1857-8

Stef

On the west bank of the River Jumna, upstream from the King of Delhi’s palace, there once stood the magnificent house of Sir Thomas Metcalfe. It was planned to house his 25,000 books, relics of Napoleon and oil paintings, as well as reflect the importance of his position as British representative at the King’s court.He was a meticulous, fastidious(?) man who could not bear to see women eat cheese, and , if they were to eat mangoes and oranges they should at least have the decency to do so in private.In the late 1840s his daughter Emily came to live with him and later set down a record of his orderly life, typical of other rich sahibs(?) of the time:Sir Thomas rose at five o’clock precisely, and, after eating a light breakfast, walked up and down in his dressing gown delivering orders to silent, submissive servants….after breakfast he would smoke for half an hour from a hookah placed on an embroidered carpet….If any servant did not perform his duties satisfactorily Sir Thomas would send for a pair of white kid gloves, then pinch the culprit’s ear.

A man of firm, decided views and of masterful disposition, Lord Dalhousie – as Governor-General of India in Calcutta 1848 – displayed a capacity for work which had become remarkable with each passing month. Sitting down at his desk at 9.30 each morning he never quit it, even while eating his lunch, till 5.30 in the afternoon. After eight years, during which all the reforms he tenaciously supported were pushed through against all opposition, he returned home to England at 43, already a dying man. These reforms included taking over as much of India under EIC control as possible, changing the first language to English which was that used in all schools, treating anything Muslim or Hindu as second rate.His successor was Lord Canning whose capacity for hard work was just as great as Dalhousie’s, but whose opinions were less rigid and more humane. He was a handsome man, ambitious and determined, warm and amusing in private but reserved and cold with those he knew less well.

‘One great characteristic of Canning was his truthfulness…and inaccuracy of any kind was what he was most severe upon in others.’Lady Canning, at thirty-eight, amusing, popular and a beauty, did not want to go to India any more than her husband did initially. But in the end, it was she who persuaded him

to go because he was becoming dangerously attached to another woman! Lord Canning wrote:any attempt to go out …makes one gasp and dissolve immediately, and an open window or door lets in a flood as though one were passing though the mouth of a foundry…

With the advent of the summer rains there came cockroaches as big as mice, bats in the bedrooms, lizards crawling up the walls and red ants, so numerous , that the legs of furniture had to be placed in saucers of water. One servant was employed solely to wipe the damp from the writing tables but even so, everything - paper, books, shoes, gloves, even Canning’s dispatch box – quietly rotted away.

a young man in the 5th Fusiliers, found life in the musketry depot at Dum-Dum very easy:After morning parade [I take] a stroll into the jungle behind us with a gun to shoot any curious plumage bird which I [am] fond of stuffing afterwards…. For him, fresh from England, the fruits ofthe kitchen garden were nothing compared with the apples of Kent or the plums of Norfolk:

The mango with a flavour like turpentine; the banana with a flavour like an over-ripe pear; the guava which has a taste of strawberries; and the custard apple which has no perceptible taste at all.

Home, for an unmarried subaltern such as he, was usually a brick built bungalow, coated with white plaster and approached by a flight of steps leading up to a veranda which extended down the sides as well as across the front. One of a long line of many others all much alike, it would stand in a large compound of three or four acres enclosed by an earth mound or ditch or straggling hedge of prickly pears and cactus. His bedroom would consist of worm-eaten bedstead enclosed by white gauze mosquito curtains. Instead of a mattress, which would be too hot and harbour fleas, two cotton quilts would be stretched over the knotted ropes of the bed.

This room would also house a punkah whose job it was to fan the air above his master’s head. Cubitt had thirteen servants.

Indian Mutiny (Sepoy Mutiny) 1857-1859: Lt. De Kantzow at Mynpooree holding the mutineering 9th Sepoys at bay for three hours until rescued by an influential Indian., Wood engraving published London, c1880

A hundred years before, the insensitivity, disdain and lack of curiosity which characterized so many English residents in India would have been barely conceivable. But the Age of Reason had been followed by an age in which Englishmen assumed – as did Brigadier-General John Jacob – that the British were masters of India because they were ‘ superior beings by nature to the Asiatic.’ William Howard Russell wrote:

The fact is, I fear, that the favourites of heaven, the civilizers of the world….are naturally the most intolerant in the world…‘By Jove! Sir,’ exclaims the major, who has by this time got to the walnut stage of argument, to which he has arrived by gradations of sherry, port, ale and Madeira, ’By Jove! Those niggers are such a confounded lazy sensual set, cramming themselves with ghee and sweetmeats, and smoking their cursed chillums all day and all night, that you might as well think to train pigs.’

