|
|
|
|
 |
 |
   |
Editorial debate 'Punjab
has always resisted against invaders' Profiles
of valour
themes Gift
to Urdu literature A
mixed bag Whose
war? All that the 18 years old Sonia knows about the war of independence is that it has a Bollywood movie made on it with Aamir Khan as the hero. Her knowledge of Bahadur Shah Zafar comes from his poetry that she studied in her Matric course. "Mangal Pandey was a hero," according to her.
We are
heading towards the most uncertain elections of our history. Confusing as the
times are, we decided to look back in history as a befitting way to end our
year. The year 2007 was also the 150th anniversary of the events of 1857, a
year that has been brought down to us variously -- as mutiny, war of
independence or national uprising. We were in for more confusion. What do we
know of 1857 and how close are we to an estimation of truth? We may be doing
well to reprint the colonists' versions but what is our own -- the Indian
record? What does the literature available say and whether our young
generation is aware of it? Who are the Indian heroes of 1857 and whether we
know them and how? These were a few logical questions that we wanted to
address. An
academic recently said in an interview, "we need to visit history first
before we can revisit it. In Pakistan we haven't even visited history." As the
150th year after the war of independence draws to a close, we tried to visit
an important event of our history, and make a promise to revisit it soon.
By
Sarwat Ali The
events and happenings of 1857 have not really been understood and analysed
objectively because the loss was too overwhelming to bear. Whether
it was a mutiny or a war of independence is still disputed and debated by the
scholars and historians depending on which side of the divide they are, and
its long term impact too has too The
programmes to remember the event differed to a great degree in India and
Pakistan. The Indians seemed much more enthusiastic about recalling and
dissecting the event with their Prime Minister inaugurating the proceedings
at the state level. It was far too muted in Pakistan. It seemed that in
Pakistan the event did not have any special significance, only a minor
happening about which no fuss ought to be made. The state was involved
marginally -- only some individuals and institutions making noise to recall
and remember the war of independence. The
historical reality that a small body of Europeans were able to defeat teeming
millions on their own soil and then were able to rule for the next hundred
years with the help of a growing body of supporters, sympathisers, loyalists,
careerists and opportunists probably still rankles us. To many
this was a war of independence but led by a leadership that was decadent and
had outlived its time. But many still think of it as a popular resistance
joined in by the people. The Muslim community probably thought and thinks
that they were not supported sufficiently by the other communities when they
eventually rose against the Company rule. And that their effort was actually
subverted. This created a hairline fracture of distrust between any joint
efforts and cast a very long shadow on the historical events to come. The
main motivation for the uprising was the rumour that the soldiers who were
actually in service and fighting for the East India Company had to bite into
the bullet casing which was either made of pig or cow fat. It was religious
motivation that made the soldiers revolt against their command rather than a
political cause of being subjugated by the foreigners. The
subsequent events that transpired in India were heavily coloured by dividing
the two major communities, the Hindus and the Muslims. As the Crown
established and consolidated its control and as the spirit of nationalism
which had infiltrated into India from Europe started to condition political
thinking, the Indians started to think of themselves as a nation or rather
two nations. Since it was no longer one nation but two nations the entire
struggle for freedom from colonial rule was characterised by its communal
nature. Actually
it was the Muslims who were the ruling community in India, a mere twenty or
twenty five per cent that had ruled over seventy five per cent non-Muslim
population for about seven hundred years. Joint resistance against the
foreigners by both the major communal groups was thus belied by the Muslims
wanting to seek a separate homeland for themselves once the British left the
colony. If the struggle and the war had been jointly launched and fought then
it should have continued on the same track, and independence won on the basis
of Indians getting rid of the British rather than two communities Hindus and
Muslims getting rid of the British and forming separate states. It is a
little too much to place the blame for everything that happened on the
divide-and-rule policy of the British colonial power. Divide and rule
certainly it was but the nationalistic sentiment which should have healed the
division reaffirmed it as the time went by, and finally was enshrined in the
division of the sub continent on communal lines. It may
be better to see it not as a defeat because of the conspiracies of
individuals or distrust among the major ethnic and religious groups, but as
the ascendancy of an industrialised
society gaining control by force over area that produced raw materials. This
ascendancy was underpinned by faith in inductive reasoning and its tangible
manifestation, technology. The same technology that smelled of steel and ran
the steam engine also made better weaponry to enforce its writ. Perhaps
the events of 1857 should not be seen as a one-time event, one war or a
decisive battle but as the culmination of events which can be traced
