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History See other History Articles Title: 1857 mutiny- a global Moslem conspiracy? Saturday December 30, 2006 1857 mutiny- a global Moslem conspiracy? India is celebrating 150th anniversary of the 1857 mutiny which has been described by Veer Savarkar as India's 1st war of Independence. The 1857 war resulted in the termination of the Mughal rule in India and the establishment of the direct Crown rule. The causes of the mutiny are stated to be the use of Cow's and Pig's meat in the grease prepared for cartridges which infuriated Hindus and Muslims alike and which was regarded as an attempt by the British to convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Bahadur Shah Zafar was the nominal Mughal Emperor at that time. The mutineers overthrew the Britishers but later on the Britishers made their entry into Delhi. Delhi was plundered by the mutineers as well as the triumphant British soldiers. The lanes and by-lanes of old Delhi and the Civil Lines area, Flag Staff road, Jama Masjid, Delhi Gate, Ajmeri Gate, and Khuni darwaza bore witness to massive blood shed and loot of property. Willian Dalrymple's "The Last Mughal-the fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857" bears testimony to the ghastly events in and around Delhi. The book is the result of four years of research and is based on the material- Urdu, Persian translations of the manuscripts stored in the National Archives and other information not available to the earlier writers. The book challenges the locus standi of the East India Company in trying Bahadur Shah Zafar. The company was not the ruler of India. The company took the position that Zafar received pension from the company and therefore was company's pensioner and thus a subject. However the actual factual position was considerably more ambiguous. While the company's 1599 charter to trade in the East derived from Parliament and the Crown, its authority to govern in India actually legally flowed from the person of the Mughal emperor who had officially taken on the company as its tax collector in Bengal, in the years following the battle of Plassey on 2nd August 1765. The illegality of the Trial abinitio is obvious. However, it was a trial by the military tribunal. The charge against him was of treason against the British. When the company was not the ruler, how could there be a treason. He was accused of leading the revolt which he denied stating that he was protecting his subjects. The charges against him were much wider and serious in scope than one could have thought of. The Emperor was accused of religious bigotry. The conspiracy, from the very commencement, was not confined to the sepoys, and did not even originate with them, but had its ramifications throughout the palace and city....Harriott in his prosecution speech stated. "[Was Zafar] the original mover, the head and front of the undertaking, or but the consenting tool..the forward, unscrupulous, but still pliant puppet, tutored by priestly craft for the advancement of religious bigotry? Many persons, I believe, will incline to the latter. The known restless spirit of Mahommedan fanaticism has been the first aggressor, the vindictive intolerance of that peculiar faith has been struggling for mastery, seditious conspiracy has its means, the prisoner its active accomplice, and every possible crime the frightful result...The bitter zeal of Mahommedanism meets us everywhere... Perfectly demonic in its actions.." It was a part of a global Muslim conspiracy. He closed his two and a half hour speech about the uprising being an international Islamic conspiracy thus "I have endeavored to point out" he declaimed how intimately the prisoner, as the head of the Mahommedan faith in India, has been connected with the organisation of that conspiracy, either as its leader or its unscrupulous accomplice...". He added "If we now take a retrospective view of the various circumstances which we have been able to elicit during our extended inquiries, we shall see how exclusively Mohommedan are all the prominent points that attach to it. A Mohommedan priest, with pretended visions, and assumed miraculous powers- a Mohommedan King, his dupe and accomplice- a Mohahmmedan clandestine embassy to the Mahommedan powers of Persia and Turkey- Mahommedan prophecies as to the downfall of our power-Mohommedan rule as the successor to our own- the most cold blooded murders by Mohommedan assassins- a religious war for Mahommedan ascendancy- a Mahommedan press unscrupulously abetting- and Mahommedan sepoys initiating the mutiny. Hinduism, I may say, is nowhere either reflected or represented....." (pages 440-443)This charge gives a new twist to the interpretation of 1857 mutiny. This version reminds us of the present onslaught of global terrorism (mainly Muslim) on the Western world and India. Why the English rulers became soft towards the Muslims after the mutiny?. They did not find Hindu hand in the mutiny, then why did they give step motherly treatment to Hindus by way of separate electorates and weightage to Muslims in government services and India's polity, remain an unanswered question politicians and historians. RS Khanna, (The author is former Chief Secy GoMP) Manuj Features