Recall 100 years before the English married Indian women, spoke the language mixed

socially?

Enfield Paper Cartridge

Given this attitude and the perceived insensitivies of Dalhousie’s reforms, little wonder then that the powder keg was ripe for explosion. So what set it off?

The sepoy, being a Brahmin, had naturally refused: his caste would not allow him to grant such a request; he had just scoured his lota; the man would defile it by his touch. ‘You will soon lose your caste altogether,’ the labourer told him, ‘For the Europeans are going to make you bite cartridges soaked in cow and pork fat. And then where will your caste be?News of the labourer’s vindictive warning had soon spread throughout the lines; and Captain J.A.Wright, the sepoy’s European officer, had thought it advisable to report the incident to the General commanding the Division. His commander, Major- General J.B. Hearsey, whose knowledge of Indian history was prodigious, displayed good sense by suggesting that the sepoys be allowed to grease their cartridges

One day in January 1857 a low-caste labourer at Dum-Dum asked a sepoy for a drink of water from his lota.

with a substance that didn’t offend them. But by the time his suggestion has passed through the tortuous channels of military communications, trouble had already erupted elsewhere.On the 9th February, General Hearsey spoke in fluent Hindustani to the assembled sepoys. Their objections to the new cartridges were completely groundless and it was absurd ‘for one moment to believe they were to be forced to become Christians; coercion being contrary to the tenets of Christianity itself……’(another of their worries). Colonel Mitchell, a man of neither sense nor tact, harangued his troops twice at Berhampore, and twice was defeated by their sullen disobedience.On the 29th March the powder keg ignited. The General was in his quarters when a lieutenant dashed in to tell him there was a riot in the native lines.

Hearsey left immediately for the parade ground of the 34th to find Mangal Pande, under the influence of a drug, rampaging about with a loaded musket in front of the quarter- guard. He was yelling:

‘Come out you bhainchutes, the Europeans are here! Why aren’t you getting ready ?It’s for our religion, From biting these cartridges we shall become infidels. Get ready! Turn out all of you ! You have incited me to do this and now you bhainchutes, you will not follow me!

The English Sergeant-Major, Hewson, summoned by a native officer, ran over to the jemadar to demand why he did not arrest the man. ‘What can I do?’ the jemadar replied helplessly, ’The naick has gone to the adjutant. The havildar is gone

to the field officer. Am I to take him myself?’ By then Adjutant Lieutenant Baugh, had arrived on the scene shouting ‘Where is he? Where is he?’But he was brought up short by Hewson who yelled ’Ride to the right, Sir, for your life. The sepoy will fire at you!’ At this point Pande opened fire, hitting the Adjutant’s horse bringing both to the ground. Baugh jumped to his feet, fired his pistol at the sepoy, missed, threw the pistol in his face and charged towards him followed by the Sergeant-Major. The sepoy stood his ground, drawing out his tulwar, slashing at Baugh and cutting him on the shoulder and neck. Hewson was knocked down from behind by a blow from the sepoy’s musket and both he and Baugh would have been killed had not a Muslim sepoy, Shaikh Paltu dashed forward and gripped Pande round the waist. In coming to their rescue, Paltu was entirely on his own.

The other sepoys - Muslim and Hindu alike - were busy hurling stones and shoes at his back. Paltu, by now injured, backed off in one direction while Baugh and Hewson backed off in the other.It took General Hearsey to gallop into the parade ground and restore order. As soon as he saw what had happened, the General demanded why the mutinous sepoy had not been arrested. It was explained that the guard would not obey orders. ‘We’ll see about that.’ Hearsey rode off towards the guard.‘His musket is loaded,’ somebody warned him. ‘Damn his musket!’Hearsey rode up to the quarter guard and shaking his sword at the jemadar said ‘Listen to me. The first man who refuses to march when I give the word is a dead man. Quick march!’ And they did.Mangal Pande turned his musket muzzle towards his breast hurriedly, touching the trigger with his toe.