backwards in some rational sequence. Bengal was lost in the battle of Plassey
in 1757 to the East India Company and then in the next hundred years their
advance was steady as they took one area after another to expand their rule
across the Indian subcontinent. They submitted Awadh to a humiliating treaty
in 1764 and made the Mughal King in Delhi only a titular head by bringing him
under their protection in 1803. Actually the Indian heartland had already
succumbed to the East India Company almost fifty years earlier before the
Battle of Independence was fought in 1857. During
the decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of the Subhas into independent
riasat, one wonders what the state of the society was. The North Western part
was constantly attacked, plundered, pillaged and devastated by the raids of
Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah while the Maratha homeland had wrenched itself free
from central rule. One wonders what was the state of the economy then, and in
all this falling apart it is difficult to assume that the Indian economy,
too, was on the verge of an industrial revolution and that it was only
thwarted by the European advance and political uncertainty as some scholars
particularly sympathetic to the left would like us to believe. The
uprising of 1857 was perhaps a belated realisation that the political power
had slipped from the local people who had the legitimate right to rule. And
it was too scattered and disorganised. It was based on a genuine sentiment of
wanting to be their own men but the response was too mired in contradictions.
There was no central command and no grit to fight a sustained and organised
resistance. It was spontaneous and it spread like wildfire, with people
joining in probably for different motives, but united by the opportunity they
had got of putting an end to the hundred-year domination of the Company rule.
They succeeded in doing so but it was supplanted by the Crown Rule. Instead
of independence, as it so often happens, the third party reaped the harvest
of the contest between the first two contestants. The rising was crushed and
thousands or hundreds of thousands were either persecuted or executed. And,
there was hardly any evidence of benevolence or forgiveness. The Empire had
to be announced by establishing the writ through brute force. The
pattern was, perhaps, classic. The local people were too disorganised and did
not really have the means to launch an effective resistance and the Imperial
power was ruthless, all set on making an example of its strength and the
helplessness of the vanquished.
By
Shahzada Irfan Ahmed Professor
Saeed Bhutta of Punjab University Oriental College is well known for his
unique collection of oral tradition in Punjab. He has travelled to almost
every nook and corner of the province to gather this invaluable treasure of
knowledge. His main source has been the traditional storytellers Prof
Bhutta has a special interest in the oral history related to the War of
Independence, 1857, and the folk literature created in its aftermath. He tells
TNS that contrary to the common perception, Punjabis have always offered
stiff resistance to invaders. In 1857 the 100-kilometre stretch between
Syedwala and Cheecha Watni, along the banks of River Ravi, housed several
tribes who were in direct conflict with the British, he says. According to
the oral tradition, Punjab's geographical boundary had come in direct contact
with that of the area under the control of the East India Company after the
fall of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula in 1757. It took the British nothing less than
92 years to invade the province which shows how invincible it was at that
time, Prof Bhutta adds. He terms
Ahmed Khan Kharal, a hero of unmatched courage, who infused a spirit in his
clansmen and other dwellers of his area to challenge the British invaders. He
started his struggle in a wide area of Punjab covering Ganji Bar, Neeli Bar
and Sandal Bar. It was Ahmed Khan Kharal who along with his companions Murad
Fatiana, Shuja Bhadroo and Mokha Wehniwal killed Lord Burkley, the
Commissioner for Gogera. Prof
Bhutta says that Punjab's oral tradition is full of tales of this valiant
leader and his act of embracing martyrdom in his fight for freedom. Jalla
Tarhana, Nadir Shah Qureshi, Murad Fatiana and Bahawal Fatyana (the elder
brother of Murad Fatyana) are the other heroes of Punjab who are held in
great reverence for their selfless struggle against invaders. He says their
names have been mentioned in folk tales, dholas (war epics) and other genres
of Punjabi literature. Citing a tradition, he says, it was Bahawal Fatyana
who wrote a letter to the Nawab of Bahawalpur in 1857. In this letter he had
asked for weapons and financial support for over a hundred thousand freedom
fighters. Instead
of helping them out the Nawab took the letter to the British, he says. The
said letter is available with the archives department situated in Punjab
Civil Secretariat. Prof
Bhutta says he and his three students have collected sufficient oral
tradition which will soon go to print. The main reason for the lack of
written material pertaining to this period, he says, is that the basic
education in pre-British era was imparted at middle level in Persian and at
advanced level in Arabic. There was no compilation of oral history in Punjabi
and the main language of historians was Persian, he adds. Prof
Bhutta also narrates the incident in which freedom fighters like Nadir Shah
Qureshi and Bahawal Fatiana surrendered before the British and were sent to
Andaman Islands in punishment. The British had taken their women in custody
and threatened to dishonour them in case these freedom fighters refused to
budge, he adds.
