Vakkom Village (Thiruvananthapuram District) , KERALA :
On September 10, 1943, a young man named Abdul Khader was martyred in the fight for India’s independence.
Also known as Vakkom Khader, he was a member of Subash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) and was sentenced to death for “conspiring to wage war against the British King.”
Commemorating Khader on the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of his martyrdom, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it was important for the younger generations to know about the struggles of Khader and his fellow freedom fighters, so that they appreciate the freedom and rights they enjoy.
This is especially important today, given that questionable interpretations of patriotism and nationalism have arisen of late, he said.
The Chief Minister inaugurated the memorial meeting organised on Saturday by the INA Hero Vakkom Khader National Foundation.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Staff Reporter / Thiruvananthapuram – September 11th, 2016
Could the Tiger’s position — now behind a glass case, its crank handle inaccessible to the public — be an apology for the disrespect permitted in East India House?
The artefact sitting in V&A was iconic, identifiable and far away from home
The day I saw Tipu’s Tiger behind its glass case at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was a day of significance. That morning, after months of being cooped up in Oxford, some friends and I took the train to Marylebone and found the absence of dreaming spires refreshing to say the least. At noon, a friend from India was waiting for me on the other side of the busy Camden High Street. As we hugged amidst the crush of gliding Londoners, her muffled exclamation might have been: ‘It’s so crazy we’re meeting here of all places, so far from home.’
That phrase would be borrowed by me on two separate occasions during the day. In the evening, I stood before Julian Barnes at the Royal Institution and told him how I had read ‘A Short History of Hairdressing’ over and over again to teach myself the ‘architecture’ of a short story. I felt a potent urge then to parrot my friend. It was ‘crazy’ to see and hear Barnes in the flesh, so far from my bedroom in Kolkata, the only other place he had seemed real and, dare I say, attainable through his prose and through the material object, that is, his books in my hands, the only feasible rendezvous with the man.
I had never thought then it would happen: to have someone I studied so minutely sit before me and confess he didn’t think as highly of his short prose as I did.
Iconic meeting
The second occasion I was inclined to echo her words that day was when I stood in the South Asia section of the V&A before Tipu’s Tiger, which had always been relegated to the Did You Know section of our history books. It was not exactly like meeting an old friend or a revered author, but it bore all the characteristics of such a meeting. Like Barnes and my Kolkata friend, it was instantly iconic, identifiable from a distance, and a ready reminder of my distance from India. In fact, standing before the wooden automaton, slightly disconcerted, I addressed it and thought: ‘You are so far away from home.’
The possible inspiration for the mechanical figure seems fitting to some. Hector Munro Jr, whose father defeated Tipu’s father Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1781, was mauled by a royal Bengal tiger at Saugor Island in 1792 and died from the injuries. This must have seemed like divine intervention to Tipu, a wrong set right. The carved and painted, almost life-size, wooden musical automaton was created for the Sultan, whose personal emblem was a tiger and whose hatred of the British was well-known.
The last laugh
With the fall, however, of Seringapatam and the execution of Tipu in the Fourth Mysore War of 1799, the Tiger travelled from the music room of Tipu’s summer palace to the Company’s East India House at Leadenhall Street in London, where the public was given access to view and play with it.
Its wooden body with a keyboard embedded in the flank was thrown open to the English masses who came in and played ‘God Save the King’ and ‘Rule, Brittania!’ upon it. If Tipu thought he had been mocking the Englishmen with the Tiger, they were now having the last laugh.
I deal with issues of empire and post-colonial anxiety almost on a daily basis, especially in a place like Oxford, especially on a course called World Literatures in English. Of course, when I first saw it, I silently demanded a restoration of the tiger to its previous owner, to its previous nation. My anger at seeing the Tiger in an English museum, so far away from home, was justifiable. The Tiger was not borrowed. Nor was it touring, as it had to New York’s MoMA in the 50s. Instead, it was a ‘permanent’ acquisition at the V&A.
Of collaborations
For every Indian schoolchild, the Tiger, just an artefact but nonetheless awe-inspiring, was not an affordable train or flight away, like Fatehpur Sikri or Sher Shah’s tomb.
For me, the Tiger’s distance from my home was a reiteration of the national and racial distinctions not only of the Anglo-Mysore variety, but also of the Jadavpur-Oxford type that I faced every day. Besides dodging questions like ‘If you’re from India, how’s your English so good?’ for the past few months, I had had to clarify to a white friend who subsisted on the chic-ideal of Zadie Smith that India has Bengalis too, and no, I did not have relatives in Brick Lane, not that I knew of anyway.
Seeing Tipu’s Tiger that day catalysed a recollection of an afternoon in 2016 in the Victoria Memorial Hall with Thomas Daniell and his nephew William. Their tranquil scenes of India, while in stark contrast to the ferocity of the Tiger, do something interesting.
The English hands of the Daniells reproduce the Indian hands of the architects behind the buildings and locations they sketch. Their canvas becomes a surface of Anglo-Indian collaboration, similar to how it is conjectured that the mechanics of the Tiger have an Indo-French history.
This recollection, and the subsequent contemplation on collaboration, made me think of several works of restoration that the V&A carried out upon the Tiger, especially after the bombing of London in World War II. Could this act of restoration be seen as an act of reparation? Could the Tiger’s position — now behind a glass case, its crank handle inaccessible to the public — be an apology for the disrespect permitted in East India House?
The Tiger, so far from home, is an icon that reminds me of a past based on plunder and pillage by the nation it sits in. Yet, its 18th century splendour has weathered war and wear so well. Do present acts of safekeeping obliterate the violent history of its, for want of a better word, theft?
I am persuaded to wonder if the Tiger is now a collaboration between Tipu’s Mysore craftsmen and its modern conservationists in England and if I should be thankful for the restoration. Are the acquisition and conservation of an Indian object in a British museum and the works of British painters displayed in a Calcutta museum an instance of transnational collaboration and exchange? But in the case of Tipu’s Tiger, this then also begs the question: how long is too long before we forget that what is ‘acquired’ is what was once ‘removed’ from its home?
