First war of independence: 1857

08-15-2005, 08:34 PM

Mangal Pandey: Accidental hero?
excerpts from Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero? by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Penguin India, Rs 150.

ramana · 08-17-2005, 09:51 PM

Pioneer Op-Ed about the film The Rising.

QUOTEThe Rising controversy

Kanchan Gupta

With a decrepit leadership and its ranks in total disarray, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, desperately seeking to latch on to a popular issue, has demanded an immediate ban on the Hindi film Mangal Pandey - The Rising.

The BJP, obviously, hopes to cash in on faux emotional outrage as claimed by some residents of Nagwa, believed to be the birthplace of Mangal Pandey, near Ballia, who claim that the film distorts history by not mentioning the name of the sepoy's village, apart from showing him as a man given to the pleasures of flesh and wine.

There is an element of competitive identity politics, too. With a Minister in Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's Government promising that the film will be banned and a Samajwadi Party legislator setting up a 'Mangal Pandey Virodhi Manch', the BJP does not wish to be seen as a passive observer. Perhaps it senses a larger conspiracy by Mr Yadav to force a realignment of upper caste votes in his backyard and believes that by agitating for a ban on Mangal Pandey - The Rising it will prevent Brahmins from deserting the BJP.

The BJP's hopes, of course, are as absurd as the aspirations of Samad Iqbal, a waiter in Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth who dreams of a quick success story in a hostile environment. In this novel that celebrates marketplace multiculturalism, Samad is the great grandson of Mangal Pandey. A bit far-fetched, no doubt, but then so is the reel-life portrayal of the man whose name is now being bandied about by politicians whose knowledge of history is to be taken as seriously as their commitment to the cause they claim to champion.

Ironically, the BJP is not alone in protesting against alleged distortions of "historical facts" by Ketan Mehta, director of Mangal Pandey - The Rising. Saul David, author of The Indian Mutiny: 1857, has bitterly complained that the film reflects India's constant attempt to perpetuate the "belief (that) wicked British imperialists were trying to force their views and, of course, their religion on the poor Indians... The reality was that no greased cartridges were ever issued and if the mutiny was caused it was because the British were, if anything, too lenient rather than too severe towards their (Indian) soldiers..."

This view is not necessarily shared by everybody in Britain. The Guardian has lavished praise, and understandably so, on the film, its director and Aamir Khan - "as the heroic sepoy, Aamir Khan leaps around with an energy reminiscent of Errol Flynn in his heyday" - who spent months growing his hair and moustache for playing the role of Mangal Pandey. It is another matter that the on-screen Mangal Pandey bears little or no resemblance to the sepoys who feature in woodcut prints of the time.

Aamir Khan's oiled, flowing hair and moustache are as much a part of the myth-making as popular folklore that portrays Mangal Pandey as the first martyr of India's war of independence. That is, if at all his act of defiance and the subsequent upheaval in Meerut, Aligarh, Etawah, Mainpuri and Lucknow can be termed as the first war of independence.

Professional historians, depending on their ideological persuasion, differ on the description of what the East India Company viewed - subscribed to by historians like Saul David - as a sepoy mutiny. Most, however, would agree that it was an uprising against British colonial rule then represented by East India Company.

Rudrangshu Mukherjee, in his book Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero, provides an interesting distraction from popular myth-making which is the mainstay of Ketan Mehta's film but whose perceived distortion is now feeding populist politics in Uttar Pradesh.

Could a sepoy wearing his regimental jacket with a dhoti, who created quite a stir at Barrackpore on Sunday, March 29, 1857, by single-handedly challenging the might of the British Army, have acted under the influence of bhang and other intoxicants? And is there any connection between the incident at Barrackpore and subsequent actions by mutinous sepoys in northern India?

While it is debatable whether nationalism inspired Mangal Pandey and later hundreds of sepoys, what is irrefutable is that religion and caste concerns played a defining role in that year which saw British rule in north India collapsing "like a house made of cards". The greased paper cartridge for the newly introduced Enfield rifles threatened the religious and caste identities of Mangal Pandey and his fellow sepoys as never before.

Folklore has it that a low caste khalasi at the ordnance factory in Dum Dum where the new kartoos were being manufactured had asked a Brahmin sepoy for water from his lota. The sepoy feared being defiled by such intimate contact, upon which the khalasi mocked him: "You will soon lose your caste, as ere long you will have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of pigs and cows."

Nothing could have threatened the Brahmin sepoys - of whom Mangal Pandey was a quintessential example - more than such forced loss of religious and caste identities that had been scrupulously ensured by their British employers till then. If the records of the court martial that tried Mangal Pandey and sentenced him to death are to be believed, he was sufficiently enraged to make a stirring speech, armed with a sword and a loaded musket, on the parade ground of Barrackpore on that Sunday afternoon:

"Come out, you b*********s, the Europeans are here! Why aren't you getting ready? It's for our religion! From biting these cartridges we shall become infidels. Get ready! Turn out, all of you! You have incited me to do this and now you b*********s, you will not follow me!"

In the event, while the sepoys on guard duty refused to heed the orders of their British officers that Mangal Pandey be disarmed and arrested, others did not rush out from the barracks in droves; they chose to remain silent which must have added to his despair so obvious in his statement at the court martial: "I did not know who I wounded and who I did not; what more shall I say? I have nothing more to say... I have no evidence."

The bulk of the evidence that was presented against him was in the form of eyewitness accounts of the three British officers whom Mangal Pandey had attacked with ferocious vigour. The rest of the evidence comprised the statement of Sheikh Paltu, a sepoy who broke ranks and pinned down Mangal Pandey, and was rewarded with a promotion even before the mutineer could be executed.

If the absence of widespread support among his fellow sepoys for his heroic act is tragic, no less hurtful is the fact that when the mass uprising occurred in the dusty plains of north India a month later, the mutineers did not talk of Mangal Pandey, nor did they recognise the incident at Barrackpore as the flashpoint.

But, then, as Rudrangshu Mukherjee points out, Mangal Pandey's act of defiance was not necessarily the first instance of sepoy anger over threatened loss of religious and caste identities. In November 1824, sepoys at Barrackpore had mutinied with disastrous consequences: 200 sepoys were killed by the Royal Artillery on the parade ground and 12 more hanged.