By
Naila Inayat Rai
Ahmed Khan Kharal Rai
Ahmed Khan Kharal was one of the greatest freedom fighters in the Indian
rebellion of 1857. He was a resident of Sandal Bar's famous town, Jhamra, in
Jhang District Due to
the prevailing injustice at that time, his love for motherland put him out of
favour with the rulers, and made him the leader of the freedom fighters who
carried out the famous Gogera At Kot
Kamalia headquarters, along with his companions, Kharal killed Lord Burkley
the Commissioner of Gogera. He united most of the Bari tribes against the
British rule and was finally killed in a battle with British forces defending
his beloved motherland. After his death, his head was taken along by the
British soldiers, but snatched back by one of his loyal friends. His efforts
for the freedom of India from British rule were also acknowledged by the last
Moghul king, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Begum
Hazrat Mahal The role
of Begum Hazrat Mahal in overthrowing the British rule is often overlooked.
She was the wife of the last Tajdaar-e-Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah. The British had
annexed Oudh in 1856 and Wajid Ali Shah was exiled to Calcutta. But a year
later, when the revolt began, Begum who was living in Lucknow led the
rebellious soldiers against the East India Company.
The
people of Oudh supported her and she managed to proclaim independence from
the British rule. She fought bravely and urged the rural folk to take part in
the war. Begum
was not only a strategist, but also fought in the battlefield. She rejected
the offer to accept a pension of Rs 12 lakh by the British government. When
her forces lost ground, she fled Oudh and tried to organise soldiers again in
other places. Bakht
Khan Rohilla Bakht
Khan was Subedar in the army of British East India Company and had an
experience of 40 years in Bengal Horse Artillery before the uprising in 1857
began. When sepoys in Meerut revolted in May, 1857, Bakht Khan organised,
trained and built the Rohilla Sepoys and then left for Delhi. Delhi
had already been taken by the rebel forces, and Bahadur Shah had appointed
his eldest son Mirza Zahiruudin as commander-in-chief. But this prince had no
military experience. This was the time when Bakht Khan along with his forces
arrived in Delhi. With his arrival the leadership position He was a
virtual commander of sepoy forces, although Mirza Zahiruudin was still the
commander-in-chief. He was appointed in the War Council where he faced many
problems. The first was financial. He obtained from the King the authority to
collect taxes. Second problem being that of supplies which worsened when the
British forces assaulted the city in September 1857. Rani
Lakshmi Bai Rani
Lakshmi Bai aka the Rani of Jhansi, a princely state in north of India, was
one of the frontrunners in the War of Independence, 1857. Jhansi
became the focal point of the Uprising. The Rani began to strengthen her
position by seeking the support of others and formed a volunteer army. This
army not just consisted of men but also women who were given the military
training to fight. In the revolt, Rani Lakshmi Bai was accompanied by her
generals. In 1857
there was a revolt in the British Army at Meerut. In Jhansi also the army
rebelled and killed the British Army Officers. This led to a state where the
Rani was left to defend her kingdom from a coup. She took over the
administration of the kingdom once again. In 1858,
the British army once again marched towards Jhansi. Not willing to let the
British take over her kingdom, the Rani built an army of 14,000 volunteers to
fight the British. The soldiers of Jhansi fought for two weeks and Rani led
the forces in battle. After two weeks of fighting the British took control of
Jhansi. The queen escaped on horseback to the fortress of Kalpi. Nana
Sahib Nana
Sahib was the adopted son of the last Peshwa Baji Rao 11. During the lifetime
of his father, he lived in Bithurnear Kanpur and his friendly relations with
the English people of the locality. On the death of his father Lord Dalhousie
refused to refresh the princely pension of his adoptive father. As a result,
Nana Sahib began to harbour bitter and hostile feeling for the English. It is
difficult to say the exact part he played in the Sepoy Rebellion. But there
is no doubt that he played an effective role in the episode. It was he who
initiated the suggestion of declaring Bahahdur Shah II as the Emperor of the
liberated India. The massacre of the English at Bibigarh near Kanpur was also
his doing. He had no military training and he could not give the revolution
the leadership needed. Nana
Sahib made good his escape after the recapture of Gawalior by the British on
June 20, 1857. Mangal
Pandey Mangal
Pandey was a soldier in the 34th
Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) of the British East India
Company. Born in Nagwa village in district Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, Pandey
joined the British East India Company's 34th BNI regiment. He attacked his
British officers in an incident that eventually sparked the First War of
Indian Independence. At Barrackpore, near Calcutta, Pandey attacked and
injured his British sergeant at Barrackpur on March 29, 1857. Jemadar Ishari
Pandey, who was ordered by a British general to arrest Mangal Pandey,
refused, as did the regiment when it was asked to arrest Mangal Pandey who
was later hanged, as was Jemadar Ishari Pandey, while the whole regiment
dismissed.