The writer, a Felix Scholar, is studying World Literatures in English at Oxford
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Rohit Chakraborty / May 05th, 2018
Independence and partition of India brought massive transfer of populations. Movements of refuges were on predictable, communal lines. There were just a few cases where the communal movements were in the ‘wrong’ direction. To that microscopic group of mavericks belonged Mohammed Yunus who, forsaking wealth and family prestige, left his ‘native Pakistan’ for India and turned out to be of much help to the Indian Muslims.
Yunus is so intimately identified with the erstwhile North West Frontier Province or the NWFP – now Khyber Pakhtun Khwa that it may come as a surprise to many that he was not a Pathan! Born in 1916 in Abbobtabad, his father Haji Ghulam Samdani was an extremely wealthy man owning rights over vast tracts of forest and agricultural lands in Punjab, Kashmir and NWFP. One of the biggest government contractors of his time, he owned most of the legendary ‘Qissakhwani Bazar’, the nerve center of Peshawar.
Samdani was a Mughal whose great-grandfather had migrated and settled down in Baramula, Kashmir in the latter half of the eighteenth century. One of the first from among Muslims of the region to have received western education, Samdani settled in Peshawar as a military contractor in the 1880s and never looked back. He was personally contacted by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to bail out the MAO College after the institution was in the financial doldrums following a huge defalcation by Shyam Bihari Lal, a confidante of the founder. Apart from emerging as the wealthiest man of the NWFP, Samdani struck roots in the Pashtun area through his philanthropy and marriages including in the famous Charsadda family of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Indeed Yunus was the son of that mother and thus a ‘maternal Pathan’. Some space has been devoted to the family details as this has a bearing on what Yunus made of his future life.
Mohammed Yunus
After an early education in Peshawar in an opulent but deeply religious atmosphere Yunus was dispatched to Aligarh to study in ‘Minto Circle’, more correctly the AMU Boys High School from where he passed the High School examination in 1932. He thereafter joined the Islamia College on a suggestion of its former Principal H. Martin (who was then Pro Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University and is remembered as the coauthor of the famous “English Grammar and Composition” by Wren and Martin). Martin had astutely sensed that Yunus with had the right background to play a major role in the public affairs of that province at a future date. Even in his teens in Aligarh he was witty and quick with repartee which lasted a lifetime. Thus when Gandhiji visited the University in 1931, Yunus somehow clambered up the stage of the Students’ Union with an autograph book in hand. The Mahatma with a frown asked him why he was not wearing khadi to which the Peshawar lad replied without batting an eyelid that he was wearing his school uniform and obtained the coveted signature. What the young Peshawari had not disclosed was that there was no objection to the uniform being made of khadi!
Freedom struggle
He passed B.A from Islamia College, Peshawar. During the college days he was associated with the khudai khidmatgar (God’s servants) movement of the ‘frontier Gandhi’ with its emphasis on non violent resistance to the Raj, its emphasis on service of he poor and social reform. Soon after College he emerged as a prominent political activist and main spokesman of the movement who was an informal representative of Ghaffar Khan with whom he had become related (in the ‘oriental fashion’) with the marriage in 1935 of his elder brother Yahya with the only daughter of the great man. Yunus emerged as a major face of NWFP in rest of the country representing the province in Congress forums and espousing the cause of its economic development. He hosted Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Mohammed Ali Jinnah during their tour of the area and was equally active in Pashto-speaking areas across the Durand line i.e. in South Afghanistan.
He also fought shoulder to shoulder with the National Conference in the Kashmir valley for involvement of people in governance. Yunus was incarcerated in the Quit India movement (1942) and was released only three years later. His reminiscences of prisons were later published in Urdu as Qaidi ke Khat (letters of Prisoners). Following his release he worked zealously against the Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan. In 1946 elections an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate elected a Congress government in the province under ‘Doctor Khan Sahib’ the elder brother of the frontier Gandhi (NWFP was the only province where the dominant community, whether Hindu or Muslim, had voted against the sentiments of the relevant community elsewhere). The government did not survive for long as the aristocrats of the province engineered large scale defections.
Yunus decided to move over to Kashmir to be at the forefront of the agitation against the Maharaja.
Independent India
On the eve of the independence, disgusted with the volte face of the ‘blue blood’ of his community and the communal frenzy he heeded the advice of Nehru and his daughter (with whom he had grown so close as to be almost a member of the family) and decided to make the ‘divided India’ his home. In doing so he was foregoing considerable a fortune – the estate of Haji Ghulam Samdani, which despite its devolution to more than a dozen offspring, was substantial. Nehru offered him appointment in the Indian Foreign Service keeping in view the fact that his proclivity to call a spade a spade would not take him high in politics. Over the years he was envoy in Turkey, Indonesia, Iraq, Spain and Algeria and served twice in the Ministry of External Affairs. In 1971 he was appointed Commerce Secretary – a position he held with great distinction till his retirement in 1974.
After his retirement he was the founder-Chairman of the Trade Fair Authority of India, a position he held till 1977 and again from 1980 till 1985 when he was nominated as Member of the Rajya Sabha for a period of six years. In 1974 when the Muslims of India were restive about the restoration of the ‘minority character’ of the Aligarh Muslim University and the then Education Minister, Prof. Nurul Hasan had made it a ‘progressive’ versus reactionary’ affair Mrs. Indira Gandhi nominated him on the Executive Council of the University where he articulated the aspirations and views of the majority of Aligarh community. It is not intended here to give a ‘low down’ on his professional achievements but mention must be made of the great institution that he built in the form of Pragati Maidan – not only a landmark in the heart of Delhi but clearly among the worlds most prolific and efficient organizers of industry specific fares. The layout, the design of the halls, the infrastructure, carefully planned trees and shrubs all bear a testimony to his loving planning and eye for details. Above all, the initial team of personnel that he handpicked turned out to be a coordinated, well-oiled machine of highly motivated professionals. The traditions and operating procedures laid down by him and his pioneer associates survive to this day and make the ITPO – the rechristened version of the TFI – a vibrant institution. Following a setback in his health Mohammed Yunus lived an increasingly sheltered life with increasingly limited mobility finally succumbing to the inevitable in 2001.
