So, the documentary portrays the Wahabi jihadis as anti-British and anti-West militants since the inception of Wahabism till to-date.

The researchers of the documentary perhaps were ignorant of the fundamentals of Wahabism. A collogue of pages from some religious books in Urdu were presented as the literature of teachings of Wahabis. One of the pages was titled âShab-i-Barat ki Fazeelatâ (Glory of the Night of Exoneration). One may note the Wahabis donât believe in this night, nor take part in celebrations performed on this night by the traditionalist Muslims.

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