Ghadar in Tirhoot: A Documentation (An Old and Rare Book)

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The present work was conceived in the Department of History, L.S. College Muzaffarpur, during the informal discussions over cups of lemon tea with my colleagues of different departments. The first concrete idea that emerged, was the writing of a historical monograph on the city of Muzaffarpur.

Then came the year 2007, and the occasion of the 150 anniversary of the revolt of 1857, a consensus emerged in the department regarding the study of the different aspects of the rebellion in the regions which were part of the old Tirhoot Commissionery as it constituted the grey area of the historiography of 1857 in Bihar. Here I would like to emphasise on two points, first, the historiography of 1857 is now taking cognizance of the regions which did not constitute the core of the rebellion. The studies which focus on Punjab, Haryana, Bengal are parts of this trend. Such studies help in understanding the wide reach of the Rebellion and how its symbols of contest were adopted in peripheral regions. Second, Tirhoot was just a district in 1857 and it was only in 1908, that the Tirhoot Commissionery was created. The nomenclature 'Tirhoot', has been taken into the present work to denote the old districts of Saran, Charmparan, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga. .

In the course of material collection which I had started during the summer vacation in 2007, I discussed it with my friend Srikant and I decided to collect and publish the documents relating to different aspects of the Rebellion in the region of Tirhoot. Without his sincere support in the collection and classification of the documents, this documentation would have taken much more time.

For the theoretical and methodological part I am thankful for the serious discussions I had with Prof. Surendra Gopal, Prof. Nihar Nandan Singh, Prof..Y. D. Prasad, Prof. Ratneshwar Mishra, Prof. M.N.Karma Dr. Pramodanand Das, Dr. Abhay Kumar and Marina Carter. These discussions provided me some crucial insights which helped me in shaping this work. Dr. Razi Ahmad, Director, Gandhi Sangrahalaya, took keen interest in the work and encouraged us in various ways.

The publication of thematic documentation have been undertaken by almost all the Archives of India and abroad. The Bihar State Archives has a rich tradition of publication of standard works of documentation. Dr. K.K. Datta initiated this process. His first work of such nature was entitled as, 'Selections from Unpublished Correspondence of the Judge-Magistrate and the Judge of Patna 1790-1857' It was published in 1954. The second work of the publication of collection of documents entitled 'Farmans, Sanads and Parwanas' was published in 1962. It contains among other things extensive collection of Madadmash grants, which were mostly conferred upon learned men, Saints, Syeds and Brahmins. His third work of documentation was publication of a collection of speeches and writings of Mahatma Gandhi, entitled as 'Gandhi in Bihar which was on account of the decision of Government of Bihar to bring out a volume dealing with Gandhi's speeches and writings related to Bihar on the eve of his birth centenary. The next important work again related to Gandhi is entitled as 'Select Documents on the Mahatma Gandhi's movement in Champaran by B. B. Mishra in 1963. This work was undertaken by the Bihar State Archives on the request of the then President of India. Dr. Rajendra Prasad. This was internationally acknowledged as a classic work. After a long spell of fourty five years the Bihar State Archives has again started publication work. In 2008, a revised print of 'August Kranti' written by Baldev Narain was published. After that a work documentation entitled 'Ghadar in Tirhoot - A Documentation' by Ashok Aounshuman and Srikant is being published. This important work related to the revolt of 1857 in north Bihar will enrich the genre of regional historiography. These works are being published under the broader rubric of Bihar Gaurav Shrinkhala Prakashan. More such works are required related to other aspects of the 1857 revolt in Bihar, Quit India Movement, and events related with Partition eve developments. Besides there is also a need of documenting and writing new works on socio-cultural and economic history of Bihar.

The introduction has been divided into five sub-parts. The first part deals with the absence and under- representation of 1857 in the pre and post colonial historiography of the rebellion. The second part enters into the debate, as to whether the sepoy was 'peasant in uniform' or it had become a 'new elite'. In this context my argument is that the rupture between the peasant and the traditional authority, a term borrowed from Max Weber, was the basic factor responsible for acquisition of an autonomous space by the company sepoy vis-à-vis the peasant. The third part focuses on the aftermath of the revolt and the emergence of a new culture of counter violence which had become the hallmark of peasant protests against the Indigo planters, of the region under study. It also underlines, how the cult of violent protest had become more acute after the rebellion. This change acted as a game changer in the process of the monopoly of violence of the Indigo planters vis-a-vis the Indigo peasantry. The fourth part takes cognizance of the process of recall of 1857 through the mechanism of transmitted memories and how they were weaved into the nationalist narratives. The fifth part is related to the contents of the chapters. The choice of the theoretical issues is on account of importance I have attached to them, and they constitute the important components of the discourse on 1857.

Wie es eigentilich gawesen' was the concept propounded by German historian Leopold von Ranke. The essence of this theoretical construct was, the study of history as it actually happened and the best mode of it, according to him, was to let the facts speak for themselves. This till date continues to be the bedrock of the genre of objective and scientific history writing. Contrary to this theoretical position, the history writing of the rebellion has been a quintessential case of an unethical combination of high level of subjectivity in selection of facts, evidences, construction of narratives and interpretations. In fact it neatly fits into the conceptualisation of another German historian Heirich von Treitschke, who argued that a "bloodless objectivity which does not say on which side is the narrator's heart, is the exact opposite of true historical sense." This type of value added writings have been responsible for construction of two broad parallel histories of rebellion, having binary opposite views on its nature and causes. The collateral damage of such trend is enormous as it raises big question mark over the core ethos and philosophy of history.