The curious reader could well ask whether what has been stated is all there is to his life or there is something special that earns him the right to be remembered a decade after his death and perpetuate his memory beyond his immediate family. The questions are natural and they deserve an answer – the answers are all in the affirmative.
There are three main reasons why Yunus deserves to be remembered by the country generally while the Indian Muslims need to be particularly aware of his life and time. These ‘reasons’ have to do with his specific achievements and traits and are: An extraordinarily forthright and brutally honest personality, standing by the Muslim community without any political agenda or ulterior motive and a great institution-builder. His ‘baby’ presently called the India Trade Promotion Organization having already been briefly referred, the rest of this piece is devoted to the first two feathers to his cap.
Personality
Yunus had a unique personality which cannot be forgotten by anyone who came in contact with him. He was quite ‘direct’ in his conversations, something which Asians generally lack. This can be illustrated with a few anecdotes. In his autobiography Persons, Passions and Politics (1980, Vikas) he recounts the time he was Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs and had to deal with the local (British) representative of the Commonwealth Graves Commission and his Boss a pompous ex Brigadier of the British Army who had arrived from London ostensibly to inspect the various war cemeteries run by the Commission but really to express displeasure about Yunus’s refusal to accede to some unreasonable request of the local representative. The Brigadier, a typical ‘Colonel Blimp’ was an arrogant foul-mouthed character still carrying hallucinations of ‘Pax Britannica’ with a disdain for the former ‘subject races’. In any case, the senior officer showed his displeasure to Yunus and asked him not to repeat ‘senseless arguments’ and added to good measure that India was being ‘more mulishly unreasonable’ than Germany and Italy were during the last war. Yunus calmly heard the man and politely asked, “is there anything further you gentlemen wish to add before I give my final response’. The imperious ‘Colonel Blimp’ responded with disdain, “I am not interested in your last responses; I want the bloody thing done by tomorrow morning before I leave for home”. Our man than spoke, “You bunch of grave-diggers, how dare you compare my country to the fascists! Leave this very instant, or I will throw both of you out of this window!” He writes, “they made themselves scarce in no time; I started to laugh, and laughed uncontrollably”.
This author knows of a similar episode on the authority of a very eminent personage (a very venerable civil servant, now in his 80s who in the best tradition of the bureaucracy is loathe to be identified; for the initiated, the narrator was then a Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat). In early 1975 the Prime Minister called a meeting to discuss the ongoing agitation against amendments made in the AMU Act 1n 1965 and for declaring the University a minority institution. The meeting was briefed by the Education Minister who explained that the agitation was being fomented by ‘reactionary elements’ within the University academics who did not wish the ‘progressive forces’ to lead the institution up the path of ‘growth and academic excellence’. Yunus, one of the invitees, interjected to ask the Minister to explain who the ‘reactionaries’ were. The reply was that they were the ones who ‘raised the bogey of Islam’. Yunus abruptly cut short the Minister and said “and Prime Minister, progressives are those who eat and drink during the month of Ramadan, do not offer Namaz and drink alcohol in the evenings in the privacy of their houses while discussing how best to further the agenda of the Minister!”. There was startled silence in the room with the Prime Minister barely stifling a smile started to furiously doodle on a pad.
Yunus increasingly acted as behind the scene spokesman of Muslims in the corridors of power with no personal ambition or even projecting himself in the public. His role in highlighting indiscriminate demolitions of houses of Muslims in the name of ‘slum clearance’ in old Delhi is not too well known but is acknowledged by, of all the persons, the ‘bulldozer man’ Jagmohan in his Rebuilding Shahjahanbad . This author is personally aware of cases where he took victims of police atrocities to the Prime Minister at a time when doing so (during the emergency) ran the risk of detention without trial. His vigorous espousing the cause of Aligarh academics and students for restructuring the governance charter of the AMU is not fully appreciated. Many who were active those days now concede that with a champion like Yunus they knew they had someone from the ‘establishment’ on their side and this prevented them from developing a negative attitude towards the secular Indian State. What is more, his transparent sympathy – and empathy – made the members of Muslim middle classes look to him as the honest broker faithfully projecting their grievances without any personal vested interest. This resulted in many a simmering discontent to escalate into public agitations.
A handsome man, not very tall but an overpowering presence, he could be assertive and polite at the same time; Yunus had an endearing personality with a propensity to laugh at himself. His fund of jokes and funny anecdotes was virtually inexhaustible. He was a great motivator of men and a good judge of character. He bore personal losses with great courage and fortitude (as was evident when his only offspring Adil Shaharyar died suddenly). The personality of Yunus can be summed up by narrating a personal experience of this author. In a function of the Delhi AMU Old Boys Association both he and Yunus arrived late and occupied the last row as the proceedings were well under way. The Organizers ran to escort Yunus to the front with our man saying that he should not move for three reasons: First seeing him people will get up and disturb the speaker, Prof Moonis Raza (VC Delhi University); Second as a late comer he was in the right place, the last row, and; (turning to me) yeh bechara bhee late aya hai soche ga mujhe saza milee or Yunus ko jaza yanee aage jagah milee!! (The sentence is not very easy to translate, but it should run something like “This poor chap (the author) is a late comer, too, if I shift to the front he will think that while he is punished Yunus is being rewarded for being late – the real pun lies in the rhyming of the words ‘saza’, ‘jaza’, and ‘jagah’ which cannot be translated).