Why not begin the history of India's struggle against imperialism from that horrific incident?


Is the claim that concern loss of identity is not nationalistic? It may be the fan that roused the fire that was smoldering since the end of the Mughal Empire. The new beginings of a republican India.

08-19-2005, 01:49 PM

This is the kind of tripe that passes for journalism only in India. No other society takes umbrage at outrage when nationalist icons are devalued . The notion that nationalist heroes should be purer and more saintly than MOther teresa is a test that no Indian nationalist leader will pass very convincingly. Every society and every country needs its icons. Icons are almost mandatory for the health of a society, as long as they are not carried to abnormal levels such as in Germany. But as long as Indian do not hold their head up high there will be charlatans who will try to devalue traditional Indian icons and do their utmost to prevent the Indians from achieving a modicum of self esteem.

gangajal · 08-19-2005, 11:15 PM

Kaushal,

Why should our self esteem depend on what people think of Mongol Pandey or what people think of the 1857 event. Is our self esteem so fragile? Haven't we won in the end? The British had to leave. We are going to be one of the world's most important nations in a few decades. We should now be confident enough to take a dispassionate look at our past - come what may. Only the strong can do it.

Gangajal

**acharya** · 08-20-2005, 07:59 AM

Let me explain what Kaushal was trying to point out.

All nationalistic icon are being put into controversy in such a way that
the new generation do not get the feeling of what these icons felt during their days of glory.

The devaluation of national icon is a deleberate plan of the DDM and other outfits to reduce the natiotional history and common adversary for the Indian nation.
The Indian psychology of self esteem and pride is put down by never correctly projecting heoric struggle against foreign occupiers in the country.

ramana · 08-24-2005, 12:08 AM

Or by marginalizing it.

Op-ed in Pioneer, 24 Aug., 2005
QUOTEAfraid of facts, Govt goes easy on history 

Pioneer News Service/ New Delhi

The Union Government appears to have developed cold feet after deciding to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the uprising of 1857. Initial lavish plans, that included official writing of the history of what British scholars refer to as the Sepoy Mutiny and nationalist historians in India describe as the First War of Independence, have been put on hold.

This is evident from Union Minister of Culture S Jaipal Reddy's reply to an unstarred question submitted by Rajya Sabha MP Chandan Mitra {Mr. Mitra is the eidor of Pioneer}. Rather than reply in detail to the points raised by him, the Minister has offered an anaemic response.

Mr Mitra had asked whether Rs 100 crore that had been earmarked, as reported, for the celebration; whether an official history of the uprising was being commissioned; if so, who were the chosen historians; and, what had been the response of Pakistan and Bangladesh to the suggestion of a joint sub-continental commemoration of 150 years of 1857.

"No funds have so far been earmarked for the celebrations. However, financial constraints will not be allowed to affect the scale or scope of celebrations," the Minister has said in his cryptic response, adding, "The Government has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to chalk out the programmes to be taken up as part of these celebrations."

The GoM is headed by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and comprises Minister for Home Affairs Shivraj Patil and Mr Jaipal Reddy. A fourth member is yet to be inducted to replace the late Sunil Dutt.

Notwithstanding the Government's official response, the Ministry of Culture is believed to have asked for Rs 100 crore to fund various programmes to mark the historic occasion. One of the programmes, closely identified with Mr Arjun Singh's "detoxification" campaign and fondness for sarkari itihaas, under active consideration is the writing of an official history of the events of 1857 and those of 1858.

Some professional historians, close to the present dispensation in the Human Resource Development Ministry, have been sounded out on the proposal. Others, sensing the potential of handsome patronage, have pitched in with offers.

However, a glitch has surfaced, threatening Mr Arjun Singh's plan to produce an official version of 1857-58. 

It has been pointed out that the British were able to put down the mutiny and crush all resistance and defiance, including that of Rani Laxmibai, only because there were a large number of Indians, especially Sikhs, who eagerly joined the counter-attack of John Company's Lal Paltan and later helped carry out horrendous mass executions of mutineers.

The questionable role of some rulers of the time, whose descendants are now key politicians, has also been brought to the GoM's notice. No matter how hard modern day court historians try to sanitise the events of 1857-58, they will not be able to whitewash these facts. On the contrary, by officially acknowledging them, the Government could end up opening a Pandora's box of discomfiting political reactions.

While celebratory events can be planned at short notice, even as late as 2006, it will take at least a couple of years to produce an official history of 1857-58. But the Government now appears to be in a quandary over whether to press ahead with the plan because it could have serious political repercussions.

Hence, the evasive reply of Mr Jaipal Reddy.



This is a facetious way to cop out of the celebrations.

The Sikhs of that time are not the same as those now. And their reasons for joining the Brits were based on facts at that time. It is important to bring out the various responses that the uprising brought out and deal with them so that the idea of India is strong. Also what about the Baloch and other battalions?

08-26-2005, 05:24 AM

Reflects what Kaushal, Acharya and Ramana have been saying above...

WHAT WE LIKE TO BELIEVE

QUOTEThe debate over The Rising is about Indiaâs perception of itself

SWAPAN DASGUPTA

Let me make an honest but terrible confession. My deep and abiding interest in history began through reading Combat comics. My favourites were the Battler Britain comics about a doughty Royal Air Force officer who, almost single-handedly, took on a German army that seemed incapable of doing much beyond spluttering âAchtungâ and âone Englander less.â This interest in a war that ended a decade before my birth was supplemented by films like 633 Squadron, The Guns of Navarone, Operation Crossbow and Longest Day where the good guys invariably prevailed over the baddies who liked boasting that âVee have vays to make you talk.â

On entering my teens, an interest in Indiaâs past was nurtured through historical novels, written in an era before it was obligatory for Indian writers to reduce the country to one gigantic laboratory of magic realism. First, there were the archaic but robust G.A. Henty classics on the adventures of Clive and battles against Tipoo Sahib. They were written for schoolboys of another country and another generation but they were a nice diversion from books of the Enid Blyton kind. Henty was the original precursor to George Macdonald Fraserâs wonderfully educative books on the wicked adventures of Sir Harry Flashman. I recommend the Flashman books to anyone who has any interest in imperial history.

