The 1857 War of Independence or Great Mutiny has been directly seared into the national psyches of many countries and impacted a great many more countries indirectly. The Great British Empire, on which the sun never set, arose properly right after 1857 and lasted for about a hundred years before disintegrating extremely rapidly. I just finished reading William Dalrymple’s latest Magnus Opus, The Last Mughal, (ISBN0747587264) which tells the story of Delhi before, during and after the mutiny; describes the work of the major protagonists; the searing indictment of how religion was used and misused; outlines how one empire collapsed and another was born from the ashes; tells of the atrocities and ideals; explains the impact on royalty as well as on the common man and the pitiful end of the Last Great Mughal. Needless to say, this is a very powerful book and made a deep impact on me for a whole host of frequently contradictory emotions and reasons.
A British Old Soldiers Association few weeks ago tried to pay respects to the British Soldiers killed in 1857 and buried in Meerut in 1857 and ended up with protests and vandalism of the graves. That’s how emotive this subject is. An ex-serviceman site in the UK expressed extreme surprise at the emotions and exclaimed rather naively, “surely they have forgotten about it by now?”. No, Sir, they have not forgotten.
I have talked before about how the same event can be looked at differently by different people, relating to their national biases, their education systems, their national ethos and a lot of other factors. And I have yet to see any event other than the 1857 war which has so many different interpretations. The English saw 1857 as a great mutiny, but also that an accidental empire wasn’t really the way to go about it. It got rid of the East India Company and ruled India by direct rule. Also the sheer size of the British India Army, as well as the huge economy, gave a further fillip to the Empire building in Africa, South East Asia, China and other places.
Continued on at: http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2007/09/war-of-independence-or-great-mutiny.html
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Bhaskar Dasgupta
With a grain of piquant salt!
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