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCirlces.net / Home> Articles> Indian Muslim / by Naveed Masood for TwoCircles.net / June 09th, 2011
It is one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries in Karnataka. Over a 100 war rockets from the 18th Century were found recently during the desilting of an open well in Shivamogga. The rockets used by the Mysore kingdom, during the Anglo-Mysore Wars, especially in the last two of them during the reign of Tipu Sultan, are considered the most-advanced of their age. Only five known specimens of the rockets were known to be in existence till now; three in the Government Museum in Bengaluru and two in the Royal Armoury, Woolwich, UK.
The rockets discovered were being studied outside of public glare for a few months now. When Bangalore Mirror asked Shejeshwara Nayak – the assistant director and curator of the Government Museum, Shivappa Nayaka Palace in Shivamogga (where some of these rockets are now being kept for display) – he said: “When they were discovered a couple of months ago, these were thought to be some kind of shells. Dr HM Siddhanagoudar [historian] has identified them as rockets.”
“Rockets have been used in battles for 700 years. But it was only in Mysore, under Hyder Ali, that iron casings were first used. Before that, rockets had wooden or paper casings. The iron casings drastically improved their efficiency and range. Mysore rockets were the most advanced ones during the second half of the 18th Century,” said Nayak.
Hyder Ali’s father Fath Muhammad worked for the Nawab of Carnatic before moving on to work for the Mysore Kingdom. Under the Nawab, he handled a rocket corps. Back then, these rockets were used for signalling during battles, not as weapons. Hyder became the first to use rockets with iron casing, and that’s how they became deadly battlefield weapons.
After the fall of Tipu Sultan in 1799, hundreds of rockets of various kinds fell into the hands of the British. The Congreve rockets developed by the British in 1804 (and later used against the armies of Napoleon) were based on the Mysore rockets.
THE INITIAL FINDING
The rockets discovered in Shivamogga are likely to be put up for public display in March-April this year. However, how the discovery was made is not being revealed by authorities. The rockets are said to have been found in a well in Nagara of Hosanagara taluk, 60 km from Shivamogga, in a farm belonging to one Nagaraja Rao.
The rockets were basically metal cylinders that were filled with gunpowder and then strapped to a bamboo pole, sometimes up to 30 feet long. Mysore rockets had the highest range of around 1 km. During Tipu’s time, more changes were made to these rockets. From a few hundreds, the ‘cushoons’ – or regiments handling rockets – reached a high of 5,000 men during his time. During the battles of the III and the IV Anglo-Mysore Wars, the rocket cushoons had a terrifying impact on the British forces, as recounted in several accounts of the period.
The area where these rockets were found was part of the Keladi Kingdom, one of the bigger principalities in Karnataka and was annexed to the Mysore Kingdom in 1763 by Hyder Ali. His successor, Tipu Sultan built a mint and an armoury at Nagara. Thus, these rockets are from between 1763 and 1799.
Nidhin George Olikara, a historian with specialisation in Tipu’s era, said: “These rockets were found sometime ago but were identified as rockets recently. Nagara in Shivamogga district earlier was home to an armoury and mint during Tipu Sultan’s rule. The work of researchers is now over and scientists should step in to find out what kind of iron has been used to make rockets.”
THE REMAINS
The newly discovered rockets are actually the iron casings. Those are the only part of the rocket that could have survived being buried for 200 years. The other parts, such as the bamboo pole and straps, are long gone. Like the records of that age which mention Mysore rockets of various sizes, the Shivamogga rockets are also found in various sizes. Most of the rockets are 7-8 inch long. A few of them are longer. The circumferences are 1, 2 or 3 inches.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Cover Story / by Bangalore Mirror Bureau / by S. Shyam Prasad & Gururaj B R / January 20th, 2018
In 1963, a human skull was discovered in a pub in Kent in south-east England. A brief handwritten note stuck inside the cavity revealed it to be that of Alum Bheg, an Indian soldier in British service who was executed during the aftermath of the 1857 Uprising. Alum Bheg was blown from a cannon for having allegedly murdered British civilians, and his head was brought back as a grisly war-trophy by an Irish officer present at his execution. The skull is a troublesome relic of both anti-colonial violence and the brutality and spectacle of British retribution.
Kim Wagner presents an intimate and vivid account of life and death in British India in the throes of the largest rebellion of the nineteenth century. Fugitive rebels spent months, even years, hiding in the vastness of the Himalayas before they were eventually hunted down and punished by a vengeful colonial state. Examining the colonial practice of collecting and exhibiting human remains, this book offers a critical assessment of British imperialism that speaks to contemporary debates about the legacies of Empire and the myth of the ‘Mutiny’.
source: http://www.penguin.co.in / Penguin House / Books> Non-Fiction
The skull belonged to a 32-year-old Indian soldier who revolted against the British
In 2014, while sitting in an office in London’s Mile End, historian Kim Wagner received an email from a couple who said they owned a skull.
Dr Wagner, who teaches imperial history at Queen Mary University of London, says the couple told him they did not feel comfortable with the “thing” in their house, and did not know what to do with it.
The lower jaw of the skull was missing, the few remaining teeth were loose, and it had the “sepia hue of old age”.
But what was remarkable was a detailed handwritten note in a neatly folded slip of paper inserted in an eye socket. The note told the brief story of the skull:
Skull of Havildar “Alum Bheg,” 46th Regt. Bengal N. Infantry who was blown away from a gun, amongst several others of his Regt. He was a principal leader in the mutiny of 1857 & of a most ruffianly disposition. He took possession (at the head of a small party) of the road leading to the fort, to which place all the Europeans were hurrying for safety. His party surprised and killed Dr. Graham shooting him in his buggy by the side of his daughter. His next victim was the Rev. Mr. Hunter, a missionary, who was flying with his wife and daughters in the same direction. He murdered Mr Hunter, and his wife and daughters after being brutally treated were butchered by the road side.
