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1857, a year of communal unity

By Mridula Mukherjee

What is it about 1857 that is still relevant to us? The story begins with the mutiny in the Bengal Army of the East India Company. The first incidents took place at Berhampore and Barrackpore in March, and Mangal Pandey became the first martyr, when he was executed for refusing to use the new Enfield rifle and calling upon his fellow soldiers to rise in revolt. The message of rebellion spread from cantonment to cantonment, and on the morning of May 11, the sepoys from Meerut, who had killed their European officers and risen in revolt the previous day, entered Delhi. They asked Bahadur Shah II to take over the leadership of the revolt. With this one act, the mutiny was transformed into a revolutionary war.

Bahadur Shah, who had been living as a pensioner of the British, though initially reluctant, soon agreed to be the symbolic leader of the revolt. He was proclaimed the Emperor of India and wrote letters to all the rulers and chiefs of India to join a confederacy of Indian states to overthrow and replace the British regime. The revolt spread like wildfire across Awadh and Rohilkhand, the Doab and Bundelkhand, East Punjab (present-day Haryana), Central India and Bihar. Peasants, zamindars, taluqdars, maulvis and pundits, artisans, day labourers, all were to be found in the ranks of the rebels. The immediate cause of the mutiny was the introduction of cartridges greased with the fat of beef and pork, one repugnant to Hindus and the other to Muslims, which had to be opened by biting before loading.

The spontaneous support among large sections showed that discontent with British rule was widespread. It seemed that the British had successfully alienated many different groups and classes of Indian society. The largest support came from the peasants (soldiers also being peasants in uniform), who were victims of ever-increasing revenue and rent demands and caught in the web of debt. The British had also annoyed the taluqdars of Avadh by usurping their rights over land, as they had the royal family and the courtiers and their dependants by usurping the kingdom. The extinction of many royal and feudal families, big and small, in the previous decades had caused great hardship to many who were patronised by them: musicians, artists, poets, maulvis, pundits, astrologers, religious figures, artisans, palace servants, craftsmen, and the like.

It is not surprising that the leadership of the revolt came primarily from feudal chiefs, such as Nana Saheb, a descendant of the peshwa, who drove the British out of Kanpur, his deputies Tantia Tope and Azimullah, Hazrat Mahal, the Begum of Avadh, Kunwar Singh, a ruined zamindar of Jagdishpur near Arrah. The most prominent in this category was Lakshmibai, the young Rani of Jhansi.

Another kind of leadership came from soldiers such as Bakht Khan, a subedar of the British army who rebelled in Bareilly and came to Delhi on July 2, 1857, with his soldiers and exercised effective power, while Bahadur Shah remained the nominal leader. It was most likely under his influence that Bahadur Shah set up a court of administration consisting of ten members, four to be nominated by the king and six by the army. This attempt at creating an institutional structure was, however, shortlived, as mutual jealousies among rebel leaders and lack of unity led to the recapture of Delhi by the British, and the departure of Bakht Khan for Lucknow on September 19, 1857. The fall of Delhi demoralised the rebels, though resistance continued for almost another year.

Perhaps the most important feature of the great revolt which is relevant for us today was its naturally non-communal character. Neither among the ordinary rebels nor among the leaders was religious origin an issue. Hindus and Muslims were well-represented at the levels of the rebels as well as the leadership. The Bengal Army consisted of Hindus and Muslims, and even though the mutiny began on the issue of greased cartridges, rebel soldiers overcame their religious reservations for the sake of the cause and used the same cartridges and rifles they had earlier rejected. All the rebels, Hindu and Muslim, recognised Bahadur Shah, a Muslim, as their emperor. Of Nana Saheb's two loyal deputies, one was a Muslim and one a Hindu. Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi captured Gwalior with the help of her loyal Afghan guards and died on the battlefield along with her life-long companion, a Muslim girl.

Mutual respect for religious sentiments was also a hallmark of the age. Reviving the tradition started by the Mughal Emperor Akbar, wherever rebels won power, they banned cow-slaughter out of respect for Hindu sentiments. In Delhi, on the occasion of Id-ul Zuha at the end of July 1857, the rebel regime banned the slaughter of cows, oxen and buffaloes. What needs to be understood is that Indian society had not yet been communalised by the British policy of divide and rule as it was from the last quarter of the 19th century, and therefore there was no need for a self-conscious effort to create communal unity. The behaviour of Hindus and Muslims in the revolt of 1857 was a reflection of the non-communal nature of pre-colonial Indian society.

The writer is director, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library

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Sare Jahan Se Accha

Hindustan Hamara

In 1905 more than 100 years from today, when Iqbal was a lecturer at the Government College, Lahore he was invited by his student Lala Hardayal to preside over a function. Instead of making a speech, Iqbal sang Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Hamara in his style. Iqbal compiled this poem in praise of India and the poem preaches the communal harmony that had unfortunately started ceasing in India by that time. Each and every word in this poem depicts an Indian’s respect and love for the motherland and the values the Indian society inherited for long...Read Full

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