By
I A Rehman Throughout
2007 one was reminded, off and on, that the year marked the 150th anniversary
of 1857, India's (or South Asia's, if you are stubborn) first war of
independence. It was not unnatural to expect some activity, including
literary efforts, related to 1857. That this expectation remained largely
unrealised again confirmed Pakistani people's continued drift away from
history, particularly This is
not to deny the importance of efforts made by a Lahore group to hold a 3-day
seminar on the various aspects of the 1857 conflict, some fresh articles by a
few serious students of history led by Dr Mubarak Ali, and a most imaginative
bit of presentation by stage producer-artist Huma Safdar. But this was
somehow less than what the occasion demanded. The
reasons for the Pakistan state of 2007 to be averse to recalling what many in
the West still describe as 'sepoy mutiny' are easy to understand. One of
these in a lack of agreement about the nature of the uprising which deters
the intelligentsia from addressing 1857, especially from identifying with the
heroes of the conflagration. Some of the confusion about 1857 arose from the
way the sequence of events developed without any order and the way many
leading players were sucked into roles they could not understand. From the
very beginning, writings about 1857 started revealing the loyalties and
biases of their authors/compilers to a much greater extent than usual in
historical narratives. For obvious reasons, the first writings on 1857 were
chronicles of events. The
British victory in 1857 meant to the vanquished much more than a defeat of
their arms. The old order collapsed completely and the scribes of the winning
side had complete freedom to paint the challengers in the worst possible
colours. Apart from a number of small tracts published by members of the
English bureaucracy and military officers, voluminous histories produced by
Kaye and Malleson, among others, not only gave a highly coloured version of
events, they introduced an appreciation of the people's yearning for freedom
in a manner that kept the nationalist movement divided for many decades.