Then I graduated to Manohar Malgaonkar, arguably the best Indian craftsman of the historical novel. Malgaonkarâs The Devilâs Wind captured the romance of Nana Saheb and the 1857 uprising, and Bend in the Ganges taught me more about the last phase of the freedom struggle than all the textbooks available at that time. And let me not forget Paul Scottâs The Raj Quartet that was so sensitively made into the epic TV-serial, Jewel In The Crown, by Granada .

Oh yes, there were also some black-and-white Bengali films of indifferent quality on events like the Chittagong Armoury raid, the poet Mukunda Das and the 1942 Quit India Movement. They werenât anything to write home about and were, in retrospect, unwittingly comic. In their misplaced earnestness they, however, conveyed a flavour of another time, much better than the few âhistoriesâ Bollywood deigned to produce.

I delve into my own childhood in the context of the increasingly silly controversies over Ketan Mehtaâs Mangal Pandey: The Rising, set around the revolt of 1857. There are some political cretins who want the film banned because it doesnât mention Mangalâs Ballia janmabhoomi. Then there are other innocent nationalists who have got all worked up at the images of the Sepoy martyr first downing a lota of bhang and then cavorting with fallen women of indeterminate provenance. Finally, there are the pamphleteers who say the film should have been all about Mangal coming under the spell of some mysterious Wahabi fakir.

The Rising is not a history, and nor does it pretend to be anything but a loose adaptation of an Amar Chitra Katha-type legend. It is a grand Bollywood extravaganza, with epic battle shots in a Central Asian terrain, realistic costumes and Englishmen who both look and sound like the real thing. Aamir Khan is dashing in an Errol Flynn way as the rebel Sepoy, who was dug out of archival obscurity by the British historian, John Kaye, and immortalized by V.D. Savarkar as the first martyr of Indiaâs first war of independence. The film-makers add a nice touch by weaving a parallel plot about the self-doubts of the Scot, Captain Gordon, who befriends Mangal and actually sounds Scottish. The Rising combines a good adventure story with a garnishing of Bollywood mirch masala.

In historical terms, as Rudrangshu Mukherjee has shown in his well-timed monograph on the real âMungul Pandyâ, The Rising is fantasy. Mangal, he concludes, after a study of the available evidence, was quite an âaccidental heroâ, completely impervious to any winds of nationalism that may have been blowing across the plains of Hindustan.

Looking at the celluloid Mangal, any worthwhile historian would have little hesitation in echoing what the dean of Lincoln cathedral had to say about the fascinating story of The Da Vinci Code: âa load of old toshâ. Regardless of whether the Brahmin Sepoy was a victim of bhang, as the court martial suggested, or a symbol of patriotic defiance, as Savarkar claimed 50 years after the event, The Rising takes charming liberties with history.

The question is: so what?

In India, popular history â as opposed to academic history â is not only about what exactly happened but what is believed to have happened. The latter perception stems not from the East India Companyâs detailed records but from the nationalist legends that grew around the first Sepoy âmartyrâ, some five decades after the event. Whether it is Shivaji or Siraj-ud-Daulah, Mangal Pandey or Bhagat Singh, popular history is always a blend of reality and folklore. It is neither necessary nor desirable to contest it. In real life, Shivaji and Maharana Pratap may have looked quite something else, but in the Indian imagination they will always be the dashing warriors created by the imagination of Raja Ravi Varma.

This has always been so. The great Arab scholar, Al Biruni, came to India with the Ghaznavid vandals of Mahmud in the 11th century. He was a keen observer and what struck him was the fact that the Hindus did not share the sense of history that prevailed in west Asia. The Hindus, he wrote, a thousand years ago, âdo not pay much attention to the historical order of things; they are very careless in relating the chronological succession of their Kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-telling.â

It sounds an indictment but it also suggests that Indians never believed that history rests in the archives. History is what we, today, like to believe was our yesterday.

This negotiable sense of the past is due to another reason too. For the past three decades, professional historians in India have demonstrated their ability to destroy all interest in the subject. First, the numbing prose of the likes of Bipan Chandra and other Arjun Singh favourites have infected generations of school-children with a virulent allergy to history. Secondly, from being gripping tales of heroes, villains, kings and saints, history has been reduced to deathly boring dissections of social formations, modes of production and syncretic culture. Narrative history has been killed. With it has died the romance of history. Both are casualties of kill-joy comrades, many of whom also double up as film critics these days.

The great thing about The Rising is that it has helped rekindle some interest in the events of 1857, just as Sir Richard Attenboroughâs Gandhi did about the Mahatma and Shyam Benegalâs The Forgotten Hero did about Subhas Chandra Bose. A country needs heroes to nurture its sense of nationhood. Once upon a time, these values were imbibed in schools and shakhas. Unfortunately, they only teach science and mathematics in schools these days. It is left to Aamir Khan to tell us about our past. He does it much better than either grim Marxists with limited vocabularies and scant use of the full-stop or incomprehensible post-modernists.

âTo poison a nation,â the African writer, Ben Okri, once said, âpoison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself.â The âreel versus realâ debate over Mangal Pandey is not really about history. It is a debate over Indiaâs perception of itself. My vote is unequivocally for The Rising.

08-26-2005, 11:26 AM

There is a small museum dedicated to 1857 in Merrut.

I started reading actual Indian History after moving to US. Lot of material is available in local library or used book stores.
Indian hates there own past or just don't want to remember. I will put blame on petty politicians and leftist historians of India.

08-26-2005, 01:40 PM

IMO, the govt is hesitant to launch an all out celebration of the 150th anniversary precisely because of the commie gadfly's who have been brought to the front page just b'cos they had a lucky spin last general election.(My home state gave them 19/20 this time instead of the usual 7 or 8, so there!). Hardly a day goes buy without the Hindu devoting half its front page for something related to Commie news/views or propaganda. The rest of the media ain't any better.........

In such a situation, a govt sponsored celebration can provide the commies a pretext for "opposing and correcting the Govt's drift into hindu nationalism/jingoism". Lots of soundbytes, moral high-ground to be gained this way. Arjun Singh maybe "acceptable" to the commies, but a closer look at the "detoxification" will shaow that the GOI ain't exactly bending over.....appointees of the NCERT, Yash Pal (who had serious run ins with the commies very recently), the rather cosmetic detoxification in the NCERT books show a not so bleak picture, yet.

