Author: Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi
Publication: The Guardian
Date: August 24, 2007
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,2155324,00.html
Author says British reprisals involved the
killing of 10m, spread over 10 years
A controversial new history of the Indian
Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the
greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that
the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions
of people who dared rise up against them.
In War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, Amaresh
Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an "untold
holocaust" which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10
years beginning in 1857. Britain was then the world's superpower but, says
Misra, came perilously close to losing its most prized possession: India.
Conventional histories have counted only 100,000
Indian soldiers who were slaughtered in savage reprisals, but none have tallied
the number of rebels and civilians killed by British forces desperate to impose
order, claims Misra.
The author says he was surprised to find that
the "balance book of history" could not say how many Indians were
killed in the aftermath of 1857. This is remarkable, he says, given that in
an age of empires, nothing less than the fate of the world hung in the balance.
"It was a holocaust, one where millions
disappeared. It was a necessary holocaust in the British view because they
thought the only way to win was to destroy entire populations in towns and
villages. It was simple and brutal. Indians who stood in their way were killed.
But its scale has been kept a secret," Misra told the Guardian.
His calculations rest on three principal sources.
Two are records pertaining to the number of religious resistance fighters
killed - either Islamic mujahideen or Hindu warrior ascetics committed to
driving out the British.
The third source involves British labour force
records, which show a drop in manpower of between a fifth and a third across
vast swaths of India, which as one British official records was "on account
of the undisputed display of British power, necessary during those terrible
and wretched days - millions of wretches seemed to have died."
There is a macabre undercurrent in much of
the correspondence. In one incident Misra recounts how 2m letters lay unopened
in government warehouses, which, according to civil servants, showed "the
kind of vengeance our boys must have wreaked on the abject Hindoos and Mohammadens,
who killed our women and children."
Misra's casualty claims have been challenged
in India and Britain. "It is very difficult to assess the extent of the
reprisals simply because we cannot say for sure if some of these populations
did not just leave a conflict zone rather than being killed," said Shabi
Ahmad, head of the 1857 project at the Indian Council of Historical Research.
"It could have been migration rather than murder that depopulated areas."
Many view exaggeration rather than deceit
in Misra's calculations. A British historian, Saul David, author of The Indian
Mutiny, said it was valid to count the death toll but reckoned that it ran
into "hundreds of thousands".
"It looks like an overestimate. There
were definitely famines that cost millions of lives, which were exacerbated
by British ruthlessness. You don't need these figures or talk of holocausts
to hammer imperialism. It has a pretty bad track record."
Others say Misra has done well to unearth
anything in that period, when the British assiduously snuffed out Indian versions
of history. "There appears a prolonged silence between 1860 and the end
of the century where no native voices are heard. It is only now that these
stories are being found and there is another side to the story," said
Amar Farooqui, history professor at Delhi University. "In many ways books
like Misra's and those of [William] Dalrymple show there is lots of material
around. But you have to look for it."
What is not in doubt is that in 1857 Britain
ruled much of the subcontinent in the name of the Bahadur Shah Zafar, the
powerless poet-king improbably descended from Genghis Khan.
Neither is there much dispute over how events
began: on May 10 Indian soldiers, both Muslim and Hindu, who were stationed
in the central Indian town of Meerut revolted and killed their British officers
before marching south to Delhi. The rebels proclaimed Zafar, then 82, emperor
of Hindustan and hoisted a saffron flag above the Red Fort.
What follows in Misra's view was nothing short
of the first war of Indian independence, a story of a people rising to throw
off the imperial yoke. Critics say the intentions and motives were more muddled:
a few sepoys misled into thinking the officers were threatening their religious
traditions. In the end British rule prevailed for another 90 years.
Misra's analysis breaks new ground by claiming
the fighting stretched across India rather than accepting it was localised
around northern India. Misra says there were outbreaks of anti-British violence
in southern Tamil Nadu, near the Himalayas, and bordering Burma. "It
was a pan-Indian thing. No doubt."
Misra also claims that the uprisings did not
die out until years after the original mutiny had fizzled away, countering
the widely held view that the recapture of Delhi was the last important battle.
For many the fact that Indian historians debate
1857 from all angles is in itself a sign of a historical maturity. "You
have to see this in the context of a new, more confident India," said
Jon E Wilson, lecturer in south Asian history at King's College London. "India
has a new relationship with 1857. In the 40s and 50s the rebellions were seen
as an embarrassment. All that fighting, when Nehru and Gandhi preached nonviolence.
But today 1857 is becoming part of the Indian national story. That is a big
change."
What they said
Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief
in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment
by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the
race."
Karl Marx: "The question is not whether
the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India
conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered
by the Briton."
L'Estaffette, French newspaper: "Intervene
in favour of the Indians, launch all our squadrons on the seas, join our efforts
with those of Russia against British India ...such is the only policy truly
worthy of the glorious traditions of France."
The Guardian: "We sincerely hope that
the terrible lesson thus taught will never be forgotten ... We may rely on
native bayonets, but they must be officered by Europeans."
- Email: r.ramesh@guardian.co.uk
