Muslim Contributions to India’s Freedom Struggle - A Different Narrative - 2
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
The First War of India’s Independence (1857)
The uprising of 1857 has been the subject of numerous books, articles and analyses. What is astonishing about the uprising was not that it took place in 1857 but it took so long for it to happen. The British East India Company came to India to trade. Then, as the Mogul Empire disintegrated, they started to meddle in Indian affairs. After winning a protracted struggle with the French for supremacy in Southern India, the British had a clear field for their political aspirations. Their first win came with the historic Battle of Plassey in Bengal (1757). As a military event, it was only a skirmish. In its political impact, it was a pivotal event in world history, a hinge around which the destiny of Asia revolved, a milestone that changed the history of the world.
The East India Company had a taste of real wealth in Bengal. Soon, they turned from trade to loot. The victory at the battle of Buxor (1764) brought them total financial control of Bengal, Bihar and Eastern UP. This they exercised with a rapacity matched only by the greed for profits from the Company stakeholders in London. The well-known episode of how Governor General Warren Hastings starved the Begums of Oudh and compelled them to part with their jewelry is now ancient history. The peasants of Bengal went from prosperity to penury. Cheap cotton cloth was imported from England, and discriminatory taxes were imposed to drive the weavers of Bengal and eastern UP into poverty. Maladministration brought about successive famines and thousands perished in Bengal and Bihar.
There was resistance in Southern India from Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan but the British successfully navigated the balance of power in their favor, enticing the Nizam and the Marathas to side with them. Tipu fell in the Battle of Srirangapatam (1799) and the gold from Tipu’s treasury as well as the profitable spice trade from the Malabar coast fell into British hands.
The East India Company continued to consolidate its hold on India by force as with the Anglo-Maratha wars (1803-1818) in Central India and the Anglo-Sikh wars (1845-49) in the Punjab. The other method was the dispossession of Rajas, Nawabs and potentates under the so-called Doctrine of Lapse under which a kingdom would be taken over by the British if there was no male heir for the king. Examples of this were the kingdoms of Jhansi, Satara and Oudh.
As India and much of Asia continued its political retrenchment in the 19 th century, colonialism enjoyed its heyday. The technology gap between Asia and Europe continued to increase thanks to the industrial revolution and this increasing gap was used by the Europeans to consolidate their hold on Asia and Africa. The Dutch captured Indonesia and French established themselves in Indo China. Even mighty China was forced to bow down when a combined expeditionary force consisting of British and French naval squadrons shot its way up to Beijing and forced the Chinese emperor to capitulate and permit the sale of opium in his vast realm as well as opening up Chinese hinterland to foreign influence (1839-60).
The aggregate thrust of geopolitical forces was in favor of Europe. There was widespread resentment in India and its former ruling classes of the loss of power and increasing poverty thanks to the rapacity of the East India Company. These tensions were inherent in the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized as well as the unbridled capitalism of the East India Company. But what finally ignited the spark of uprising was religion. Increasing wealth tilted the balance of power in Europe towards the Protestant North (England, Holland, Germany) and away from the Catholic South. There was a Protestant resurgence and its impact was felt as far away as India and China. What seemed to have ignited the spark of uprising in India appears to be the increasing aggressiveness of Protestant ministers to preach their faith in India. In one of her proclamations, Begum Hazrat Mahal of Oudh, one of the principal leaders of the Uprising, describes her grievances against the Company (quotation from William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, Viking Penguin 2006):
"To eat pigs and drink wine, to bite greased cartridges and to mix pig's fat with sweetmeats, to destroy Hindu and Mussalman temples on pretense of making roads, to build churches, to send clergymen into the streets to preach the Christian religion, to institute English schools, and pay people a monthly stipend for learning the English sciences, while the places of worship of Hindus and Mussalmans are to this day entirely neglected; with all this, how can people believe that religion will not be interfered with?"