Moreover, this can be used by the commie historiographers to vilify other leaders of the rising who have mythical status in Indian minds. What they say has an element of truth too.... Nana Saheb in all probablity did an Ambiorix on the Brits who entrusted him to protect their carriage train. His role in the Kanpur massacre is also an issue...... Rani of Jhansi may have been more courageous than Hugh Rose's entire army, but the efficacy, strategy of the Indian side wasn't exactly brilliant. The Indian forces attacked all out, missionary style, central thrust only to be flanked by Rose's Camel Cavalry and picked off. The Lucknow residency was defended by a miniscule force aginst waves of Indan sepoys and native armies. The same hing repeated everywhere........ Only Tantia Topi's strategy was of any match to the professional Brits.
Moreover, the revolt had a very discernable element of the Barelvi Jihad (since 1831), the Wahabbi underground, machinations of Awadh royalty. A victory of the revolt would have made things very worse...in hindsight. Look how the speoys blindly herded themselves to Delhi and supported the (symbolic) restoration of the Muslim Mughal empire....that last emperor was whiling away his days writing Sher-o-Shayaris. No points for guessing which powers wanted the return of Mughalstan.
It was moreover a restorative and backward looking uprising. A return to the worn out, endlessly scheming, warring and very feudal political apparatus that had no place in the modern ages.

In the light of these issues, the rather unpleasant truths/interpretations, the ubiquitious presence of the DDM oiseules, the spinmasters, the Islamists, the Commie dominance in History, their power n the present political scene ..... an all out celebration might backfire. Remember that the commies etc have the power to turn this to their advantage, just look at Ziya Us Salam's barely concealed bigotry in his review of period films in todays Hindu...........and think of what happens when the likes of Jha, Thapar,Habib,Narayan charge into the fray 24/7.
A little bit of subtlety and little control over the celebrations would be prudent IMO.

08-26-2005, 09:13 PM

QUOTE"detoxification" will shaow that the GOI ain't exactly bending over.....appointees of the NCERT, Yash Pal (who had serious run ins with the commies very recently), the rather cosmetic detoxification in the NCERT books show a not so bleak picture, yet
Since late 60s NCERT is run by insane leftist historians. So what is happening now is nothing because history is already distorted to an extent that itâs very difficult for generation to understand what truth is.

Should we only celebrate only those occasion when we come out as âwinner in battleâ, whether Jhansi, Tope etc strategy was not at best, again its according to what we had learnt from Leftist drained historians, should be stop recognizing first sign or rising against occupiers. Should we start hiding when ever we see commies in front of us because they may get some advantage?
Frankly saying, now I myself started understanding what kind of scum they are, when i was in school or college never understood what India is all about, simply because we were brainwashed with commie nonsense for long.

08-26-2005, 10:29 PM

FWIW,
there's an 11 volume History of India compiled by R.C.Majumdar, the pioneering work on Brit dominion in india by Kulkarni, V.D.Mahajan's works to name a few that makes the same conclusions. (Most ppl in this line whatever be their politics agree that the Majumdar's compilation is the most exhaustive BTW)
J. Sarkar(?), one of the greatest nationalist Historians went as far as to say (quote) "The First National War of Independence was neither the first, nor national nor war of independence". Other distinguished nationalist historians like Sen, Munshi, R.K.Mukherjee, Sarkar, Shastri et all (THE ones who pioneered nationalist historiography, not commie charlatans) reach the same concusion...... i.e at least the part about the lack of our incompetence, poor strategy, accidental heroisms and the fact that they were led by the nose by crafty Islamist powers. But some maintain that it was the 1st battle of independence notwithstanding "Pithamahan" Sarkar's and Majumdar's views. Personally, I like to think of this as the first step..... indication of things to come and an expression of anger at the British.

But if anyone here has reliable information on this that the doyens of nationalist history (let alone commie hisssstorians like Jha, S.Sarkar and co) missed out, I would be most interested. AFAIK, none of them said that the organisation, tactics, ops, battle drill of the Indian powers was of any challenge to the Britsh empire.

<Start Sermon mode>

The modern ideas of Independence, democracy, individualism, humanism etc hadn't even penetrated into India by that time...even though the west had eagerly lapped it up (but applicable to white folks onlee, pleej). We missed out on the Industrial and Intellectual revolution. Thus, on a rather technical sense, it wasn't a "War for Independence". It was independence in the sense that we wanted the Angrez out of our lands, but the modern concept of Independence and Democracy sank in and became a part of the larger Indian National Movement and Polity only after the INC's Lahore and Karachi sessions of 1929 and 1931. One can consider it as the first expression of freedom from the British Yoke, not "freedom" as we understand today. It was the first real challenge to the Brits and almost all of India responded in one way or another.

Lets not go high on polemics, that's too Paki. We should not blind overselves by our own patriotism, our intentions might be good but then the path to hell is paved with good intentions (as Anakin Skywalker reminded us recently <!--emo& Wink

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /> ). There are many sides to an issue that have to be studied......one more cliche, The devil's in the details. Close your eyes to him and he will come back to bite our a$$

<End Sermon mode>

****************
The question is not winning or losing...... We have been celebrating big time a movement that was so horribly crushed, machinegunned, bombed and mowed down by machine-cannons.... The Quit India Movement. (Similarly we have been only subduedly commemorating RIN revolt, INA episode, the revolutionary terrorist movements phases one and two..... Think why exactly we don't CELEBRATE and highlight them full blast?).

The fact is putting this monumental, groundbreaking BUT a very "unpleasant" movement, fraught with confusion, monumental incompetence on many instances, terrible atrocities unequal-unequal, internal strife, parochial interests and restorative and backward looking can bring a lot of unnecessary bad PR in the situation i said in my previous post. The last thing we need in the 150th anniversary of the great rising is some Commie rats, Brit apologists and Mullahs defiling it on national TV....further poisoning young Indians.
I expected some knee jerk reaction here, this is a real can of worms. If this is what happens in a forum where all members are well, very much in the same frequency...... imagine what will happen when the GOI goes all out on celebrations and the commies, Brits, Islamists come to roost.

