05-10-2008, 12:04 AM
Why did the 1857 celebration fizzle out?
by Amaresh Misra
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The most stunning statement was how the MI6 (the British counterpart of the CIA) trailed S N Sen, the historian commissioned officially by the Government of India and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to write a history of 1857, when the scholar was in England for his research work.
According to Bates, the British government was jittery about 1857 in 1957 -- they sanctioned a certain amount for the British embassies in Pakistan and India to lobby for downplaying the 1857 100 year celebrations. Based on confidential MI6 and British government files opened recently for the public, Bates' papers proves that the ghost of 1857, and its plebian, peasant character haunted the British even 10 years after 1947.
Is it possible that this time too, the British or the American embassies, in alliance with certain Indian corporate houses, had a role to play in downplaying 1857? The American/corporate India angle is possible; this author received calls from the American embassy and a leading corporate house regarding the linkage of the British role in the Bibighar massacre to 9/11 in the conclusion of War of Civilisations.
The calls were polite but the male American speaker in one instance did hint at the fact that such comparisons would imply that some American or Israeli lobby within America allowed 9/11 to happen so that a 'war on terror' can be unleashed on the Muslim world and Asia.
There seems to be something amiss, maybe some mysterious foreign/Indian corporate hand in the way 1857 was suppressed in 2007 and 2008. The Indian liberal elites of the metro do not like to entertain any such thought. But then are they not, with their ultra-Westernised lifestyle as uncomfortable with the desi (indigenous), rugged, peasant character of 1857?
by Amaresh Misra
--------
The most stunning statement was how the MI6 (the British counterpart of the CIA) trailed S N Sen, the historian commissioned officially by the Government of India and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to write a history of 1857, when the scholar was in England for his research work.
According to Bates, the British government was jittery about 1857 in 1957 -- they sanctioned a certain amount for the British embassies in Pakistan and India to lobby for downplaying the 1857 100 year celebrations. Based on confidential MI6 and British government files opened recently for the public, Bates' papers proves that the ghost of 1857, and its plebian, peasant character haunted the British even 10 years after 1947.
Is it possible that this time too, the British or the American embassies, in alliance with certain Indian corporate houses, had a role to play in downplaying 1857? The American/corporate India angle is possible; this author received calls from the American embassy and a leading corporate house regarding the linkage of the British role in the Bibighar massacre to 9/11 in the conclusion of War of Civilisations.
The calls were polite but the male American speaker in one instance did hint at the fact that such comparisons would imply that some American or Israeli lobby within America allowed 9/11 to happen so that a 'war on terror' can be unleashed on the Muslim world and Asia.
There seems to be something amiss, maybe some mysterious foreign/Indian corporate hand in the way 1857 was suppressed in 2007 and 2008. The Indian liberal elites of the metro do not like to entertain any such thought. But then are they not, with their ultra-Westernised lifestyle as uncomfortable with the desi (indigenous), rugged, peasant character of 1857?