This historical document provides one of the few first hand insights of what impelled the ruling classes of India to take up arms against the British.
The uprising started from Meerat and spread rapidly through Lucknow, Kanpur, Barielly, Jaunpur, Gwalior, Agra, Bulandsher, Bijnor, Jhelum and Sialkot. Many were the gallant men and women who fought in that First War of Independence and laid down their lives. Here we briefly highlight the names of some of the heroes of that war.
Begum Hazrat Mahal of Oudh was a wife of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. In the uprising of1857, after Wajid Ali Shah had been exiled to Calcutta by the British, she and her supporters led by Raja Jailal Singh took control of Lucknow and expelled the Europeans. When the British recaptured Lucknow, she joined forces with Nana Saheb and made Shahjehanpur her base. She held the British at bay for more than a year but was ultimately forced to retreat and seek refuge in Nepal where she passed away in 1879.
Molvi Ahmedulla of Faizabad was a soldier, a patriot, who fought the British valiantly and won the praise of his adversaries for his courage, chivalry and code of honor. One of the British officers, Col. G.B. Malleson, writes this about the Molvi, “The Molvi was a very remarkable man. Of his capacity as a military leader, many proofs were given during the revolt. No other man could boast that he has twice foiled Sir Colin Campbell (hero of the Crimean War) in the field.” The Molvi was a Shaikh of the Qadariya Sufi Order. He arrived in Lucknow in 1856 and one of the first to preach a struggle against the British, traveling far and wide, as did other faqirs, to Agra, Aligarh, Lucknow and Faizabad. With a large following of his disciples, he took control of Faizabad. He then proceeded to Lucknow where he joined forces with Birjis Qader, the Vali of Lucknow. After the fall of Lucknow, he continued the struggle from Muhammadi as an autonomous ruler but was assassinated by a rebel at Pawayan.
Bakht Khan, was appointed the Commander in Chief of the Mughal army by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mogul emperor. An able soldier and administrator, Bakht Khan assisted the emperor in military as well as civil administration. When Delhi fell and Bhadur Shah was arrested, Bakht Khan fled and continued to fight until he was killed in the later stages of the Uprising.
Rae Ahmed Nawaz Khan Kharal was head of the Khurrul tribe in Western Punjab. In September 1858, he led the Uprising against the British in Neeli district. After some initial successes, Rae Ahmed laid down his life in battle with a contingent of British Punjab cavalry.
The names of Begum Hazrat Mahal, Molvi Ahmedulla, Commander Bakht Khan and Rae Ahmed stand tall along with the names of more commonly known heroes of the First War of Independence (1858-59) such as Bahadur Shah Zafar, Jhansi Ki Rani, Tantya Tope and Nana Saheb.
The First War of Independence was crushed and its aftermath was brutal. Several reasons may be advanced as to why it did not succeed. First, a great undertaking such as a national war of liberation requires a national focus and a great leader. These were absent. While some were fired by religious zeal like Maulvi Ahmadulla, others were fighting for privileges usurped by the British. Bahadur Shah Zafar was an old man, a weak ruler and clearly lacked the skills required to lead a national Uprising. Secondly, the struggle was confined to a small part of India, notably, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Many rajas and nawabs either remained aloof or supported the British. Notable among these were the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Rajas of Bikaneer and Kashmir as well as the Sikhs in the Punjab. Bengal and the South were largely quiet. Even in the centers of the Uprising such as Lucknow there were internal tensions between the Shias and the Sunnis. Third, there was very little coordination among the leaders of the Uprising. The British clearly had the advantage of technology. The telegraph which had just been introduced into India enabled them to maintain effective communications. Lastly, by 1857, the British Empire was well established and the British navy ruled the oceans of the world. They were able to draw reinforcements from as far away as England and Australia. Lastly, from a global perspective, the Indian Uprising marked the last gasp of the Age of Soldiers, kings and rajas. It marked the onset of the Age of Merchants and Bankers. (Continued next week)
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