Alum Bheg was about 32 years of age; 5 feet 7 ½ inches high and by no means an ill looking native.
The skull was brought home by Captain (AR) Costello (late Capt. 7th Drag. Guards), who was on duty when Alum Bheg was executed.
A handwritten note inserted in an eye socket told the brief story of the skull
What was clear from the note was that the skull was of a rebel Indian soldier called Alum Bheg, who belonged to the Bengal Regiment and who was executed in 1858 by being blown from the mouth of a cannon in Sialkot (a town in Punjab province located in present-day Pakistan); and that a man who witnessed the execution brought the skull to England. The note is silent on why Bheg committed the alleged murders.
Native Hindu and Muslim soldiers, also known as sepoys, rebelled against the British East India Company in 1857 over fears that gun cartridges were greased with animal fat forbidden by their religions. The British ruled India for 200 years until the country’s independence in 1947.
The couple in Essex had trawled the internet and failed to find anything about Bheg. They contacted Dr Wagner after they found his name as a historian who had authored a book on the Indian uprising, often referred to as the first war of independence.
‘Grisly trophy’
On a wet November day, which was also his birthday, Dr Wagner met the couple. They told him that they had inherited the skull after one of their relatives took over a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963, and found the skull stored under some old crates and boxes in a small room in the back of the building.
Nobody quite knows how the skull ended up in the pub. The local media had excitedly reported on the “nerve-shattering discovery” in 1963 and carried pictures of the new pub owners “proudly posing with the grisly trophy” before it was put up on display at the pub. When the owners died, it was finally passed on to their relatives who simply hid it away.
“And so it was I found myself standing in a small train station in Essex with a human skull in my bag. Not just any other skull but one directly related to a part of history that I write about and that I teach my students every year,” says Dr Wagner.
What was very clear, he says, is that it was a “trophy skull, irrevocably linked to a narrative of violence”.
But first Dr Wagner had to confirm that the skull matched the history outlined in the note, written by an unknown person. At London’s Natural History Museum, an expert examined it and suggested that it dated back to the mid-19th Century; and that it definitely belonged to a male of Asian ancestry, who was possibly in his mid-30s.
The skull was discovered in a pub in Kent called The Lord Clyde in 1963
There was no sign of violence, said the expert, which is not unusual in the case of execution by cannon, where the torso takes the full impact of the blast. The skull also bore cut marks from a tool, suggesting that the head was defleshed by being boiled or being left exposed to insects.
Dr Wagner says he did not believe immediately that it would be possible to find out very much more about Bheg.
Individual soldiers rarely left any traces in the colonial archives, with the possible exception of someone like Mangal Pandey, who fired the first shot at a British officer on 29 March 1857 on the outskirts of Kolkata and stirred up a wave of rebellion in India against the colonial power.
Bheg’s name was not mentioned in any of the documents, reports, letters, memoirs and trial records from the period in the archives and libraries in India and UK. There were also no descendants demanding the return of the skull.
But there were a few helpful discoveries.
Dr Wagner found the letters of Bheg’s alleged victims to their families. What proved crucial, he says, in piecing the story together were the letters and memoirs of an American missionary, Andrew Gordon, who lived in Sialkot during and after the uprising. He knew both Dr Graham and the Hunters – Bheg’s victims – personally and he had attended the soldier’s execution.
There was also a revealing report in the illustrated newspaper, The Sphere, in 1911 on a grisly exhibit in a museum in Whitehall:
The ghastly memento of the Indian Mutiny has, we are informed, just been placed in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution at Whitehall. It is a skull of a sepoy of the 49th Regiment of Bengal Infantry who was blown from the guns in 1858 with eighteen others. The skull has been converted into a cigar box as we see.
The newspaper said that “while we may be able to understand all the savagery of the terrible time – the cruelty of the natives and the cruel retribution that followed – is it not an outrage that a memento of our retribution, which in these days would not be tolerated for a moment, should be placed on exhibition in a great public institution?”
Indian soldiers rose up against the British in 1857
Battling a famine of evidence, Dr Wagner began researching Bheg. He worked in the archives in London and Delhi, and travelled to Sialkot to locate the forgotten battlefield of the four-day Trimmu Ghat clash in July 1857 – during which the Sialkot rebels, including Bheg, were intercepted and defeated by General John Nicholson. The general was mortlly wounded two months later leading the assault to recapture Delhi from the mutineers.
He relied on letters, petitions, proclamations and statements by rebels after the outbreak of the uprising, went through 19th Century newspaper databases and scanned books.
“It was only after I spent some time researching the story, in the UK and in India, that I managed to piece a historical narrative together and realised that there was a bigger story to tell,” he told me.
‘Detective novel’
The result is Wagner’s new book, The Skull of Alum Bheg, a vivid page-turner on life and death in British India during the largest anti-colonial revolt of the 19th Century. Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history at the University of Oxford, says the book “reads like a detective novel and yet is also an important contribution to understanding British rule and the extent of colonial violence”.
Dr Wagner writes that his book sets out to “restore some of the humanity and dignity that has been denied to Alum Bheg by telling the story of his life and death during one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of British India”.
“I hope I have prepared the ground for Alum Bheg to finally find some peace, some 160 years late.”
Kim Wagner says the ‘final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written’
In Dr Wagner’s telling, Alum Bheg – properly transliterated as Alim Beg – was a Sunni Muslim from northern India. The Bengal Regiment was raised in Cawnpore (now Kanpur) in today’s Uttar Pradesh state, and it is likely that Bheg hailed from the region. Muslims made up around 20% of the largely Hindu regiments.
Bheg was responsible for a small detachment of soldiers, and had a gruelling routine, guarding the camp, carrying letters and working as a peon for higher officials of the regiment. After the revolt in July 1857, he appeared to have evaded the British troops until his capture and execution nearly a year later.
