Abstract
Professor M. D. David, in his book on the 1857 Uprising in Maharashtra, has exploded the myth of colonial and Indian historians that South India was slow in responding to the 1857 Uprising. He has asserted that Nana Sahib, the son of the exiled Peshwa Baji Rao II, as the leader of the 1857 Uprising, planned to march from Bithur to South India to regain his position as Peshwa. With this objective, he proclaimed the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as the suzerain and Supreme Head of the Uprising and himself as his Prime Minister. Besides, he won over to his side Wahabi Bakht Khan, Administrator and Commander in Chief of the rebel forces in Delhi, as well as the Muslim population, by announcing Friday as a holiday and by publicising the aim of restoring pre-British political conditions in India. In turn, as a liberal gesture towards the Hindus, General Bakht Khan banned cow slaughter. These popular measures galvanised the Wahabis, the Hindus and the disaffected feudal lords to come together under the banner of the Mughal emperor and collaborate with rebel sepoys to overthrow the British government. This collaboration of the rebel sepoys and the civil population in South India under the leadership of Nana Sahib flared their nationalist feelings to rout out the alien rule from India. Thus, in the words of the author, the 1857 Sepoy Revolt was transformed into a ‘national’ Uprising. In contrast to the colonial view of John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of Punjab, calling the 1857 Uprising a military revolt, 1 the author, as a nationalist historian, has endorsed the views of Sashi Bhusan Chaudhuri that it was a ‘union of civil and military rebellions’. 2
Nana Sahib left the reins of political and military affairs in the hands of the Mughal emperor at the centres of revolts at Delhi and other places in North India and planned a mass rebellion against the British government in South India to regain Peshwaship, to restore the State of Satara to the scion of Chhatrapati Shivaji, rehabilitate the Maratha landlords to their lands confiscated by the Inam Commission and secure to the Bhils and Kolis their hereditary rights. His dominant position in Maharashtra as the son of Peshwa Baji Rao II, his liberal attitude towards the Wahabis and his pleading for protection to cows and Brahmins mobilised all the disaffected elements, such as the native sepoys of the Bombay Army, the Hindus who constituted the majority, the Wahabi leaders of the Muslim community as well as the tribals to join him in the revolt against British rule in South India. As the pursuing British columns prevented Nana Sahib and his great Maratha General Tatiya Tope to cross the river Narmada from entering South India, Nana Sahib masterminded a spate of rebellions through his messengers with the support of all the anti-British elements in the Maratha region, covering Konkan, Khandesh, the districts of Dharwar, Belgaum, Bijapur, Karwar and the semi-independent States of Sangli, Miraj, Kurandwad, Jamkhandi, Mudhol, Nargund, Savanur and several others. The course of the rebellions at the main centres at Belgaum, Kolhapur, Satara and Bombay helps understand the fate the rebellions in the Maratha region generally:
On 31 July 1857, Ramji Shirsat of Sawantwadi revolted in Kolhapur. The revolt was suppressed and twenty-six rebels were executed by blowing from the mouth of the gun but the ember of revolt continued in Kolhapur. On receiving messages from Nana Sahib to return to Deccan after conquering the territory of river Narmada, Chima Sahib, the younger brother of the raja of Kolhapur, revolted with the support of sepoys of Bombay regiments on 6 December 1857. The British forces quelled the revolt, disarmed the rebel sepoys and transported Chima Sahib to Karachi as a state prisoner.
Similarly in July 1857, Wahabi leader Mohammad Hussein, a munshi of the adjutant for the suppression of Thugi at Belgaum, conspired with the local population, the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-Ninth regiments of the Bombay Army, the neighbouring Maratha chiefs and the Wahabi leaders of Kolhapur, Poona and Hyderabad to revolt against the British government. The conspiracy was discovered and Hussein and his father Muzhur Ali and their three other associates were publicly punished by blowing from the mouth of the gun. Further, the Second European Detachment marched from Bombay to Belgaum and arrested ‘powerful agents’. Havaldar Major, the leader of the Twenty-ninth Native Regiment, was arrested and executed on 20 August 1857.
On 1 August 1857, Rango Bapuji commanded a rebellion to restore his master, Pratap Singh, son of Shahu Maharaj, to the State of Satara. The rebellion was suppressed; Rangoji escaped from the battlefield but Pratap Singh was arrested and deported to Karachi.
The tidings of the revolt at Meerut, Kanpur, Kolhapur, Satara and other places of South India created a stir among the native and British regiments as well as the people in Bombay, the headquarters of Bombay Presidency. Lord Elphinstone, the governor of Bombay, peremptorily deployed European soldiers across the city of Bombay for the protection and safety of Europeans and other residents from the impending danger of the revolt of the native regiments under the spell of Wahabis and Nana Sahib, the hero of the Kanpur rebellion and the legitimate claimant for Peshwaship. His fears were well founded. The news of the arrest of Wahabi leader, maulvi of Poona, and the conspiracy to murder all Europeans on Bakri-Id in the cantonment in Poona added to the fears of Europeans in Bombay. Charles Forjett, in charge of the Bombay police, neutralised the Wahabi apprehensions by holding a meeting with Muslim leaders but the spectre of Nana Sahib’s collusion with native sepoys persisted. The rumour that Jagannath Shankar Shet, a businessman and a prominent leader of the Hindu community, was ‘in touch with Nana Saheb and was indirectly assisting the rebels’ further struck the people with dismay in Bombay. Forjett, a keen observer of the political developments, removed the fears from the psyche of the people by detecting a conspiracy of the native sepoys of the Marine Battalion under the guidance of Ganga Dass, a priest and physician. This busted the plan of the conspirators to ‘exterminate the Europeans and plunder’ the city of Bombay and quickly march to Poona to avoid an encounter with the European force ‘to join the native Regiments there and proclaim the sovereignty of Nana Sahib as the Peshwa of the Deccan’. All the conspirators were arrested, tried and punished on the charge of hatching a plot for subversion of the British government. Drill Havaldar Syed Hussein of the Marine Battalion and Private Mangal Guddrea were blown from the gun in the open ground at Esplanade in Bombay on 15 October 1857; three sepoys were transported to Andaman and two sepoys were exiled. The whole course of events in Bombay reflected that the sepoys of native regiments were the kingpins all over South India in the plan of the return of Nana Sahib to his hereditary right of Peshwa.