I'm not advocating cancelling the celebrations ... just that there are many ways to skin a cat. Personalities and battles to focus on, things that should be selectively highlighted... a little bit of subtlety.

Anyway, just my 2 paisa.
Cheers!

ramana · 08-27-2005, 12:04 AM

Right on cue, Swapan Dasgupta writes in The Telegraph, 26 Aug. 2005
QUOTEWHAT WE LIKE TO BELIEVE
- The debate over The Rising is about Indiaâs perception of itselfÂ
SWAPAN DASGUPTA

Let me make an honest but terrible confession. My deep and abiding interest in history began through reading Combat comics. My favourites were the Battler Britain comics about a doughty Royal Air Force officer who, almost single-handedly, took on a German army that seemed incapable of doing much beyond spluttering âAchtungâ and âone Englander less.â This interest in a war that ended a decade before my birth was supplemented by films like 633 Squadron, The Guns of Navarone, Operation Crossbow and Longest Day where the good guys invariably prevailed over the baddies who liked boasting that âVee have vays to make you talk.â

On entering my teens, an interest in Indiaâs past was nurtured through historical novels, written in an era before it was obligatory for Indian writers to reduce the country to one gigantic laboratory of magic realism. First, there were the archaic but robust G.A. Henty classics on the adventures of Clive and battles against Tipoo Sahib. They were written for schoolboys of another country and another generation but they were a nice diversion from books of the Enid Blyton kind. Henty was the original precursor to George Macdonald Fraserâs wonderfully educative books on the wicked adventures of Sir Harry Flashman. I recommend the Flashman books to anyone who has any interest in imperial history.

Then I graduated to Manohar Malgaonkar, arguably the best Indian craftsman of the historical novel. Malgaonkarâs The Devilâs Wind captured the romance of Nana Saheb and the 1857 uprising, and Bend in the Ganges taught me more about the last phase of the freedom struggle than all the textbooks available at that time. And let me not forget Paul Scottâs The Raj Quartet that was so sensitively made into the epic TV-serial, Jewel In The Crown, by Granada .

Oh yes, there were also some black-and-white Bengali films of indifferent quality on events like the Chittagong Armoury raid, the poet Mukunda Das and the 1942 Quit India Movement. They werenât anything to write home about and were, in retrospect, unwittingly comic. In their misplaced earnestness they, however, conveyed a flavour of another time, much better than the few âhistoriesâ Bollywood deigned to produce.

I delve into my own childhood in the context of the increasingly silly controversies over Ketan Mehtaâs Mangal Pandey: The Rising, set around the revolt of 1857. There are some political cretins who want the film banned because it doesnât mention Mangalâs Ballia janmabhoomi. Then there are other innocent nationalists who have got all worked up at the images of the Sepoy martyr first downing a lota of bhang and then cavorting with fallen women of indeterminate provenance. Finally, there are the pamphleteers who say the film should have been all about Mangal coming under the spell of some mysterious Wahabi fakir.

The Rising is not a history, and nor does it pretend to be anything but a loose adaptation of an Amar Chitra Katha-type legend. It is a grand Bollywood extravaganza, with epic battle shots in a Central Asian terrain, realistic costumes and Englishmen who both look and sound like the real thing. Aamir Khan is dashing in an Errol Flynn way as the rebel Sepoy, who was dug out of archival obscurity by the British historian, John Kaye, and immortalized by V.D. Savarkar as the first martyr of Indiaâs first war of independence. The film-makers add a nice touch by weaving a parallel plot about the self-doubts of the Scot, Captain Gordon, who befriends Mangal and actually sounds Scottish. The Rising combines a good adventure story with a garnishing of Bollywood mirch masala.

In historical terms, as Rudrangshu Mukherjee has shown in his well-timed monograph on the real âMungul Pandyâ, The Rising is fantasy. Mangal, he concludes, after a study of the available evidence, was quite an âaccidental heroâ, completely impervious to any winds of nationalism that may have been blowing across the plains of Hindustan.

Looking at the celluloid Mangal, any worthwhile historian would have little hesitation in echoing what the dean of Lincoln cathedral had to say about the fascinating story of The Da Vinci Code: âa load of old toshâ. Regardless of whether the Brahmin Sepoy was a victim of bhang, as the court martial suggested, or a symbol of patriotic defiance, as Savarkar claimed 50 years after the event, The Rising takes charming liberties with history.

The question is: so what?

In India, popular history â as opposed to academic history â is not only about what exactly happened but what is believed to have happened. The latter perception stems not from the East India Companyâs detailed records but from the nationalist legends that grew around the first Sepoy âmartyrâ, some five decades after the event. Whether it is Shivaji or Siraj-ud-Daulah, Mangal Pandey or Bhagat Singh, popular history is always a blend of reality and folklore. It is neither necessary nor desirable to contest it. In real life, Shivaji and Maharana Pratap may have looked quite something else, but in the Indian imagination they will always be the dashing warriors created by the imagination of Raja Ravi Varma. 

This has always been so. The great Arab scholar, Al Biruni, came to India with the Ghaznavid vandals of Mahmud in the 11th century. He was a keen observer and what struck him was the fact that the Hindus did not share the sense of history that prevailed in west Asia. The Hindus, he wrote, a thousand years ago, âdo not pay much attention to the historical order of things; they are very careless in relating the chronological succession of their Kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-telling.â

It sounds an indictment but it also suggests that Indians never believed that history rests in the archives. History is what we, today, like to believe was our yesterday. 

This negotiable sense of the past is due to another reason too. For the past three decades, professional historians in India have demonstrated their ability to destroy all interest in the subject. First, the numbing prose of the likes of Bipan Chandra and other Arjun Singh favourites have infected generations of school-children with a virulent allergy to history. Secondly, from being gripping tales of heroes, villains, kings and saints, history has been reduced to deathly boring dissections of social formations, modes of production and syncretic culture. Narrative history has been killed. With it has died the romance of history. Both are casualties of kill-joy comrades, many of whom also double up as film critics these days.

The great thing about The Rising is that it has helped rekindle some interest in the events of 1857, just as Sir Richard Attenboroughâs Gandhi did about the Mahatma and Shyam Benegalâs The Forgotten Hero did about Subhas Chandra Bose. A country needs heroes to nurture its sense of nationhood. Once upon a time, these values were imbibed in schools and shakhas. Unfortunately, they only teach science and mathematics in schools these days. It is left to Aamir Khan to tell us about our past. He does it much better than either grim Marxists with limited vocabularies and scant use of the full-stop or incomprehensible post-modernists. 

