The forgotten harbingers of 1857

We must also not forget, in our obsession with the north India-centric events of 1857, the struggles waged in southern India

Before 1857, there were fragmented revolts against the British in almost all parts of the country. In fact, if you consider the way in which these uprisings took place, especially in southern India — at Tinnevelly, Ramanathapuram, Sivaganga, Sivagiri, Madurai, Arcot (1795-1805), Vellore (1806), Travancore (1808-9), Mysore (1830-31),Coorg (1833-4 ), Kurnool (1846-7), and innumerable other places not mentioned here — it can be said with certainty that these early rebels wanted freedom from the foreigner and did sow the first seeds of India’s freedom movement.

Curiously, however, most historians have chosen the beaten track and have failed to fathom the spirit of liberty that marked these uprisings. It has been said that those who pen history are generally devoid of the human sensibilities required to write good history. There are only a few honourable exceptions to this and Historian Pandit Nehru was one of them. In 1957, when he was petitioned as prime minister by Anjum Quder, a great-grandson of Begum Hazrat Mahal who had played a significant role in the 1857 war of independence, on locating her grave, Nehru promptly asked the Indian embassy in Kathmandu to do so. The grave was eventually discovered in a prominent commercial area in Kathmandu. There may be hundreds of other such historically significant sites that are waiting to be found. One can only wonder at the fate of the descendants of the heartlessly slain sepoys, and of greats like Rani Chennamma, Rani of Jhansi, Tanteya Tope, Mangal Pandey, and many others who we have not even bothered to remember, let alone honour, in the current commemorations of 1857.

The historian generally tends to play safe and follow the beaten track. The history of South Asia can be seen as an invisible thread connecting the beads of regions, events and human beings. Colonial historians deliberately messed up this string of beads, given their narrow interests and propensity to play up divisions. India has at least celebrated 1857, but there seems very little activity of this kind in places like Pakistan and Myanmar, which too witnessed uprisings. You can blame this on the colonial school of divisive history.

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We must also not forget, in our obsession with the north India-centric events of 1857, the struggles waged in southern India. The impact of the defeat of Nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daulah in the battle of Plassey in 1757 was felt deeply in the south, and many fires of freedom were lit as a consequence. In fact, after Plassey, an intelligence report had warned the British of large-scale rebellion in the barracks as well as in the fields. It was this that prompted Lord Robert Clive to quickly raise six battalions in Madras in order to quell a potential uprising. Clive certainly feared that the southern soldiers would take their revenge for the defeat at the battle of Plassey.

The 1806 soldiers’ uprising in Vellore, in what is now Tamil Nadu, was in its import as significant as the Meerut uprising. The Vellore upsurge cannot be termed a mutiny, as many historians describe it. There is need for historians to research the Vellore upsurge from the angle of an early Indian war of independence. Similarly, it is preposterous not to have termed Rani Chennamma’s courageous fights of 1824 in Kittur a war of independence. Chennamma was not less heroic than the Rani of Jhansi, but how many of us know about this southern queen? There are other unexplored histories, too, like the peasants’ revolt in Karnataka in the third decade of the 19th century. Similarly, Sangoli Rayanna’s guerrilla war, running into many years, was no ordinary struggle.

Only a military historian can fathom the mind of a soldier. In fact, every time the British East India Company’s mercenary generals notched military victories in this country, whether at Plassey in 1757 or during the Sikh Wars of 1845-1846 and 1848-1849, Indian soldiers — irrespective of the side they were fighting for and irrespective of the region they came from — had a keen sense that it was their own brethren who were losing the battle. Unlike the princely families of colonial India, the soldiers were not ready to accept the overlordship of the British traders. Siraj-ud-Daulah and, later, Tipu Sultan may have been betrayed by their army commanders, but the ordinary Indian sepoy never sought to buy peace with the British.

The writer is director, Indian Council of Historical Research