This book was conceived in 2007 when the State Archives had organized an exhibition entitled Revolt in the Periphery Bengal in 1857-58.
The Revolt of 1857, often referred to as the Sepoy Mutiny, has commanded greater attention by historians, novelists and chroniclers of various kind than anything else in Britain's entire colonial career. This event actually presented a moment when Britain's most prized possession, which had sponsored her industrial take off. appeared to be slipping away from her hands. It was also an eye-opener about the hatred that was brewing among 'natives' who were supposed to remain ever grateful to their superior white masters for obliging to civilize them.
So destabilizing and rude was the blow that generations of British historians-from J.W.Kaye, Malleson, George WForrest, and G.B.Malison to today's Dalrymple-wrote volumes on the event. Their tendency, however, has always been to characterize it as a narrow sectarian affair it was either a cantonment incident, or an Islamist revival, or an expression of upper caste wrath. or peasants giving vent to their grievances.
Nationalists, on the other hand, although almost equally disunited in their delineation of the essential character of the revolt, nonetheless betrayed a tendency to portray the event as one that transcended narrow sectarian barriers and constituted the first serious threat to the existence of the British Empire in India.
The differences in the overall thrust notwithstanding. what unites the portrayals at both ends of the spectrum is the exclusion of Bengal (and regions further east) from the narrative. Bengal, as it appears in most, was an undisturbed or even loyal zone, the real erupting region being the Gangetic heartland.
Prima facie, this might appear somewhat queer because we all know that of the three wings of the British-Indian Army-Bengal. Madras and Bombay-it was the Bengal Army that had actually revolted. The latter was the biggest, with 74 regular native infantry. Of these. 54 revolted. Of the 29 regiments of native infantry in Bombay only 3. and of 52 of the Madras Army only 1 (the 36th regiment) revolted. So if the revolt was the work of the Bengal Army, how was it that Bengal remained aloof from it? However, this apparent paradox is just that, only apparent. For, the Bengal army was Bengal' only in name. It stood for the entire Bengal Presidency.
The year 1857, the centenary of the battle of Plassey, it was prophesied, will witness the fall of the British Empire. Bengal Harkaru and Indian Gazette, 1 June 1857 noted, the 'sepoys of the Bengal army take much unnecessary pains to procure the services of foretellers and soothsayers...the principal question asked...by these misguided men (Hindus as well as Mohammedans) refers to the duration of the British rule over this country"; on 23 June the paper noted, Today is the centenary of the battle of Plassey and according to prevalent belief the last of our rule... On hearing these predictions, the Hindus exclaimed: "on the departure of the English from this land, we will offer one hundred lac of beasts for being sacrificed at the shrine of the mighty kale". We have contemporary evidence to suggest that this was believed by many (from Calcutta to Delhi), irrespective of whether they acted on it or not. Indeed, 1857-8 witnessed the most critical time for the Raj so far, notwithstanding the fact the Company faced resistance, with varying degree of impact, from the moment it established de facto political power.
The events should not have been entirely unanticipated. An English planter wrote in 1852, 'already is disaffection going on with increased energy...against British rule and authority; we with real concern predict that the native army can scarcely escape the contagion, beyond the lapse of a few years more, when an outbreak and revolt, overwhelming in consequences, will proclaim. Lord Ellenborough, in his evidence before the Select Committee of Parliament (18 June, 1852), drew attention to the shameful treatment meted out to the sepoys by the young English officers. In September 1856, certain missionaries in Bengal presented a memorial stating "the deplorable social condition of the natives". They even recommended a commission of enquiry against the misrule. The alleged abuses consisted of, inter alia, the role of police and judicial institutions, use of torture to extract confession, the zamindary system etc. The Memorialists asserted that 'if remedies were not speedily applied to these abuses, the result would be disastrous, as the discontent of the rural population is daily increasing, and a bitter feeling of hatred towards their rulers is being engendered in their minds.
The extent of the disturbances was from the Burma frontier to the north-west, though the most active centre of the mutiny as well as the uprisings had doubtless been what has been called the Gangetic heartland. "The Governor General summoned troops from Burmah, Madras, Ceylon, the Mauritius, Bombay, Persia... New South Wales; dispatched ships to intercept the Chinese expedition under the direction of Lord Elgin, and applied for speedy and considerable reinforcements to the Home government Impact of the mutiny and the revolt was felt in far corners of the country, ruled by the Company.
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