âTo poison a nation,â the African writer, Ben Okri, once said, âpoison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself.â The âreel versus realâ debate over Mangal Pandey is not really about history. It is a debate over Indiaâs perception of itself. My vote is unequivocally for The Rising.



Also would these great worthies say that the Dandi salt march was a mere tax protest or the begining of new mass movemtne that led to the Independence?

08-27-2005, 12:41 AM

QUOTE but the modern concept of Independence and Democracy sank
Democracy (different than greek version) existed in India even before very existence of America or Thomas Jefferson.

1857 was much against forceful agenda of missionaries through east India Company. It was alienation against foreign culture and religion.

Muslim invaders were ruthless and were able to subjugate Indian forceful and able to suppress Hindu religion. Britishers also started same, but lack of number forces in hand they were not able to control population and population revolted against suppression. But this created begging of mass movement against suppression.

If possible read Tilak and Sarvarkar books.

ramana · 08-28-2005, 06:34 AM

Book Review in Poineer, Aug 26 2005

QUOTE Mangala, Mangala... Was he truly a hero?

Rudrangshu Mukherjee has tried to rescue Mangal Pandey from the clutches of myth-makers and present him for what he was: A god-fearing Brahmin who rather than lose his religious identity and caste by biting a cartridge soaked in animal fat questioned the right of the British to impose such ammunition on native sepoys - Kanchan Gupta

MANGAL PANDEY: BRAVE MARTYR OR ACCIDENTAL HERO?, BY RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE, PENGUIN, RS 150

In this season of Aamir Khan's Mangal Pandey - The Rising which is a spectacular, lavish production that celebrates the heroism of a native sepoy who dared to challenge the might of John Company's lal paltan 148 years ago, it is only natural that popular interest in the history of that summer of ghadar when, to quote a chronicler of the times, British rule in north India "collapsed like a house made of cards", should witness a revival.

The sepoy mutiny of 1857 has spawned a huge number of books, some of them scholarly treatises whose focus shifts depending on the nationality of the author; others a collation of myths and anecdotes whose veracity can neither be proved nor disproved. Such are the dangers of oral history.

British historians, including the author of The Indian Mutiny: 1857, Saul David, the latest to publish a book on the tumultuous events that were to indelibly alter the course of colonial rule in India and the subsequent unfolding of history, reject the contention that the rebellion by native foot soldiers on the payroll of the East India Company was the first war of independence.

That is the description of nationalist historians greatly influenced by the interpretation of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who saw the events of 1857 and the following year made famous by the valour of Rani Laxmibai as the "First Indian War of Independence".

A third description exists that follows the middle path and perhaps takes a more holistic view of the mutiny as a mass uprising, now popularised by Ketan Mehta's film as The Rising.

And since history in India is not devoid of popular heroes, Mangal Pandey is widely seen as the man who unleashed the mutinous anger of sepoys in the garrisons of north India, from Lucknow to Agra.

The mutineers marched on to Delhi, stormed the city, and installed a decrepit Bahadur Shah Zafar on the derelict throne of the Mughal empire that had long ceased to exist.

The man lost his regained, though tattered, glory before he could savour it with the British forces laying siege to Delhi, and then entering as victors. The cruelty with which they avenged their earlier defeat at the hands of the mutineers shall forever remain a horror story.

The butchery of the mutineers was met with feral butchery by the British and their newly recruited loyalist sepoys.

By the time the last gun fell silent, marking the end of the sepoy mutiny, India's first war of independence or the uprising, call it what you will, Mangal Pandey's heroism was no more than a mere footnote of history.

The memory of this sepoy, who had joined the lal paltan along with other fellow Brahmins from eastern Uttar Pradesh to serve Company Bahadur and lost his life not on a battlefield but on the gallows of the barracks at Barrackpore, has been revived with great fanfare by Aamir Khan's dashing, swash-buckling role playing.

And to feed the popular appetite that has been whetted by the film, two slim volumes have hit the stands in bookshops. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, whose credentials as a historian are unimpeachable and who has written extensively, apart from publishing a book, on the events of 1857, was first off the mark with Mangal Pandey - Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?

Mukherjee does not claim that his book, almost a pamphlet, is a definitive study or treatise.

It is an extended essay in which he has tried to rescue Mangal Pandey from the clutches of myth-makers, filmi and otherwise, and present him for what he was: A god-fearing Brahmin who rather than lose his religious identity and caste by biting the Enfield cartridge whose protective paper cover was soaked in animal fat (it was supposed to be a mix of beef tallow and pork fat) questioned the right of the British to impose such ammunition on native sepoys.

Fast paced and evocative, Mukherjee's book recreates the sleepy, drowsy afternoon of Sunday, March 29, 1857, at Barrackpore when Mangal Pandey, dressed in the lal paltan's red jacket and traditional dhoti (he chose not to wear the regimental trousers) swaggered to the parade ground, screamed expletives, urged his fellow sepoys to come out of their barracks, and hurled threats at his British officers.

This 26-year-old sepoy was incensed, as much as others in the ranks with him, that the British were almost conspiring against his caste and religion. Such was his rage that he blindly struck out and shot at two officers, immobilised them and could not be restrained.

Ignoring the command of their officers to disarm Mangal Pandey, some sepoys are said to have struck them with the butts of their muskets. None of them was identified as a fellow mutineer when a court martial was held.

Mangal Pandey's dramatic defiance ended with the arrival of Major General Hearsay and his two sons on the scene. As they galloped towards him, he emptied his musket on himself, but survived the injury.

Ironically, the man who is believed to have signalled the beginning of "India's first war of independence" and struck the first blow against nascent British imperialism was tried and sentenced to death by a native general court-martial.

All that Mangal Pandey would tell the court martial was "I did not know who I wounded and who I did not; what more shall I say? I have nothing more to say... I have no evidence." He admitted to his addiction to bhaang and other intoxicants. Perhaps he was high on bhaang on that Sunday afternoon.

