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‘The punishment for Mutiny,’ said John Nicholson, Commander of the Movable Column, ‘is death’. As India marks 150 years of the 1857 Uprising, this meticulously researched and vivid work recounts a time both tragic and compelling. Many-staged and many-charactered, this volume searches for the key issues, causes and effects, figures and developments that culminated in the massacres of Cawnpore, Satichaura and Bibighar, the ensuing counter-massacres, and the gory retribution dealt out by the British on their subjects.Beginning with an account of the state of the British Raj in 1857, Pramod Nayar moves on the ‘A Gathering Storm’, the strife that led to the Uprising, ‘The Summer of Discontent’, recounting the Mutiny, ‘The Retreat of the Native’ which tells us how the British won back lost ground, and ‘The Raj Rises Again’, explaining the repercussions the Mutiny had on the administrative plans of the empire. He also delves into the real causes of the Uprising, more complex than what conventional history upholds. Detailed descriptions of the Mutiny’s main figures, including Henry Lawrence, John Nicholson, Lord Canning, Nana Sahib, the Rani of Jhansi, and the tragic king of Delhi, Bahadur Shah Zafar, are interspersed with quotes, facts and anecdotes that reanimate the past.An overview and analysis of the Mutiny is flavoured with references to the literature of the time and includes an appendix on how the events of 1857 influenced European literary imagination.Kanpur and Jhansi, violence and counter-violence, heroism and savagery – this every-person’s guide to 1857 captures the most tumultuous years of British India and re-enacts the drama of the first stirrings of nationalism.

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Histoire

History of Asia

India

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Publié par	Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
Date de parution	09 mai 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789352141531
Langue	English

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Extrait

Pramod K. Nayar

The Great Uprising
India, 1857
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Map: Places Connected with the 1857 Uprising
Preface, and a Cautionary Note
Chronology: India 1857-59
Prologue: Raj
One: The Gathering Storm
Two: The Summer of Discontent
Three: The Retreat of the Native
Four: The Raj Rises Again
Appendix 1: The Fiction of 1857
Appendix 2: British India, A Chronology
Footnote
Prologue: Raj
One: The Gathering Storm
Two: The Summer of Discontent
Three: The Retreat of the Native
Four: The Raj Rises Again
Appendix 1: The Fiction of 1857
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE GREAT UPRISING
Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. He is the author of Reading Culture: Theory, Praxis, Politics (2006), Virtual Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cybertechnology (2004) and Literary Theory Today (2002). His forthcoming work includes a study of aesthetics in English non-fictional writings on India, a book on postcolonial literature, and a new edition of The Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar . He is the editor of The Penguin 1857 Reader .
This one is for my first critic ( you know, don t you?)