Voices of dissent, for instance Thompson's or Marx's, that tried to present
the other side of the story, came much later. These corrected the impression
created by the imperialist historians to the extent that both sides began to
be blamed for massacres, other atrocities and plunder; the confusion over the
question whether 1857 denoted a people's uprising for freedom was not
removed. So
overwhelming was the outpouring of British anger at the natives' insolence
that Maulana Fazle Haq Khairabadi's account of the war, for participating in
which this bright star of Delhi's intellect was banished to Andamans for life
and where he died, was ignored for decades. And so was the chronicle left by
Hakim Ahsanullah, Bahadur Shah's first minister. Maulana Mohammad Hussain
Azad preferred his verses in praise of 'mutineers' that he had contributed to
his father's newspaper, to remain out of sight. Nobody bothered to go back to
newspapers coming out of Delhi and other towns. Greater importance was
attached to Jiwan Lal's diary that he wrote during the siege of Delhi
although he had spent the whole period holed up in his haveli. He could,
however, hire a battery of informers who ensured his safety besides keeping
him abreast of events in the city. The
division within the Indian society, and Muslims and Hindus were both divided,
helped the East India Company by providing it not only with allies in battle
but also with like-minded storytellers. In many popular writings, the
soldiers who rose against their masters were lambasted for lacking fighting
qualities, discipline and even good manners. The
contemporary writings that gained attraction for literary merit were Ghalib's
Dastambo, his letters and some verses on 1857, in Persian and Urdu both, and
to an extent Zaheer Dehlavi's Dastaan-i-Ghadar. The latter was no match to
Ghalib's genius but while Ghalib, too, had remained confined to his house,
Zaheer had seen action in the palace and in streets. Forced to abandon his
kith and kin and later on to cry on their elimination he could regain his
wits only many years later and then in far-away Deccan. His personal
experiences gave his account a touch of genuineness. However, both Ghalib and
Zaheer, as well as Sir Syed, whose Asbab Baghawat-e-Hind won acclaim across
the seas, left little doubt of their lack of sympathy for the rebellious
patriots. Still,
the 1857 themes found their way into the writings of Maulvi Zakaullah, Maulvi
Nazir Ahmad and Chakbast. But, as Ehtesham Husain has observed, by then the
context had become communal, which negated much that 1857 had achieved. It was
much later that Khawaja Hasan Nizami launched his series on 1857 -- Ghalib Ka
Roznamacha, Angrezon Ki Bipta, Bahadur Shah Ka Muqaddama, and Begmaat Ke
Aansoo. He was joined by Rashidul Khairi in mourning the glory that Mughal
Delhi was. The
nationalist struggle of the 20th century brought a tremendous change in
public assessment of the 1857 conflict. More and more people started claiming
it as a war of independence. During the second war, Josh Malihabadi invited
the colonial administration's wrath by reminding it of the beheading of
Bahadur Shah's sons before the old king's eyes and warned it in the following
words: Ek
kahani waqt likkhey ga naye mazmoon ki Jis ki
surkhi ko zaroorat hai tumaharay khoon ki In the
same period, Bari Alig published Company ki Hukoomat, which became a classic. After
1947, India realised the need for celebrating its independence in a wider
historical perspective and many research scholars, Majumdar and others began
reinterpreting 1857 as a national uprising for freedom. The centenary of the
war of independence in 1957 provided an opportunity for a major effort at
reassessment of 1857. The
custodians of power in Pakistan, on the other hand, chose to delink the
people from centuries of common sub-continental experience. The notable works
published in the fifties were only Rais Amrohvi's Bahadur Shah Zafar and
Maulana Ghulam Rasul Mehr's 1857 Kay Mujahideen and the special issue of
Lail-o-Naher brought out by Syed Sibte Hasan. However,
as noted by several literary authorities, 1857 made an enormous impact upon
literature, its content and style both. Hali, Azad, Iqbal, Premchand and many
others pleaded for and achieved new objectives for writers and paved the
ground for the Progressive Writers' Movement. That the
story of 1857 still has aspects that merit fuller recounting was brought out
by William Dalrymple's monumental study, The Last Mughal. The present writer
has not seen a more detailed account of 1857 nor a fuller portrait of Delhi
society at that time than what is available in this book. What should put
Pakistani scholars (or the rulers) to shame is the fact that Dalrymple found
a great deal material in the Punjab archives in Lahore -- material that they
have left untapped.