Subehdar-Major Jowahir Lall Tewary and 14 other subalterns from his mulk in eastern Uttar Pradesh found him guilty and ordered his execution. Mangal Pandey was hanged on the same field where he made his grand, defiant stand on April 6.

Did he realise the enormity of his action? Or was it a generous dose of bhaang that resulted in his mutinous defiance? And did his martyrdom really trigger the larger mutiny that began on May 10, almost a month to the day he was executed? Mukherjee disagrees on this point and offers a divergent view.

Predictably, this has raised many hackles. But then history, like truth, does not come in black and white. We can't ignore the shades of grey in between. To join the debate, read Mukherjee's book.



It might be true he was under the influence but that does not detract from his rebellion and the motives that inspired him. Also is the reviewer saying that Tilak and savarkar were influenced by Marx and Engels? If Mangal Pandey's deeds become an inspiration again it will collapse subaltern studies.

08-28-2005, 06:32 PM

Subaltern studies stream of the Indian National Movement, at least the Ranajit Guha type, focuses on the "little people" who were a part of the INM but were overshadowed by the "middle class dominated" INC. Its not an out and out "revolutionary proletariat and teeming peasantry" type of historiography, but it preaches "history from below". They aren't entirely Commie, but the red hue is of course there.
How these guys would see an upper caste Brahmin sepoy kicking off the 1857 Rising, a restorative and backward looking affair (led by monarchy, zamindars etc to boot) is to be seen. AFAIK, they tend to focus on trade movements, peasant studies and the mass movement campaigns of the INC. At least we can be pretty sure that the registered commies will inject their usual venom into all this.

Urban legends speak about a large scale conspiracy....the chapathis and lotus thingie, number of native regiments having many sympathisers, machinations of the Begum and Minister of Awadh, Maulavi Ahmadullah, Wahabis, a certain Swami Dayanand(?), Nana Saheb and important landed elements of UP and Bihar. The Mangal Pandey episode seemingly preponed this uprising, before things could crystalise and before they could rope in Jang Bahadur of Nepal (who was sympathetic for all his public posturing), the Sikhs who lost their kingdom just 9 yeras ago and maybe even the Afghans, not to mention other native rulers like Holkar, Scindia, Nizam, the Rajput chiefs etc.

Maybe it was not a large scale conspiracy, entire India was pissed at the Brits...... some were so angry that they made unholy alliances with former rivals to throw the Brits out. The religious issues were especially explosive.... But still some were dead against the return of Muslim rule in India, even if it means the British stay. Scindia, Holkar etc were once a part of the Maratha confedracy who once went as far as Attock, held the Mughal emperor hostage. They would never let a scion of their mortal enemies run things in India again. The Sikhs were understandably even more virulent. The way the Rising was horribly crushed in Punjab bears testimony to this fact.

Marx and Engels saw this as an expression of anti-imperialism and merchantilism/free-trade capitalism that they fought against all their life. This was true in the sense that it was mainly mercantilist ideas of trade and commerce and national economy that made the British carve out their colonies. However, Marx and Engels never imagined that there would be an *Imperialism* of a "proletariat state", as we saw during the Cold War and in China presently. In fact he loathed the Russians and considered them untrustworthy... Communism was meant for Germany and Britian you see. Due credit must be given to them to reveal the true vicious face of capitalism/imperialism of those times.... even though their predictions of rise of the workers etc came to a naught. And this was during a time when even educated Indians of British India viewed the British rule as benevolent and Mai-Baap. Once we realised by around 1870s that the Brits were simply bleeding India, everything changed....

**acharya** · 08-30-2005, 01:35 AM

QUOTE(Anand K @ Aug 28 2005, 01:02 AM) Subaltern studies stream of the Indian National Movement, at least the Ranajit Guha type, focuses on the "little people" who were a part of the INM but were overshadowed by the "middle class dominated" INC. Its not an out and out "revolutionary proletariat and teeming peasantry" type of historiography, but it preaches "history from below". They aren't entirely Commie, but the red hue is of course there.
How these guys would see an upper caste Brahmin sepoy kicking off the 1857 Rising, a restorative and backward looking affair (led by monarchy, zamindars etc to boot) is to be seen. 
The fact is that the zamindars, kings and all the elite were also being suppressed and exploited and the misery was the same. All of the people were colonized in India.

Hence the rising to start defending your rights and your way of life and religion is the first act of freedom movement.

ramana · 08-31-2005, 08:14 PM

AnandK
QUOTE..Once we realised by around 1870s that the Brits were simply bleeding India, everything changed.... 

Please try to build a total picture of the post 1857 struggle civil society in India to understand what changed. You are right that the nascent stirrings began soon after the aftermath of 1857 struggle.

08-31-2005, 09:39 PM

The Brit had a "reformative" and interventionist attitude prior to 1857. Ancient Indian practices, traditions, faiths etc which were once tolerated and appreciated by the first batch of the Orientalists was now trodden over, questioned and curtailed by the Utilitarians. The Anglicist influence in the British admin also had a very destabilising effect.... Now the British wanted to establish their superior civilization on the sorry, wretched Indian people.

Some good things happened..... modern education, english education, abolition of Sati, extermination of the Thugee cult, education of women etc. But as we all know, it was purley a way to reinforce imperialist hold. But they did a good job on convincing us that all this was for OUR good.... citing high faluting theories like Oriental Despotism, Asiatic mode of production, too metaphisical Hindu traits etc made it a HISTORICAL NECESSITY that the Indians should benefit from the loving hand of the British. Bizzare it may seem now, but many Indians swallowed this hook, line and sinker.
So far so good, but once they began to prod the sensitive and explosive religious issues, the sith hit the ceiling. Not just the greased cartridge, the Brits has faced big problems with the the Wahabis, the Khaskars, the Akalis etc on these issues. But the 1857 rising was too close ..... the British henceforth followed a non-interference policy. Selectively forgive but not forget. Let the heathen natives wallow in their degradation, say what?.... We just want the money!