Unfortunately it did not kill him. At his trial he was asked,‘Were you taking any drugs?’‘ Yes, I have been taking bhang and opium of late. I was not aware at the time of what I was doing.’But when he was asked, as he often was, about those who had incited him to mutiny, he gave no names and simply said, ‘I have nothing more to say. I have no evidence.’So Mangal Pande, whose common caste name was soon to be adopted by all European troops as an epithet for mutineers everywhere, was hanged on April 8th along with the jemadar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLE542NoWC8

the whole saga to life.

In May 1857, Brigadier Archdale Wilson returned to duty at Meerut - after a period spent convalescing from small pox - to find his garden shrivelled by the sun and his horses ‘all grown as fat as butter.’ To add insult to injury there was a fuss which he hadn't got to the bottom of over ‘some mutinous fellows in the 3rd Light Cavalry.’ In essence, the skirmishers of the cavalry had attended a parade on the 24th April to learn the new Enfield firing drill but had refused to defile themselves by touching the cartridges. Informed by two Muslim naiks that the cartridges had been greased with both beef and pork fat the men took a solemn oath to have nothing to do with them.George Monro Carmichael-Smyth (their Colonel) believed that once they were told they could ‘tear off’ the ends of the cartridges and not bite them, all would be well.

He was not, you realize, the brightest light in the harbour:I ordered each man in succession to take cartridges but with the exception of five men, they all refused to do so. None of them assigned any reason for refusing, beyond saying that they would get a bad name.The day after, it was confirmed at the court of inquiry that the cartridges offered were exactly the same as those that had been in use for the past thirty three years. At their subsequent trial, all were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for ten years. A recommendation for mercy was rejected by Major-General W.H.Hewitt and , on the 9th May, surrounded by European troops, and under a dark sky full of storm clouds, their sentences were read out, they were stripped of their uniforms, their boots removed and their ankles shackled.

As they passed our regiment carrying their boots…a number of them threw them at the Colonel, cursing him loudly in Hindustani, and calling to their comrades to remember them. [Lieutenant Hugh Gough went on to say having visited some of the in gaol] Old soldiers, with many medals gained in desperately fought battles for their English masters, wept bitterly, lamenting their sad fate, and imploring [us] to save them from their future.To be stripped of their uniforms was disgrace enough, but to be forced to suffer the added humiliation of being publicly fettered like common criminals was more, they said, than they ought to have been asked to bear. A worse punishment could not have been hit upon.Gough was seated on his veranda soon after this event. when a native officer of the regiment called to inform him that a mutiny would take place on 10th May and the prisoners would be released. Gough took this warning seriously, particularly in view of the fact that ever since the arrest of the men there had been fires and violent arguments in the bazaar.

He went to Carmichael-Smyth who ‘treated the communication with contempt’ and reproved him for ‘listening to such idle words.’ He also spoke to the Brigadier Archdale Wilson and to Major-General W.H.Hewitt and they were all incredulous. The native troops at Meerut were ‘behaving steady and soldierly.’At about 6pm on the 10th several officers were sitting talking quietly in their Commanding Officer’s bungalow when they were called down to the men’s lines - seventy badmashes from the bazaar were clamouring outside the regimental magazine. Some sepoys had assured the prostitutes of the bazaar – who were taunting them about their failure to rescue their imprisoned comrades – that they need not worry, for native troops were going to mutiny that very evening.

By the time the officers arrived at the lines everything was dangerously close to an explosion. Soon, the lines were in uproar, with sepoys and badmashes firing off weapons in all directions. The Colonel of the 11th Native Infantry galloped across ‘to see what all the noise was about.’ His horse was shot; and then he was shot, and within minutes his sepoys started shooting at all Europeans in sight. (See overleaf)Not many British officers in native regiments were as fortunate as our friend Carmichael-Smyth who managed to escape from his bungalow. The two friends he had been entertaining to dinner – the Surgeon –Major and the Veterinary Surgeon – were both shot, the latter fatally. Several others were murdered by ruffians from the bazaar including John McNabb whose mangled body could only be identified because of the silk braid on his alpaca coat.

