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1857 AND
THE SIKHS
 New
research is revealing astounding facts. The entire view that Sikhs
sided with the British in 1857 is false. Patiala, Nabha, Jind and
Kapurthala cis-Sutlej rajas, the men to send soldiers against Zafar
to Delhi, were even anti-Ranjit Singh. They sided with the British
both during Ranjit Singh’s lifetime and the two Punjab wars. After
Ranjit Singh’s 1840 death, his Khalsa Army actually took over the
control of the Lahore Durbar.
Like Bengal Army sepoys, Khalsa Army soldiers too were “peasants in
uniform.” After being disbanded in 1849, they fanned out into the
Punjab countryside. During 1857, Mohar Singh, a Khalsa Army veteran,
openly supported Bahadur Shah Zafar, going as far as declaring a
Khalsa-Mughal Raj in Ropar.
So
it was only the cis-Sutlej Sikhs that supported the British; but,
here too, in 1858, at Dera Ismail Khan in present-day Pakistan, the
10th Sikh Infantry revolted. British officers and Patiala, Nabha and
Jind rulers are on record stating that they cannot trust their
soldiers, and that even cis-Sutlej Sikhs are “getting excited by
news from Awadh and the Hindustani areas.”
This is sensational stuff, for the entire 10th Sikh Infantry revolt
news has been suppressed. Students of history are simply unaware of
the major pro-Bahadur Shah Zafar role — which included the
Benaras-Jaunpur centred revolt of the Ludhiana Regiment — that Sikhs
played during the independence war. Zafar’s proclamations and the
1857 “national song” mention Sikhs naturally, along with Hindus and
Muslims, as patriotic Indians.
No
less revealing is the Bombay Army role, and the Maharashtra-Gujarat-Karnataka
risings. Bombay Army Infantry and Cavalry units revolted in Kolhapur,
Satara, Karachi, Bombay, Aurangabad, Nasirabad and Ahmedabad. No one
knows that two Bombay Infantry sepoys, one Hindu and one Muslim,
were blown up by a cannon in what today stands as Mumbai’s Azad
Maidan.
It
is commonly believed and propagated that the Madras Army and the
Madras Presidency were bereft of risings. Yet in Madras, at a place
called Vaniyambadi, full of Labbai Muslims, the 8th Madras Cavalry
rose up in revolt. Elsewhere, led by ThevarVellala sepoys, several
of the 37th Madras Infantry men deserted the army. Then in Vellore,
in 1858, Madras Army sepoys killed their British officers.
In
the Andhra-Telangana country, Girijan tribes of the coastal-Godavari
belt rose under a Reddi leader and a Muslim-Pathan ex-soldier.
In
Adilabad and Warangal, and Cuddapah and Nellore in Rayalseema,
Pathans and Sheikhs formed a small army with Gond and Kapu help. In
Kerala, Moplah agitators, helped by Ezvhas — the Kerala Scheduled
Castes — and Namboodri Brahmins, staged risings in the Malabar
region.
In the post-1857 period, it was not just the RSS which killed the
1857 legacy. A large Parsi-Marwari-Bania section, which supported
the British in 1857 and dominated the Congress-led freedom struggle,
ensured the roll-back of the 1857 Kshatriya-Pathan peasantwarrior
India. It was this very mentality which allowed India’s partition.
India’s Bania secularism also failed to prevent Babri mosque’s
demolition, India’s arm twisting on the nuclear deal, and Muslim
persecution — in effect, the maltreatment of the very forces which
fought against the British in 1857. It is this India which refuses
to honour its national heroes.
(Excerpted from an article in The
Asian Age)
16 May, 2007
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