By
Mustafa Nazir Ahmad The year
1857 marked the end of the Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent, but in
return it also gave something invaluable to Urdu literature -- the letters of
the language's greatest poet, Mirza Ghalib, to his friends and pupils. There
is a consensus among critics that had it not been for the In the
aftermath of the 1857 uprising, many dear ones of Ghalib had to flee Dehli
and he was left alone to rue the miseries of the city that once boasted its
great literary traditions. The plight of Delhi and its inhabitants has been
expressed in his ghazals in a breathtaking manner, but it is his letters --
especially to his favourite pupil Mir Mehdi Hussain Majrooh, a great poet in
his own right -- that speak of his own loneliness in the city of wilderness. Zaheer
Dehlvi writes in Daastan-i-Ghaddar that prior to the uprising of 1857, the
great poets of Delhi used to gather every evening at a specified house to
recite their latest verses. This company kept the otherwise sullen poets
happy, but the uprising, writes Mahrooh in Mazhar-e-Ma'ani, "filled the
stomach of dust with corpses and emptied Dehli of men. Many were hanged and
arrested, while others fled and dispersed in all directions." So
Ghalib, who chose to stay in Delhi, was left alone, as his comrades and
pupils were either killed or they fled the city to save their lives. Heart-broken
at the plight of the city that had given him acclaim and left alone to
counter the vicissitudes of time, Ghalib turned to writing letters like never
before. These letters not only romanticised the glorious past but also
provided him with a pastime, as he himself writes to Majrooh, who fled to
Panipat after the uprising against the British: "With nothing else to
do, writing letters to you has become my favourite pastime. I sit down with
pen and ink. If there is a letter from you, I reply to it; if not, I write a
letter to you complaining about not writing to me." Between
1857 and 1862, when Majrooh returned to Delhi, Ghalib wrote at least 100
letters to him. On account of the frankness between the mentor and the pupil,
these letters are the asset of the language -- they give the impression as if
Majrooh was sitting in front of Ghalib and both are engaged in a
heart-to-heart conversation. Critics rate these letters very highly because
of the beautiful prose employed by Ghalib. Retaining his ever so famous sense
of humour, he speaks his heart out to Majrooh, who himself was missing Delhi
very much. When Majrooh finally returned to the city, Malik Ram writes in
Talaamza-e-Ghalib, "it was not the same Dehli that he had left to go to
Panipat." Aptly, Majrooh starts one of his ghazals with this couplet: Kar kay
barbad issay, kiss ko bassayay ga falak Kya koi
aur bhi hai shehr bassan-i-Dehli?
Barring
some accounts that was biased towards the 'white men', the literature of the
19th century India mostly depicted the 'city under siege' and the
victimisation of the locals at the hands of the British A major
source of information about the happenings of 1857 from the local sources
have been culled from the various 'roznamcha' which were penned by the
Indians. Some of the well-known roznamchas of Jewan Lal and Syed Mubarak,
Shah Mueenuddin Ahsan Khan's Khadang Ghadaar, In most
of these accounts the local people have been cast as villains, perpetrators
of violence and barbarity while the white man has been depicted as being
victimised. But
there are other sources, too, that were dealing primarily with reporting the
situation. Probably there were five newspapers that were published from Delhi
at that time. Two were in Urdu and three in Persian. Maulvi Muhammed Baqir's
Urdu Akhbar was quite critical of the actions of the English and carried the
pronouncements of Bahadur Shah Zafar. The second paper, Sadiq ul Akhbar,
edited by Syed Jamiluddin Hajr dared to carry fatwas of ulemas on the war
against the British being holy hence a jehad, and it also published poems of
Bahadur Shah Zafar. The three Persian newspapers were Gulsh e Naubahar,
edited by Abdul Qadir, Sultanul Akhbaar edited by Rajab Ali and Sirajul
Akhbaar which was published from the Fort. The reports of the war were
published in these newspapers as well. A few
others have written about the events of 1857 with studied circumspection like
Zaheer Dehlavi's Dastaan e Ghadar. Ghalib was living at that time in Delhi
and saw everything happen -- the city being besieged and the victory of the
British with his own eyes. The account and the tragic loss are amply
reflected in his letters and these words are
considered to be so authentic an account to be referred to as
successfully pioneering realism in Urdu prose. Ghalib's larger prose work in
Persian is critical of the entire uprising or mutiny. Dastanbo called the
happenings futile and wasteful attempt. What one gathered is that mere
anarchy was let loose upon Delhi. The population was exposed to marauding
gangs that pillaged and plundered leaving people to either shut themselves up
in their houses for security or move out of the city to a safer place. The
writings do not give any impression that it was an organised attempt at
getting rid of the farangis. Some of
the other poets have also written about the destruction of the city of Delhi
like Daagh and Hali who both wrote Shahr e Ashoob on the death of the city.