Mrs. Chambers, the pregnant wife of the Adjutant of the 11th Native Infantry was murdered and mutilated by a Muslim butcher from the bazaar. Mrs. Dawson, wife of a veterinary surgeon, was in bed with smallpox when a mob surrounded her bungalow. Her husband came onto the balcony to protect her; but, after he was shot, flaming torches were thrown at her until her clothes caught fire and she was burned to death. Another woman, never certainly identified, was seen being dragged along in a palka-gharl while a sowar, riding beside the carriage, stabbed her repeatedly, though she was already dead.

The mutineers were heard to shout ’Quick brothers, quick! Delhi! Delhi!’ as they headed for the old Mughal capital forty miles to the south.

Gough recorded: …the lines were being burnt and there was a general rush to the magazine where the men helped themselves to the ammunition…As for any efforts on my part to bring them to a sense of their duties or obedience to my orders they were useless….there were loud shouts of ‘Maro! Maro! (Kill him! Kill him!)….Seeing all was lost, and that my power as an officer was absolutely gone....[I] left at a gallop…..

There were those who found Henry Havelock absurd’ an old fossil dug up and only fit to be turned into pipe clay’. Scarcely more than five feet in his socks, he walked as though he had iron ramrods in the back of his jacket and never dined without his sword together with a quantity of medals. Lady Canning thought him as ‘almost ridiculous’ yet, like many others, she came to respect him:We believe he will do well. No doubt he is fussy and tiresome, but his little old, stiff figure looks as fit and active for use as he were made of steel.He was 62 years old. His hair and moustache were white; his brown, leathery face deeply lined; his firmly set mouth fringed by a beard of extremely old fashioned cut. Born in Sunderland he had wanted to be a lawyer but was obliged to accept a commission procured for him by his eldest brother.

Once in the army he displayed an eager determination to succeed, but he had never achieved his main ambition - to command an army in the field. Now was his opportunity. His view….:

Mutineers must be attacked and annihilated; and if there are few in any regiments, and not immediately announced to be shot or hanged, the whole regiment must be deemed guilty and given up to prompt military execution

Colonel James Neill had duly obliged at Benares when frightened sepoys, some Sikhs and some irregular cavalry started firing. Gallows were immediately erected after they had been subdued and scores of natives suspected of rebellion were hanged on them. Hanging parties also went out into the surrounding districts and ‘ amateur hangmen were not wanting to the occasion.’ One gentleman boasted of the numbers he had ‘finished off in an artistic manner’ with mango trees for gibbets and elephants for drops, the victims of this wild justice

being strung up, as though for pastime, in ‘the form of a figure of eight.’

The British response generally to the uprising was ferocious and bloodthirsty.

In July 1859, calling for a day of thanksgiving, Lord Canning announced:

War is at an end. Rebellion has been put down….The presence of large forces in the field has ceased to be necessary. Order is re-established; and peaceful pursuits have everywhere been resumed.

The question was of course, how to prevent another outbreak of such violence?

The hanging of two participants in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Albumen silver print by Felice Beato, 1858

There were some who advocatedharshness. That the British were there to rule over a subservient race on whom civilized values must be imposed.There were others who believed that the British had been punished by God for ignoring the teachings of the Bible and Christianity, that the people of India had been provided with the material benefits of civilization but not the spiritual ones. From henceforth caste should be abolished, Hindu and Muslim law replaced by British law and the Christian religion taught in all Government schools.There were those who saw the problem purely in military terms: the events would never have arisen had there been more European regiments in India and more and better British officers. Lord Canning and his supporters insisted that what was now required in India was a spirit of reconciliation and not retribution, that the friendship of the Indian people was to be desired, not their enforced submission.

In fact the Government had already decided that harshness was not to inform their policy. On the 1st November 1858 a proclamation was read out all over India that the East India Company was to be abolished, to be replaced by the British Government, and that the Queen offered pardon to all those rebels who had not taken part in the murder of Europeans. Religions toleration would be respected as would ancient customs. Queen Victoria became Empress of India and so begins another story.