The sparse and meagre manner in which the UPA
Government has treated the 150th anniversary
of 1857 shows a surprising indifference to history
and the lessons we have to learn from it. And
what can be said of the UPA government can also
be said about all other political parties. It
is as if no one wants truly to be reminded that
prior to 1857 there was no India, only a conglomeration
of fendal rulers who were content to rule over
their little fiefdoms and had no concept of
a great and united India stretching from Kanya
Kumari to the towering heights of the Himalayas.
The British unwittingly shook Indian ways of
thinking and living and pulled it from morass
of feudalism to the unplanned glory of a united
people.
The British may have done it for their own
purpose. It was not Macaulay who conceived the
idea of imposing English in India's educational
system but Charles Grant, adviser to Lord Cornwallis,
then Governor General in 1792, a good six decades
prior to 1857.
Upto 1830 there was no uniform system of education
prevailing in the country. Blame the British
as much as one can, but it remains a fact that
in making Indians their slaves, they turned
the slaves into Indians. The British opened
the world to India and when they initiated English
courses in Delhi College in 1828 to ?effect
the complete uplift and reformation of the 'uneducated
and half-barbarous people' they had opened the
door to another - and a brave new - world to
Indians.
Charles Trevelyan was to say in 1828: 'Christians,
Mohammadans and Hindu boys of every shade and
colour and variety of descent... standing side
by side in the same class, engaged in the common
pursuit of English literature, contending for
the same honours and forced to acknowledge the
existence of superior merit in their comrades
of the lowest as well as those of the highest
caste. This is a great point gained'. Trevelyan
added: 'Habits of friendly communication will
thus be established between all classes, they
will insensibly become one people and the process
of enlightening our subjects will proceed simultaneously
with that of uniting them among themselves'.
A most remarkable statement to make. For this
one thought, the British can be forgiven for
all the atrocities they committed prior to and
following 1857. Macaulay's Minutes, first issued
on 2 February, 1835 was merely a follow up of
Trevelyan's larger dream of uniting India into
one people through the medium of English. It
was a gift to a nation then wallowing in feudal
misery. And this was acknowledged by no less
a figure than Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in a preface
to a book by A N Sen. The 1857 rebellion, Azad
said, ought not to be a matter of political
polymic as it has been when it was claimed to
be a war for the lost privilege of the nobility.
Rather, he declared, Indian national character
had sunk so low that no agreed leadership could
be found to unite the people. Disjointed protests
faced an organised and cohesive foe. When he
wrote this, Azad was president of the Indian
National Congress.
One can compare 1857 with the Civil War in
the United States fought about the same time.
The population of North America in 1860 was
only 31 million. Both the Confederacy and the
Union resorted to conscription during April
1862 and March 1863. The total enlistment in
the Union Army numbered 2,898,304 and in the
Confederate Army about 1,406,180. There was
no conscription in India because there was no
Central Authority to do so.
In 1857 India's population exceeded 200 million
but the total number of civilians and Indian
soldiers killed in the First War of Independence
just exceeded 1,00,000 whereas the American
Civil War cost the lives of 3,60,000 Union,
and 2,60,000 Confederate soldiers. We can, of
course attribute this to the lack of communication
among Indian rebels, both princes and people.
There were great leaders like Rani Laxmi of
Jhansi and Tantia Tope, not to speak of Mangal
Pande and Khan Bahadur Khan and Nana Saheb.
But they all fought independently and not in
cohesion. Communication between them was poor.
Information passed from word of mouth or through
sawars riding on horses. The British had introduced
telegraph but that was strictly for British
use. Communication between favarious factions
of Indian rebels was poor, even when it existed.
The British took advantage of that fact. And
inevitably, the rebels lost. They lost also
because there were ?traitors? in their midst.
In May 1857 the most exclusive Bengal Army had
12,000 Britishers, 16,000 Punjabi infantry and
1,500 Gurkhas. Between 1857 and 1859 the number
of Indian soldiers in the Punjab Frontier Force
rose from 25,000 to 43,736 to 52,446. On 1 April,
1858, the loyal elements of the Bengal Army
and the Punjab Frontier Force comprised 80,053
Indians. The man who betrayed Tantia Tope was
an Indian, Raja Man Singh. The British also
depended on the armies of the Indian Princes
who remained loyal to the Company, though, it
must be said, several Princely armies also joined
the rebels. The point to all this is that it
is impossible to generalise the reasons behind
1857. M N Roy, a leftist, saw in 1857 the shattering
of the last vestiges of feudal power and the
beginning of a struggle between a worn-out feudal
system and an merging commercial capitalism.
Another leftist, Rajani Palme Dutt saw in 1857
?a major peasant revolt? even though it was
led by decaying feudal forces fighting to get
back their privileges and turn back the tide
of foreign domination. Whatever the cause, 2007
is a time to review the last 150 years and see
which way India is moving. Currently tremendous
changes are taking place in India of which neither
the UPA nor the parties of the NDA seem aware
of. The revolt of the Gujjars is a small sample
of what is happening in India below the surface.
Indian society is in a ferment but there is
no leadership to provide a vision to the people
as a whole. What is happening goes beyond the
stereotype thinking of the Congress or the BJP,
let alone the leftists. A new type of politics
is emerging which calls for careful study, clear
understanding and more importantly, right guidance.
Intraparty fighting just will not do. (The author
is indebted for most of the material used in
this article to Economic & Political Weekly
(12-18 May) to which grateful thanks are given).
