1857 and other landmarks
Shahid Alam reflects on history, on decline and fall
The mesmerizing, poignant cover picture of Sakhawat Hussain's Jamuna-Gumtir Teerey Bhromon Kotha in so many ways captures the essence of the book: the story of India's War of Independence of 1857, which, for understandable reasons, the British prefer to call The Great Indian Mutiny. So much can be read into the picture, particularly when combined with the hindsight of history. The octogenarian last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, supported by an attendant and walking staff, is surrendering to Captain (later Major) Hodson of the British East India Company. As a symbol of the surrender, another British officer is holding on to the Emperor's waistband and the sword bequeathed to him down the line of a succession of ancestors going back to the glory days of the Great Mughals. And what splendid and glorious personalities they were: Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb. After all these years, I still recall my professor at Boston University, Walter Clemens, telling the class that the height of human civilization was reached during the reign of the Great Mughals. Everything associated with the splendour of civilization had perforce had to go on a downslide, not in the sense of having become moribund, but of having become rather humdrum. Just as the Mughal Empire went on a steep decline with the death of Aurangzeb, and passed into the history books with Zafar's surrender to the Cambridge University-educated Hodson who was soon after to personally shoot to death two sons and a grandson of the Emperor and send him their severed heads. Hussain, a keen traveler and history buff, especially in terms of South Asia, laments the passing of the Mughal Empire in 1857 (although the armed struggle against the British continued for another two years), to be replaced by ninety years of direct British rule. While the failure of the revolt of the Indian sepoys ushered in direct British suzerainty over the subcontinent, the act of the armed struggle also signaled the end of 100 years of East India Company rule (with the Battle of Plassey of 1757 being taken as the benchmark of its ascendancy) and, as the author believes, probably engendered nationalistic feelings among the Indians that restricted British colonial rule to 90 years. This conclusion apparently does not cohere with his (again cogent) assertion that that the British used the ploy of divida et impera (divide and rule) of setting up the Muslims and the Hindus against each other to facilitate the perpetuation of its raj, but there is compelling evidence to suggest that that the seeds of nationalism, of ridding the subcontinent of the colonial masters, had been sown in the two communities in 1857. Hussain concentrates a good deal of attention on the commanders and leaders of the rebellion, Bakht Khan, Raja Nahar Singh, Nana Sahib, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Begum Hazrat Mahal, and Tantya Tope, but also mentions the numerous intrigues committed by influential Indians with the British (shades of 1757) that facilitated the British victory, including one of Bahadur Shah Zafar's son's father-in-law, Mirza Elahi Bux. He does not fail to mention the loyalist sepoys who fought in the key battles, and the crucial support provided by the Gurkhas, Sikhs and Pathans. In fact, besides the Kingdom of Nepal, 21 princely states, notable among them Hyderabad, Jaipur, Udaipur, Marwar, Bikaner, Kashmir, Bhopal, Kapurthala, and Patiala, came down in favour of the British. Hussain, again probably correctly, concludes that the British would have lost had the Punjab not come to their aid. However, Hussain also directs attention to the lack of proper military leadership among the sepoys that allowed the well-led British forces to gradually gain total ascendancy. The British had the brilliant Lt. Gen. James Outram and Maj. Gen. Henry Havelock leading operations that culminated in a pincer movement by the two that caused Lucknow to fall in their hands. Maj. Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir Patrick Grant, then C-in-C of British forces in India, had sent the two to relieve besieged Kanpur and Lucknow. When his term as C-in-C ended, Maj. Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir Colin Campbell replaced him and brought the war to a successful conclusion. But I am equally struck by the chutzpah shown by Hodson who, with only a handful of soldiers, went to Humayun's Tomb to arrest Bahadur Shah Zafar. It must have been an unbelievable act of bravado because he succeeded in ordering 6000 sepoys who were in the vicinity to lay down their arms before attending to the Mughal Emperor's surrender and, later, his sons' and grandson's murders. They might have been demoralized due to defeats, but it still boggles the mind that 6000 armed men submitted in such an abject fashion as their emperor was being humiliated (many were soon to be hung or blown to bits by being strapped in front of cannons). The book is, of course, not entirely devoted to 1857. The author dwells at some length on Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, and the extreme communal forces that carried it out. He intersperses his travelogue with diverse historical associations with the places he visits, plus adds astute observations and comments that are relevant to the present day. Admirable in the author is his quest to find out-of-the-way places and landmarks, as is evidenced by the length he went to find the ridge and the flagstaff tower that were instrumental in the British victory in Delhi, and other notable, though less remembered, places and establishments that holds great significance in Indian history. He remarks on how the Indian government takes pains to preserve these monuments for people to know and understand the venerable land and its people, culture and history, but also deplores that Bangladesh is doing its best to destroy or let fall into ruins a number of outstanding Mughal structures in Dhaka. A nation is known by the state of its culture, and, by this yardstick, Bangladesh is not faring too well. There are just too many philistines without much of a cultural pedigree out to degrade the rich cultural heritage of Bangladesh. Hussain had taken his son Shafaq on that trip partly to educate him on the fascinating history that the subcontinent is blessed with. The author at one point reflects on the many wars, conflicts, palace intrigues, quarrels, and love stories that make the history of medieval India so romantic. He also rues the scenario that the Indian national museum chooses to caption Lt. Gen. AAK Niazi's capitulation to Lt. Gen. JS Aurora in Dhaka as "Signing of Surrender Documents Indo-Pak war 1971" but keeps mum on Bangladesh's involvement. The harsh reality of the nation-state-based international system is that a country will look to its interest first and foremost, and, in this case, India is doing just that. Hussain's comments on the degradation of Dhaka are noteworthy. Contrasting the sprawling greenery of New Delhi, he characterizes Dhaka as an ugly brick-and-concrete slum. A little more than a decade ago I had called it a "glitzy mega slum" while reviewing a book for The Asiatic Society journal. It has become worse, and thoroughly deserves the title of the world's least livable city that has been bestowed on it by The Economist in 2012. The philistines are running amuck! The author has some astute comments to spice up the book. Not that it is boring. On the contrary, it should hold great interest for the historical travelogue aficionado. Back to his observation: "Politics and self-interest steer people away from truth and reality." He also notes how the political leaders of Bangladesh and other South Asian countries are fawned upon and showered with lavish gifts by sycophants and party activists. This is a terrible practice in a poor country like Bangladesh. Hussain spends some time on individual characters, famed and not-so-famed. He recounts how the tact and calm (part of the well-known British "stay calm and carry on" in tight situations mentality) of the last Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, succeeded in preventing a potentially ferocious riot between the Hindus and the Muslims in the wake of Gandhi's killing. Drawing on the relocation of the Ghazni Gate, he shows how then Governor-General Lord Ellenborough strove not only to distort history, but also to create communal tensions between the two major religious communities. He recalls the artistic temperament of the ill-fated last Nawab of Lucknow, Wajed Ali Shah, who revived the dying arts of Kathak and Bharatnatyam from going into oblivion and making them flourish. And he relates the interesting story of a walking companion of his in Dhaka, Dr. Tanvir Ahmed Khan, who comes to the park all dressed up, does a round or two of strolling, and then whisks him off to a sumptuous breakfast at another friend's house. I will lay any bet that Dr. Khan does not lose any girth as a result of his strenuous exercise! Jamuna-Gumtir Teerey Bhromon Kotha is a good read.
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