Hindus were pretty much satisfied by the state of things (for the moment). At least the missionaries do not operate in the urban and village areas anymore.... the Brits were bright enough to send them amongst the tribals...far from public view. Most importantly, the Hindu faith will be left alone it seemed.
But the realisation that 1857 was a Muslim conspiracy to a great degree made the Brits trample down the "Syeds" pretty hard. It continued till the terrified Ulema released dozens of fawas citing Britsh as just rulers, India no more a Dar-ul-Harb reversing the Shah Aziz fatwah of 1804, and the efforts of Syed Ahmed Khan, Amir Ali, Abdul Latif etc. Brit policy changed after Hunter's seminal work in 1870 and when they started sensing the genesis of a true national movement. They then set out on Divide and Rule.

The transfer of power to the Crown, Queen Victoria's declaration and the dissolution of the Easi India Coy who had so far followed a bloodsucking policy of Merchantilism and looting convinced many Indians that things will be better. The new Brit economic system of Financial Capitalism seemed better... Moreover, many Indian intellectuals (who totally stayed out the 1857 rising) had faith in Britisher's word, their "cricket" spirit... After all, them and their children were educated by these same Brits. All the modern ideals like Democracy, Humanism, Nationalism etc were being taught by the British themselves. The British not engaging in any large scale vicious witch-hunt or extermination program after 1857 also helped a bit.

This changed after the Drain of Wealth theory by Dadabhai Naoroji.... even he was astonished by his own findings. Of course, this was so unlike the British it seemed... He even called it "UnBritish Rule". More findings by Sen, Ranade etc awakened the Indians to the fact that the Brits were there ONLY to loot. This realisation (aroung late 1870s) is IMHO the rude awakening, the Shatterpoint (to quote Jedi Master Mace Windu). The Indians (the intellignetsia and the Patricians who mattered) were so fooled by the "Angrez Mai-Baap" deception so far..... and once this came to light, things changed. In fact, Viceroy Dufferin was so pissed at Dadabhai Naoroji that he made the most "unparliamentary" accusations against the revered Grand old man of India. Dufferin was very prescient it seems.... his diaries and lettes are full of references to "the conceited fool Hume", and the INC "which will one day be a major threat to the Empire" etc.
****************

Throughout the Indian National Movement (incl the Rising), there had been 5 major mass movements... 1857 Rising, 1905 Swaraj, 1922 Non Co-operation, 1930 Civil Disobedience and 1942 Quit India Movement.
Each of these powerful nationalistc surge was followed by a long period of calm or reconstruction or outright defeat/passivity, until something came along that shattered the status quo. The Drain of wealth and the growth and closing ranks of proto-nationalsist organisations was what set off the INM, after a long time of almost zero activity after 1857. The INC wasn't yet a mass movement, but it was evolving since its very inception. Now that their knew the true face of the Brits, their attitude to them started changing radically too.

A point I like to reiterate is,
The nation was silent, but seething after 1857....... however, the modern political forces that had a viable & concrete vision on what the hell to do after we throw out the Brits, what on earth is India, how do we govern it (and the other "Bah, Humbug!" questions brushed aside by the angry mob or the archaic constructs of 1857 era India) was born only much later.
At least, we realised we aren't strong enough to throw out the Brits in a military campaign.

ramana · 09-01-2005, 12:11 AM

Good summary Anank. Now polish it up , include your sermon mode and up add refs and you got it made. Aside, Who is this Hunter you refer to?

09-01-2005, 09:30 PM

"Indian Mussalmans" by William Hunter was an important work that helped in making the 180 degree turn in Brit attitude to Indian Muslims. Before this, the Brits viewed the IMs with extreme suspicion.... the Barelvi Jihads, the fatwas from Shah Aziz etc, the Wahabis who seemed to be everywhere. This work by Hunter outlined the decline of Muslims in the services, the plight of the Muslim community as a whole, and IIRC how majority of Muslims had no part in the Rising.
The bleeding hearts/Islamophiles of the Raj jumped into the protection of minorities bandwagon, the sharper brains of the Raj saw the wisdom of not making a mortal enemy of the huge Muslim population... and the Russians were just a few hours on camelback, seperated by a Muslim nation. They also wanted something to break the budding spearhead of the Indian National Movement...... this manifested especially after 1885 (INC formation), when the hithero reforms based Muslim movements like Calcutta movement by Latif and Syed Amir Ali, Aligarh Movement by Syed Ahmed Khan stared talking about "Hindus and Muslims being seperate, warring nations". This coming from Syed Ahmed Khan who once said during his early GUBO days that "Hindus and Muslims are two eyes of India".
****************

References?
The Majumdar compilation- History of the Indian people, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan,
India's Struggle for Independence by Bipan Chandra
In the shade of swords by M.J.Akbar
Reflections of eminent Congress leaders on this topic (I spent most of my youth in the astonishingly well stocked KPCC(I) library right next to my home you see..... some things that haven't even been published in mainstream. It explains a lot of the (unwilling) "political correctness" and going smooth on minority issues after independence). It had the entire series of Naoroji's, Sen's, Ranade's takes on the Drain Theory... including the reprints and journals and books where it first appeared; I remember a rather well written compendium released commemorating the INC's centenary.... a "ghagar mein sagar" type of work, though it was one-sided of course.
One person who helped me "connect" all the scattered and voluminous issues, squeeze out the gist, sieve the relevant details etc is my teacher in the Babu exam coaching institute I am attending now. Of course, I can't tell more about THIS thing. <!--emo& Smile

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<Start Personal Annexure>
Some things in the post are my own "understandings". You learn more things as you read different views on a topic... only way you can find out the truth which is usually in the middle of the extremes. But in Indian history, its almost impossible to find the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You are sometimes very dissappointed by your "new findings" too.......... I rely on my (very Orwellian) Doublethink to block out the ugly things and I try to find inspiration in the version that just inspires and consoles you. The Commies and co focus, magnify, distort further on the darker, soulless things and run you down. Well, it still works! I have to do an Al-Takiya and Hudaibiya and write some very obvious trash to get through the exams...... And many sincerely *believe* the "official version" is the absolute truth.

Some things I got from my interactions with fellow enthusiasts/students and gurus in this field.... Somethings are too politically incorrect and ugly to be included in mainstream books and textbooks they agree.

But I really would like to read the Official Pakistani Govt history compendium on the Freedom Movement. Just one Offical Paki history's snippet on the struggle I chanced upon in Grover's work on modern Indian history........... very very "illuminating". Talk about propagandu! <!--emo& Wink

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<End Personal Annexure>

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