The tone is that of lamentation -- the marsia -- style dominates rather than
eulogising heroism or the righteousness of the cause. It is more about the
destruction of the city and the death of a civilisation with implied
references to the killings and executions than an epic rendering of the
happenings. Perhaps the entire tone and tenor of classic Urdu poetry had cast
its long shadow. The others who wrote about the tragic happenings but later
were Khawaja Hasan Nizami and Rashid ul Khairi. But it
appears that much that happened was not penned and it became part of the
folklore. -- Sarwat Ali
By
Sarah Sikandar All that
the 18 years old Sonia knows about the war of independence is that it has a
Bollywood movie made on it with Aamir Khan as the hero. Her knowledge of
Bahadur Shah Zafar comes from his poetry that she studied in her Matric
course. "Mangal Pandey was a hero," according to her. "It
was Aamir's superb performance," she concludes. Period. She knows little
about the 'performance' of the approximately 232,224 Indian troops who had
participated in the movement. Sonia
should not be singled out for her knowledge, or lack of it, of the war of
independence. One hardly comes across students who have a desire to know what
happened in this part of the world in the year 1857. Ahmed
Gul, 20, knows that the uprising was "an uncoordinated but a pretty
strong struggle and everything. British were doing their own thing." He goes
to the extent of saying that it was "a failed attempt to create a
separate nation." On
second thoughts he admits his naivety, "Only a handful of people read
other than their syllabus. In O' Levels there is a detailed description of
the war but it is completely passive. I don't carry the accounts of people
who were actually involved in the movement." Ahmed is
familiar with the names of two people from Indian history, Bahadur Shah Zafar
-- "the last Emperor of India" and "some Syed Ahmed Barelvi".
Ali, 18,
disagrees with Ahmed. He trusts the British: "I think O' Levels is
unbiased in its approach towards the war, whereas in the matric syllabus
facts are not openly told. Students are only taught the good thing about the
movement and all the bad things are kept from them." Imran,
17, faintly remembers what he studied in F.A just last year. "British
and Hindus were unjust and harsh in their policies towards Muslims. When
these policies became unbearable the movement started." What
remains fresh in his mind, however, is the "reality of the British.
Their reality came out when they used pork and cow fat in the catridge to be
used by Muslim and Hindu sepoys. Another reason was that the British promoted
and favoured Hindus over Muslims. After the uprising, it was the Muslim
sepoys who were later blamed although some Hindus were also involved." These
lines seem to be taken directly from Punjab Text Book Board. The cartridge
details are stressed on, repeatedly, in the text books. 17 years old Saman,
who is studying Pakistan Studies as a compulsory subject believes
"unless and until you put in this point about catridge your marks will
be deducted. It is a very important subheading." It seems
the knowledge of our younger generation, about the uprising, is limited to
either the two pages of the text book or more importantly, Indian productions
based on the event. Madiha
is a B.A honours student with political science as her majors. "I never
take interest in boring history stuff. I just read about it in my course of
Pakistan Studies in school and college." She
thinks it is ridiculous to expect young people to know about the war of
independence. "Our youth don't even know Pakistan's history, how can you
expect them to know about the war of independence? "They
have other, more interesting things to do." Not
surprisingly, it is because of the 'other interests' such as their passion
for Bollywood fare that they can still have an inkling about their history.
Thank you, Aamir Khan! |
|
many versions. To many people in Pakistan it
was a conspiracy by both the Hindus and the Europeans because they were and
are inveterate enemies of the Muslims. The young -- in their teens and early
twenties -- are not really pushed; history as a subject has fallen out of
favour and anything related even to the recent past is seen as akin to
dissecting a dead body.
who have
remained an integral part of Punjab's culture since times immemorial. These
traditions have been handed down to them verbally from their forefathers,
generation by generation.
insurrection. They also attacked the Gogera
Central Jail and freed hundreds of freedom fighters who were kept there for
actively taking part in the War of Independence, 1857. These fighters under
the command of Kharal were able to make vast part of their land free of the
British Raj for at least three months.
Begum
placed her 14-year-old son Birjees Qadr on the throne of Awadh and she fought
to regain the territory lost to the British. For six months she defended
Lucknow from the British army.
did improve, and
he was given the title of Saheb-i-Alam Bahadur (Lord Governor General) by the
King.
with its chapters on controversial themes such as the
1857 uprising has been made into, at least across large parts of the country.
uprising of 1857,
Ghalib's letters would have been devoid of their real beauty. There is no
denying that these letters would have stood the test of time on account of
his beautiful prose, but -- as is the case with his poetry -- they would have
lacked the warmth that originates only from a genuine heartache.
Khan Abdul Latif's Roznamcha
1857 have been often referred to while Kanhaiyya Lal's Muhaarbah e Azam, a
report of the incidents that took place and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's Tareekh e
Sarkashi e Bijnour have also been profusely cited. 
