Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan played a promi- nent role in bringing about a rapprochement between the British Government and the Muslims and introducing the modern type of education among them. He was a loyal Gov- ernment servant and had been stationed at Bijnor during the Revolt. He visited England in 1869 and after his return in 1870 carried on a vigorous propaganda for the spread of Eng- lish education in his community. In 1877 he founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh.

The English were no less guilty of acts of cruelty. General Neill who proceeded from Calcutta in May 1857 with a regiment towards Varanasi and Allahabad gave written instruc- tions to Major Renaud to “attack and destroy all places enroute close to the road occupied by the enemy.” Renaud pressed on for three days leaving behind a trail of indiscriminate executions, villages which had been burnt and corpses dangling from the branches of trees. The Englishmen did not hesitate to boast that they had “spared no one”. One of the volunteers in the fort of Allahabad writes : “ Every day we led expedi- tions to burn and destroy disaffected villages. I have been appointed the chief of a commis- sion for the trial of all natives charged with offences against Government and persons. Day by day we have strung up eight or ten men. We have the power of life in our hands; and assure you we spare not. A very summary trial is all that takes place. The condemned culprit is placed under a tree, with a rope round his neck, on the top of a carriage, and when it is pulled away, off he swings ” English officers used to sit, puffing their cigars and look on at the convulsive struggles of the victims. William Howard Russell, the correspon- dent of The Times of London wrote : “All these kinds of vindictive, unchristian torture, such as sewing Mohamedans in pig-skins, smearing them with pork before execution and burning their bodies, and forcing Hindus to defile themselves, are disgraceful.'” There was a general impression among the English that the Muslims were the chief instigators and ring leaders of the uprising. They therefore suffered more heavily in the repression that followed. The Muslims lost whatever political influence they possessed and their future appeared to be very gloomy.

point in the history of India. It led to direct rule by the Crown which replaced the rule of the East India Company in 1858. A perusal of the contemporary records, both in India and England, leaves no doubt that the outbreak of 1857 was regarded by the people and statesmen in England, and even in foreign countries, as a grave peril to the British domination in India. Reference may be made in this connec- tion to the following extract from Lawrence's minute, dated 10 April, 1858 : ‘Many thoughtful and experienced men now in India believe that it has only been by a series of miracles that we have been saved from utter ruin. It is no ex- aggeration to affirm that in many in- stances the mutineers seemed to act as if a curse rested on their cause. Had a single leader of ability arisen among them, nay, had they followed any other course than that they did pursue in many instances, we must have been lost beyond redemption. But this was not to be.’ Horrible deeds of cruelty were perpetrated on both sides. At Meerut, where the uprising began, neither women nor children were spared. When the sepoys reached Delhi these scenes were repeated. A letter written by an Englishman from Varanasi on June 16,1857 describes the fol- lowing scenes witnessed by the writer at Allahabad: “A gang of upwards of two dozen sepoys cut into two an infant of two or three years of age, while playing about his mother; next they hacked into pieces the lady; while she was crying out of agonising pains for safety... felled, most shockingly and horridly, the husband.”

The revolt and its suppression marked the

end of a phase in the history of British rule in

India. The outbreak of 1857 would surely go

down in history as the first and direct chal-

lenge to the British rule in India on an exten-

sive scale. As such it helped the genuine

national movement for the freedom of India

from British yoke which started half a cen-

tury later. The memory of 1857-58 sustained

the later movement, infused courage into the

hearts of its figures, furnished a historical

basis for the grim struggle, and gave it a

moral stimulus, the value of which it is im-

possible to exaggerate. The memory of the

Revolt of 1857, distorted but hallowed with

sanctity, perhaps did more damage to the

cause of the British rule in India than the

revolt itself.

R.C. Majumdar

Dr. S.N. Sen observes:

What began as a fight for religion ended as a war of independence. There is not the slightest doubt that the reb- els wanted to get rid of the alien gov- ernment and restore the old order of which the king of Delhi was the right- ful representative.