Poster Comment: Why the English rulers became soft towards the Muslims after the mutiny?. They did not find Hindu hand in the mutiny, then why did they give step motherly treatment to Hindus by way of separate electorates and weightage to Muslims in government services and India's polity, remain an unanswered question politicians and historians. The only part of this article that I want to comment on is the last part because it asks a question. I have been reading mostly Indian origin news as of late because I feel the Indian press culture seems to be the only English press that seems independent of the American/British spin. For some reason - maybe it is part of Indian culture - Indian opinion writers ask questions in their articles that hint at an answer but seem to leave it to the reader to answer. Again, I assume that this is an aspect of Indian culture since I see it a lot. So why did the British favor the Muslim Indians over the Hindu (seemingly more loyal) Indians? That is a fascinating question for me. My answer? European colonialist divide and rule policy - rule the majority through a minority that is dependent on the colonial power for its position. In Iraq for example the English used the Sunni Arabs for this role against the majority Shi'ites. It is my theory that the English wanted the Jews to arrive into Palestine not to form a homeland for the Jews but to create a minority population which would rule for the British. The Balfour Declaration for a Zionist state specifically stipulated that the arriving Jews would be subjects of the Crown. Now, you may ask why didn't the English use the already existing minority population of Arab Christians in Palestine for this role? Because the local Arabs are mostly Orthodox Christians and the British feared putting a people that may sympathize with Orthodox Russia so close the Suez Canal. I am referring to the situation in 1916 and 1917. The British knew the Turks were about to fall and they would move in but they would have no local allies in the Middle East. Supporting Zionist colonists would do three 'positive' things for British rule in the Middle East 1) Provide an educated elite to rule Palestine for the British and 2) Create a Zionist state that would serve as an irritant to the Arabs that would distract them from fighting British rule forcing them to come to the British time and again for mediation and 3) Keep the potential Russian allies (they did not know at this time the Reds would win in the Revolution) - the Orthodox Christian Arabs from power. After WW2 the British tried to hold on to power but they were too weak and the Zionist settlers turned on their weak British masters co-conspirators. I find this thesis for the why England embraced the founding of the Zionist state (as long as it was under British rule) more rational than the tales of secret societies and other such tales.
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#1. To: All, swarthyguy (#0)
To summarize my thesis: The reason I think the British did not embrace the local Arab Christian population of Palestine as their agents was because of the British fear of Russia meddling in the Middle East and India and thus viewed Orthodox Christan Arabs as potential Russian allies and thus unreliable local agents for the crown. The British needed another minority through which to rule their newly acquired domain in Palestine. Zionist Jews seemed to fit the bill nicely - especially since Zionists were already hostile to Czarist Russia.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
One should also consider the romanticism and love that a harsh, austere desert religion creates in the Western mind compared to the "decadency" of the established Christian churches. Exhibit A: Laurence of Arabia in addition to many others including a senior Italian diplomat who converted to Islam in 2002 in Saudi. In India, the British, despite having used many Indian Hindu Sepoys in the various private armies of the East India Company, came to view the Hindus as effeminate, much as they considered Jews. They used various "martial" races like the Nepali Gurkhas and the Sikhs as their preferred source for Army personnel. They eventually came to consider the Muslims as the same, a warlike entity they could count on. They also consider Islam's monotheism superior to the polytheistic Hindus, which was halfway valid considering that most rulers of Indian Kingdoms were Muslims, especially in Northern India, with their financial advisers et al being Hindus. Generalisations, because there were exceptions like Tipu Sultan in the South of India who was finally beaten by the British with Hindu troops! Divide and Rule was the strategy and it worked; Islam was seen as a bulwark against communism, hence the favor and speed with which Pakistan was carved out of India, despite being a pie in the sky formulation - an Islamic state whose creator, Jinnah, was a secular, scotch drinking, ham chomping "islamist". Muslims don't mind the creation of a Muslim state like Pakistan but get their turbans in a knot about a similar state created for religious reasons around the same time.
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