Resting place
Captain Costello, who was described as being present at the execution in the note, was established as Robert George Costello. Dr Wagner believes he is the man who brought the skull back to Britain. He was born in Ireland and sent to India in 1857, and retired from his commission 10 months later, boarded a steamer from India in October 1858, and reached Southampton a little more than a month later.
“The final aim of my research is to prepare for Bheg to be repatriated to India, if at all possible,” Dr Wagner says.
He says there have been no claims to the skull, but he’s in touch with Indian institutions and the British High Commission in India is also involved in the initial discussions.
“I am very keen for Alum Bheg’s repatriation not to be politicised, and for the skull not to end up in a glass-case in a museum or simply be forgotten in a box somewhere,” says Dr Wagner.
Dr. Wagner says Bhegh should be buried in an island on the current India- Pakistan border
“My hope is for Alum Bheg to be repatriated and buried in a respectful manner in the near future.”
A fitting place to bury Bheg, he believes, would be on the island on the Ravi river, where the sepoy and his fellow soldiers had taken refuge after surviving the first day of the battle and which today marks the border between India and Pakistan.
“Ultimately, that is not for me to decide, but whatever happens, the final chapter of Alum Bheg’s story has yet to be written.”
Photographs courtesy Kim Wagner
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC News / Home> India / by Soutik Biswas / India Correspondent / April 05th, 2018
One explanation for Kamal Haasan launching his political party in Madurai was that his hero was Maruthanayagam Pillai, soldier, rebel and valiant son of the district.
It was about this hero that he wanted to make a film extraordinaire several years ago.
I was on the fringe of the project as, coining a term, the factioneer, engineering fact with fiction.
Part of the fiction is the name Maruthanayagam. More factual is the name Yusuf Khan, and it’s as Yusuf Khan he’s a military hero of mine. Much has been written about this soldier of fortune, but the Tamil ballad Khan Saibu Sandai (The War of Khan Sahib) offers much more personal detail. In it Maruthanayagam finds no mention; who it sings of is “the hero who belongs to the Alim family”. Adding, “…let me sing the story of the brave warrior of Sikkandar Sahib”.
Whatever his lineage, it is agreed he ran away from Panaiyur in the Pandya heartland and worked with Jacques Law in Pondicherry c.1744, where, possibly, he learnt his soldiering.
Then we hear of him with a troop of Nellore lances-for-hire teaming with Chanda Sahib and the French to besiege Robert Clive in 1751 at Arcot. Seeing him in action, Clive bought over the Nellore Subedar, as he called Yusuf Khan, who the next year helped Clive win at Kaveripakkam. Later, after action near Srirangam, Clive was told by a friend, “Your Nellore sepoys are glorious fellows, their Subedar as good a man as ever breathed. He is my sole dependence.”
Next, when the French besieged Nawab Wallajah and his British protectors in Trichy, Yusuf Khan lost not one food convoy from Madras over three months. Stringer Lawrence, ‘The Father of the Indian Army’, wrote, “He is an excellent partisan… brave and resolute, but cool and sensible in action – in short, a born soldier, and better of his colour I never saw … He never spares himself, but is out on all parties…” All this led to Lawrence recommending Yusuf Khan being made “Commandant of all the Sepoys” in 1754 and for a gold medal from the Company.
With the Nawab and the Company unable to collect revenue from the southern districts they had won, Khan Saheb who had been responsible for the gains was appointed Governor of Madurai.
Over the next three years, he subdued the local chieftains, collected revenue and earned a reputation for outstanding administration. But Yusuf Khan could never get away from soldiering. When Lally besieged Madras in 1758-59, he failed, because Yusuf Khan, racing up from Madurai, cut almost daily over two months Lally’s supply lines. Lally was to say, “They were like the flies, no sooner beat off from one part, they came to another.” Yusuf Khan was a master of guerilla warfare.
With such praise, Yusuf Khan began growing more ambitious. When he found revenue he collected going mostly to Wallajah from the English, he decided to rebel. He hoped for support from Hyder Ali (which never came) and from the French, who supplied a few hundred mercenaries led by a Marchand.
From August to November 1763 the English besieged Madurai, constantly shelling it, but unable to breach Yusuf Khan’s defences. They then withdrew to regroup. In February 1764, they recommenced the siege, but without significant progress. Yusuf Khan sent them a message early in April 1764: “As long as I have a drop of blood in my body I shall never render the place to nobody.”
English attack after attack was beaten back, many a British officer, once his comrades, killed. A British officer wrote: “You’ll easily form an idea of Yusuf Khan’s abilities from his being able to keep together a body of men of different nations, who with cheerfulness undergo the greatest miseries on his account; wretches who have stood two severe sieges, one assault and a blockade of many months.”
By September 1764 Yusuf Khan was prepared to negotiate surrender terms. The English insisted on unconditional surrender. And Marchand and his ilk, impatient with the negotiations (or heavily bribed), acted, arresting Yusuf Khan and surrendering Madurai on October 15, 1764.
The Company wanted Khan Saheb brought to trial in Madras, but Lawrence ordered him given to the Nawab who immediately hanged him and desecrated the body. He was buried where he was executed, two miles west of Madurai, his tomb at Samattipuram a dargah to some, a pallivasal (mosque) to others, but venerated by all in the Pandya country.
Footnote: A dissertation by Dr Asadulla Khan, then of New College, discusses Yusuf Khan’s family. It would appear that he married a Christian girl, Maza, c.1759; father, very likely Portuguese or French, her mother, possibly, a Maravar, a community which she often interceded for with Khan Saheb. They had a son, Mohammed Sultan, born c.1762. As a young man he joined Hyder Ali’s army. Mother and son, it is suggested, sought refuge in Mysore after fleeing Madurai.