In a like manner, the news of the 1857 Uprising from North India stirred the Bhils of Khandesh, Nasik and Ahmednagar and the Kolis of the Peth State to revolt against the British government. The Bhils revolted under the leadership of Bhima Nayak, Kajee Singh and Movasia Naik, claiming that they had ‘received
In context of the causes of failure of these rebellions, the author has rightly observed that the well-organised small British forces could overcome the ‘uncoordinated’ rebel forces, though they were in greater numbers than the British forces. Besides, the paucity of funds and harsh punishment to rebels restrained the rebel forces to continue their campaigns against the British forces.
The author has stated that the religious and political grievances of the native sepoys, Wahabis, feudal lords and the Hindus galvanised them to rise against British power in South India like in North India, in 1857. These grievances were revealed in the resistance of the sepoys against the use of cartridges greased with the fat of cows and pigs, in the people’s anger over conversion to Christianity and in the antagonism of Nana Sahib, Pratap Singh, Maratha landlords and tribals against the British regime for depriving them of their hereditary rights. Nana Sahib demonstrated his political sagacity and statesmanship by aligning the Hindus and tribals with the powerful Wahabi leaders of the Muslim community who were spread over in Delhi and Lucknow in North India and also in Bombay, Poona, Belgaum, Hyderabad and other parts of South India. The Wahabis had established their contacts with native sepoys in the cantonments and they also promoted Hindu-Muslim unity, denigrated the British rule by calling it
Surprisingly, like the colonial writers, the author asserts that the Presidency of Madras was ‘least rebellious’ during the 1857 Uprising. This view requires a review as Professor N. Rajendran of Bharathidasan University, Tiruchi, narrates a different story on the basis of the archival records preserved at the state archives, Chennai (former Madras, now in Tamil Nadu). In August 1857, the Eighth Madras Native Infantry Regiment revolted at Poonamallee (25 miles from Madras) while in November 1858, the Indian sepoys of the Eighteenth Regiment took up arms against the Madras government at Vellore. The Madras government by strict vigilance and stringent punishments prevented the reoccurrence of the sepoy revolts in Madras Presidency as is evident by a report of the Madras government recording the court martial of 1,044 sepoys of the Madras Army by November 1858 for their sympathy and support to the 1857 rebellion. However, these draconian measures could not control the growing discontentment among the general masses. It was evident by the circulation of the ‘seditious pamphlets’ and publications in vernacular newspapers in Madras, Triplicane, North Arcot and Salem and also by the revolutionary activities in Thanjavur (in southern Tamil Nadu) and an uprising in Chengelpet. Moreover, in July 1857, the insurgents of the Madras Presidency extended their area of operation by developing their ‘links with other centres in South India like Belgaum and Kolhapur for the end of the British regime’. Along with this, a Sanyasi called Mulbagalu Swami also revealed the growing influence of the rebel leader Nana Sahib in Madras Presidency by preaching among his devotees during daily worship in Bhavani (near Coimbatore) for the restoration of Nana Sahib as Peshwa and for the liquidation of British rule. 4 Thus, Nana was hailed as a national leader throughout the 1857 Uprising across South India like the Mughal emperor in North India.
This well-researched work has made a breakthrough in the historiography of the 1857 Uprising by highlighting the role of Maharashtra in the National War of Independence. It is an addition to the work of Surendra Nath Sen 5 which has not paid attention to the contribution of Maharashtra to the 1857 Uprising. Moreover, the narrative reveals distinct characteristics of the rebel sepoys of Bombay Presidency. They joined the Uprising as the auxiliaries of the Maratha and Wahabi leaders and never strove to assume the leadership of the Uprising like their counterparts in Bengal Presidency. In this context, the author rightly states that their collaboration with the civil population transformed the 1857 rebellion from a sepoy revolt to a People’s War of Independence.
The narrative focuses on the rise of Nana Sahib as the leader, originator and arbitrator of the 1857 rebellion in Maharashtra like the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar in North India. It was evident from his pervading influence all over South India throughout the period of the Uprising. Hence, even without his presence on the scenes of rebellions in South India, Nana Sahib could organise and control them from his sojourn in North India through his messengers and correspondence with rebel leaders. Of course, the success of the British Army to prevent his entry into South India averted a mass rising in Maharashtra but it certainly prompted the suppression of the rebellions there. Thus, Professor David’s narrative on the magnificent role of Nana Sahib in the 1857 Uprising in South India has added new dimensions to the 1857 historiography.
This is a profound study of the 1857 Uprising in Maharashtra. It is based on a wide range of archival and non-archival sources preserved at the India Office Library London, the National Archives of India, New Delhi, and the Maharashtra state archives, Mumbai, besides the vernacular newspapers (Marathi newspapers), autobiographies and memoirs and relevant secondary sources. The comprehensive bibliography is a beacon for researchers working on the 1857 Uprising. However, a concluding chapter and a map of South India would have advanced the knowledge of researchers on the course of the 1857 Uprising in South India.