Preface, and a Cautionary Note
The Mutiny, India 1857, has never really slipped out of imaginations, either Indian or British. Fifty years after the events, G.R. Hearn s travel guide, The Seven Cities of Delhi (1906), provided an itinerary for travellers wishing to see the Mutiny sites around Delhi, just so that they would be familiar with the story of this strenuous struggle by which India was saved . And 150 years after the stirring events of 1857, Holts Tours (London), specializing in Battlefield Tours, advertises an Indian Mutiny tour: Delhi, Meerut, Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra ( Battlefields and History , pp. 48-49. Website: www.holts.co.uk ), although it has the grace to admit that there were appalling atrocities committed by both sides .
But why and how does the Mutiny have this effect? What exactly was the Mutiny?
This book explores the scale and multiple dimensions of the events of 1857 that have sustained popular, historiographic and literary imaginations for over a century.
The book is situated somewhere between the dry-as-dust historical tract, the dramatic narrative of a momentous event, and a scholarly (please note the footnotes, which reveal its aspirations to the scholarly) work. It is a popular account of the most fascinating years in British India before the arrival of Gandhi. It introduces characters and places, events and times; it seeks to capture some of the great drama. The drama that was India 1857.
The bibliography is fairly extensive, and should provide the reader with more texts, should she be interested in exploring further. It includes a large number of first-person narrative accounts of 1857, and should be of particular interest to those who want to read experiential accounts. Finally, I have provided a short section on the fiction of the Mutiny. This might be of interest to those who would like to know how literary texts from the time saw and represented the events.
*
The events of 1857 are open to interpretation. The term Mutiny carries a pejorative connotation from the Indian standpoint. Other terms such as the first war of Independence or nationalist struggle have been proposed, used and contested. Uprising seems to be yet another popular choice. Was 1857-and notice how a date becomes the name of an event, not unlike 9/11-truly national when it did not touch southern India? Was it military in character, or was it civilian and popular too? 1857 meant, and continues to mean, different things to different people.
I have retained the use of the term Mutiny , fully aware that it runs the risk of sounding like a Western (Euro-American) account of 1857, which this is most emphatically not . However, the choice was dictated by the indisputable fact that it is the most common, and therefore recognized, appellation (along with sepoy revolt ) for the years 1857-58, from school textbooks to scholarly works. Ideally the term ought to be placed in quotes-as many scholarly works continue to do-to indicate the questionable relevance and implicit politics of the term. But using the quote marks throughout would be tedious and irritating. I, however, request the reader to assume the quote marks exist, that the term is not simple or decisive in its meanings. The Uprising in the title is a deliberate shift away from the West-centric Mutiny , even as the rest of the book uses the commonest term.
I have also retained the use of British spellings like Cawnpore (Kanpur) and Oudh (Awadh) so that it remains close to the original.
Massacres, violence and brutality were common to both sides in the story. There was Satichaura and Bibighar on the side of the Indians: brutal, excessive, unpardonable. But, equally unpardonable were the British, who destroyed entire villages and executed natives without ascertaining their participation in the Mutiny. Euro-American narratives on/of the Mutiny focus on Nana Sahib s disposition and violence. James Neill, who left behind him as a penalty for mutiny, entire villages empty of human life, does not attract the same attention. If Meerut saw officers being shot dead, Delhi saw three princes stripped and killed in full view of the populace. If no single European was left alive in Meerut after 12 May, 5,000 natives died within Jhansi s walls, for the sole reason that they stood by their queen.
Too often British actions have been seen only as retaliatory, a direct response to the cruelties of Nana Sahib and the natives. What is ignored, crucially, I believe, is that James Neill s massacre of villagers in Allahabad preceded the Cawnpore massacres (Allahabad was in the first weeks of June 1857, well before Satichaura on 27 June, and Bibighar almost a month later). Even Christopher Hibbert mentions Allahabad after Cawnpore, thus suggesting a cause-effect sequence, when it was not really so. Michael Edwardes, who is one of the few to acknowledge the madness of Colonel Neill (the title of one of the chapters in his Red Year , 1973), locates Neill after Cawnpore. Saul David places Allahabad, Benaras and Neill s actions after the chapter Satichaura Ghat . P.J.O. Taylor, an exception, however, believes that Neill s conduct en route [to Cawnpore and Lucknow] is said to have provoked the massacres in Cawnpore . V.D. Savarkar, in his Indian version of 1857, draws attention to this awkward historiography when he states: Neill s barbarities were not a revenge of Cawnpore, but the Cawnpore bloodshed was the result of and revenge of Neill s inhuman brutalities .
Neither side of the story is innocent, neither entirely evil. Neither murder nor mutilation can be justified or explained as rebellion or retribution .
Innocent people, Indian and British, did lose their lives and property. Remembering it all is traumatic, but also politically charged. And this is the reason why Edward Thompson in The Other Side of the Medal (1925) recommended that we stop publishing Mutiny narratives.
For, as the poet Eliot put it: after such knowledge, what forgiveness?
PKN
Hyderabad 2006-07
Chronology: India 1857-59
1857
January 22 Dum-Dum encounter between sepoy and khalasi, first rumours about greased cartridges
February 26 19th Native Infantry (N.I.) at Berhampore refuses cartridges
March 29 Mangal Pandey s actions at Barrackpore 31 19th N.I. disbanded
April 8 Mangal Pandey hanged 24 3rd Light Cavalry, Meerut, refuses cartridges
May 6 Seven companies of 34th (Mangal Pandey s company) disbanded at Barrackpore 83rd Light Cavalry court-martialled 93rd Light Cavalry disarmed, imprisoned 10 Indian troops free imprisoned comrades, shoot officers at Meerut 11 Meerut mutineers arrive at Delhi, Europeans killed in Delhi 13 Bahadur Shah Zafar proclaimed new Mughal emperor; partial mutiny at Ferozepur 16 Canning s Proclamation 20-23 Mutiny at Agra 22 Peshawar garrison disarmed 27 George Anson, Commander-in-Chief, dies 28 Mutiny at Nasirabad (Rajputana) 30 Mutiny at Lucknow; Wilson defeats Delhi mutineers at Hindan river 31 Mutinies at Shahjahanpur and Bareilly
June 3 Mutinies at Sitapur, Nimuch 4 Mutiny at Benares 5 Mutinies at Cawnpore, Jhansi 6 Mutiny at Allahabad; 4-6 Neill s massacres at Benares and Allahabad 6 Cawnpore siege begins 7 Mutiny at Jullundur 8 Barnard defeats rebels at Badli-ki-Serai 10 Mutiny at Nowgong 14 Mutiny at Gwalior 17 Patrick Grant arrives as Commander-in-Chief 25 Nana offers terms to Wheeler at Cawnpore 27 Satichaura Ghat massacre 30 Henry Lawrence defeated at Chinhat; Lucknow siege begins
July 1 Nana Sahib proclaimed Peshwa 5 Barnard dies, Birjis Qadr crowned king of Oudh 12 Havelock defeats rebels at Fatehpur 15 Havelock wins at Aong and Pandu Nadi; Bibighar massacre at Cawnpore 16 Havelock defeats Nana Sahib near Cawnpore 25 Mutiny at Dinapore, Kunwar Singh begins actions 31 Canning s Resolution
August 2 Eyre defeats Dinapore rebels 13 Havelock returns to Cawnpore, Colin Campbell arrives at Calcutta 14 John Nicholson arrives at Delhi Ridge 17 William Hodson defeats rebels at Rohtak 24 Nicholson defeats Nimuch rebels at Najafgarh
September 9 John Colvin dies in Agra fort 14 Battle for Delhi begins 20 Delhi cleared of rebels 21 Zafar surrenders 22 Zafar s sons/grandson shot dead by Hodson 23 Nicholson dies 25 First relief of Lucknow by Havelock and Outram
October 10 Greathed s column defeats rebels at Agra
November 17 Second relief of Lucknow by Campbell 24 Havelock dies 26/27 Tatya Tope defeats Windham at Cawnpore
December 6 Campbell defeats Tope, takes Cawnpore 15 C.S. Stuart takes Indore
1858
January 2 Campbell defeats Nawab of Farrukhabad and Bakht Khan at Khudaganj 27 Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar begins
February 3 Hugh Rose relieves Sagar
March 2 Campbell moves to relieve Lucknow 9 Zafar found guilty 21 Lucknow taken 22 Ros