The boats on the Canal
It was a lively presentation that Manohar Devadoss made recently at the Madras Literary Society on his life with books, most he’d illustrated. One striking illustration at the presentation is what I feature today; a boat in full sail on the Buckingham Canal. Mano says he saw this long country boat near Pulicat in 1966 and thought it “an artist’s delight”. His sketch became the first subject of “our heritage greeting card project,” ‘our’ being wife Mahema, who used to write the text for the illustrations he did for greeting cards they sold for charities.
Mahema concluded that year: “These boats are very picturesque, with sails billowing in the breeze. When there is no breeze, the boats are sometimes dragged by the boatmen from along the banks, their bare bodies glistening in the sun. As the boats approach the city, the sails are lowered so that they could pass under the numerous bridges. The men then punt the boats in rhythm to their melodious folk songs.” Taken up as he was with them, Mano did his first oil painting that year, based on his sketch, and several water-colours in later years, one of which I feature.
The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> Madras Miscellany – History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / March 06th, 2018
The resting place: The skull was found in a store room of The Lord Clyde pub in London. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Skull of soldier, executed by the East India Company for rebellion in 1857, found its way to London pub; it’s now with historian Kim Wagner
Headhunting is usually associated with primitive tribes and contemporary terrorists, but the colonial rulers of India also collected heads of Indian soldiers as war trophies.
A 160-year-old skull of sepoy Alam Beg, now in the possession of a historian in London, is proof that colonial rulers who brought many modern practices to India were also at times inhuman.
In 1857, Alam Beg, also known as Alum Bheg, was a soldier with the 46th Bengal Native Infantry, an arm of the East India Company.
The Mutiny that year, after having covered the north Indian heartland, spread to Sialkot (now in Pakistan), where Alam Beg and his companions tried to follow their fellow soldiers and attacked the Europeans posted there. On July 9, 1857, they killed seven Europeans, including an entire Scottish family.
Alam Beg, along with his comrades, left Sialkot and trekked all the way to the Tibetan frontier only to be turned away by the guards on the Tibetan side. He was reportedly arrested from Madhopur, a scenic town on the northern part of the Indian Punjab and taken back to Sialkot. A year later, he was tried for the brutal killing of the Scottish family and blown up from the mouth of a cannon. The Mutiny ended soon after. Alam Beg’s tragic story surfaced more than a century later thanks to an Irish captain Arthur Robert George Costello, who was present at his execution.
The skull of Alam Beg. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Present at execution
The Irishman was a captain in the 7th Dragoon Guards, dispatched to India after the Mutiny had shaken the bonds between the East India Company and the native soldiers. Costello had not seen any episodes of the Mutiny but was present at the execution, said historian Kim Wagner, who possesses the skull now.
Costello picked up the skull and returned to London with it. In 1963, the skull was discovered in a store room of The Lord Clyde pub of London, after it had changed hands. The new owners were less than happy to find this war ‘trophy’ from 1857, but treated it as a solemn object from a disturbing past of British history in the subcontinent. The owners of the pub learnt from a note left in an eye socket that it belonged to Alam Beg, who played a leading role in the mutiny of sepoys in Sialkot. They desired to repatriate the skull to the soldier’s family. For years, they tried but failed. It is not known how the skull of Alam Beg ended up in the Victorian-era pub. But it is possible that the Irish captain who witnessed the execution of the leader of the mutinous soldiers visited the pub or someone deposited it there, given the fact that it had links with the history of the Indian Mutiny. In fact the pub was named after Collin Thomson, also known as Lord Clyde, who was a military commander and played a role in crushing the mutiny in north and northwest India. So it is possible that soldiers after their Indian stint would visit the pub.
In 2014, the owners of the pub contacted Kim Wagner who has been writing about South Asian history for years. They urged him to take the skull and return it to the descendants of Alam Beg. Mr. Wagner brought it home and the skull finally added to his research on South Asia which was published late last year as “The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857.” The historian believed that only by making people aware of the skull that Alam Beg can be returned to his motherland.
His research showed that most of the soldiers of the 46th Bengal Native Infantry were from modern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Havildar Alam Beg most probably hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Though he wanted to return him to a dignified family grave yard of Beg’s family, it was not possible as the East India Company left no records of the soldiers of the 46th Bengal Native Infantry.
“There are no longer any records for sepoys of the Bengal Army – the best I could do was locate the area where the 46th regiment recruited from,” Mr. Wagner said.
The Mutiny of 1857 was crushed mercilessly and many gruesome incidents of that era find mention in official records. In 2014, around the time when Mr. Wagner began writing his book on Alam Beg, Ajnala in Punjab’s Amritsar hit the headlines when authorities discovered skeletons of 282 soldiers who were executed after the Mutiny. They apparently had surrendered hoping for a fair trial, but the Deputy Commissioner of the district Frederick Henry Cooper ordered execution of the rebels. They were buried with medals and even money of the East India Company that many of them had in their pockets. The grisly discovery is yet to receive a closure as the family members of those soldiers remain untraced.
Similar is the condition of Alam Beg as his journey back home remains incomplete but Mr. Wagner believed that his only physical remain should find a proper peaceful burial. Mr. Wagner is aware that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been vocal about honouring the fallen soldiers of India in various colonial era battles. He says that something similar can be done in case of Alam Beg as well.
“After all these years, it is high time for Alum Bheg to return home…he was probably born in what is today India, he was executed in what is now Pakistan,” Mr. Wagner wrote in his book proposing that a burial for Alam Beg near the India-Pakistan border would be the most suitable tribute to his sacrifice.
The historian said that in the absence of the descendants of such soldiers, it is the Indian government that should bring back Alam Beg to his motherland.
Headhunting by colonial rulers from Europe was a rampant practice in the 19th century and activists worldwide have been vocal in demanding human remains from Western museums and collectors should be returned to their countries of origin. Such a movement is yet to begin in India whose soldiers from the colonial past in many instances continue to remain anonymous and abroad.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Kallol Bhattacharjee / New Delhi – February 04th, 2018
The freedom movement of India was not the sole agenda of a particular political party but it had moved aam aadmi in the form of masses in his/her own capacity. The history of Indian national movement would be biased and incomplete without the presentation of the actual role of Indian Muslims in it, right from the revolt of 1857 to the day of Independence in 1947.
Shoulder to shoulder they fought with the other communities for the Independence of India. The contribution of Muslim poets, revolutionaries and writers is not known today. Instead of secular historiography, it has been communalised. Courtesy: Mapsofindia.com
The Muslims and other minorities never envisaged India as adopted land because Muslims of India have not come from outside but are the converts to Islam and have deep feeling sense of belonging to this country and therefore contributed to the cultural, economic, intellectual and spiritual progress throughout the ages.
The role, significance and uprising of Indians against British imperialists can be seen since mid of 18th century in the form of Battle of Palashi (Plassey), June 23, 1757. It was Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah who first awakened Indian rulers and gave a call to oppose the British. He, however, lost the battle and was executed at the young age of 24. This was soon followed by the great Tipu Sultan, who was killed by Lord Wellesley during the fourth Anglo-Mysore war in 1799.
The contribution of Muslim revolutionaries can be witnessed from the first half of 19th century. The Faraizi and the Wahhabi Movements had disturbed the pace of British plan in the initial stages of its expansion in India. The Wahabi movement of Syed Ahmed Barelvi was the most organised one. He appealed to all Hindus and Muslims to overthrow the British and thus he was killed in 1831 at Balakot.
The number of Muslims executed only in Delhi during 1857-58 was 27,000. During this revolt, Asghari Begum (mother of Qazi Abdur Rahim, the revolutionary of Thana Bhawan, Muzaffarnagar) fought against the British and was burnt alive when defeated. It was estimated that about 225 Muslim women gave their lives in the revolt.
Similarly, barely is known about the contribution of Muhammad Ashfaq Ullah Khan of Shahjehanpur who conspired and looted the British treasury at Kakori (Lucknow) to cripple the administration and who, when asked for his last will, before execution, desired: “No desire is left except one that someone may put a little soil of my motherland in my winding sheet.”
Likewise, the present generation does not know about Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, a great nationalist who had passed 45 years of his 95-years of life in jail for the freedom of India and thus awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1987. Barkatullah and Syed Rehmat Shah of Ghadar Party sacrificed their lives. Umar Subhani, an industrialist and a millionaire of Bombay who, then, presented a blank cheque to Gandhiji for Congress expenses and who ultimately sacrificed his life for the cause of Independence. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, with his poetry, infused zeal of freedom in young hearts.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, at the age of 35, became the youngest person to serve as the President of the Indian National Congress. He was the icon of Hindu-Muslim unity as well as espousing secularism and socialism. Raj Mohan Gandhi in his book ‘Understanding Muslim Minds’ mentioned that Maulana went straight to Congress office just after the funeral procession of his wife, Zuleikha Begum and led Quit India Movement.
Manmohan Kaur in her book entitled as ‘Women In India’s Freedom Movement’ makes reference to only Begum Hazrat Mahel and Bi-Amma out of the hundreds of women who fought the battle of freedom along with their men folk against the British Raj. The history of the Indian national movement would be incomplete without mentioning the heartily services of Abadi Begum (mother of Maulana Muhammad Ali), Amjadi Begum (wife of Maulana Muhammad Ali), Amina Tyabji (wife of Abbas Tyabji), Begum Sakina Luqmani (wife of Dr Luqmani and daughter of Badruddin Tyabji), Nishat-un-Nisa (Begum Hasrat Mohani), Saadat Bano Kitchlew (wife of Dr Saifuddin Kichlew), Zulekha Begum (wife of Maulana Azad), Mehr Taj (daughter of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan), Zubaida Begum Daoodi (wife of Shafi Daoodi, the reputed nationalist of Bihar) and many others.
Santimoy Ray’s ‘Freedom Movement And Indian Muslims’ challenges the many prejudices that generate bias and hatred against the Indian Muslims, particularly their contentions role in Indian freedom movement.
This shows the great sacrifices they made to oust the British rule in all the national uprisings from Sanyasi Movement to Independence, finally led to the withdrawal of British from India in 1947. It is such a pity that their roles in the struggle for freedom has not been adequately presented in the Indian history. The comprehensive study about the role of Muslims struggle for freedom is essential to help eradicating prejudices and many misconceptions against the Muslims grown in the absence of fair historiography.
I’m recalling some of the beautiful lines of Faiz Ahmed Faiz …
Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gaziida sahar,
Vo intizaar thaa jis-kaa, ye vo sahar to nahiiN,
Ye vo sahar to nahiiN jis-kii aarzu lekar
Chale the yaar ke mil-ja`egi kahiiN na kahiN
Falak ke dasht meN taroN kii aakhiri manzil,
KahiN to hogaa shab-e sust mauj kaa sahil,
KahiN to jaake rukegaa safiina-e-gham-e-dil.
Abhii chiraagh-e-sar-e-rah ko kuchh khabar hii nahiiN;
Abhii giraanii-e-shab meN kamii nahiiN aa’ii,
Najaat-e-diidaa-o-dil ki ghaRii nahiiN aa’ii;
Chale-chalo ke vo manzil abhii nahiiN aa’ii.
Meaning:
This stain-covered daybreak, this night-bitten dawn,
This is not that dawn of which there was expectation;
This is not that dawn with longing for which
The friends set out, (convinced) that somewhere there we met with,
In the desert of the sky, the final destination of the stars!
Somewhere there would be the shore of the sluggish wave of night,
Somewhere would go and halt the boat of the grief of pain.
The lamp beside the road has still come no lessening,
The hour of the deliverance of eye and heart has not arrived.
Come, come on, for that goal has still not arrived.
(Author is currently preparing for civil service examinations.)
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Articles> Indian Muslim / by Shaik Amer Arafath / August 14th, 2015
