1857 Darkest Moment In British Imperial History
Author William Dalrymple is in love with India and its capital Delhi — his adopted home for many years and the principle theatre of action in his new book The Last Mughal — a captivating portrait of the last days of the Mughal empire and the poet-emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II.
The Last Mughal is his third India-inspired book — City of Djinns, a delightful account of Delhi, written 15 years ago, made him a familiar name among the book-lovers. White Mughals, published four years ago, chronicles the lives of the Englishmen of the 1700s and the early 1800s who fell completely in love with India — passionately and irrevocably much like the author himself — and adopted Indian customs and married Indian women.
In some ways, The Last Mughal (published by Penguin/Viking) takes off from where White Mughals left and tells the story of the sunset of the once-grand empire and the 1857 uprising against the British — a defining event in Indian history that has been variously interpreted by historians as the ‘sepoy mutiny’ and the ‘first war of independence.’
In a conversation with Manish Chand, Dalrymple speaks about his inspiration behind writing The Last Mughal; the art of writing history; the uncanny parallels between the 1857-58 events in India that saw the first serious challenge to the British rule and the post 9/11 world; and his deep love for India and Indians.
Q) What inspired you to write yet another book on the Mughals? What lies at the root of your obsession with this period in Indian history?
A) I am fascinated by the Mughals. Any outsider coming to India is amazed by everything in this country. The Red Fort and The Taj Mahal represent the apogee of Indian civilisation. Let’s not forget that the Mughals ruled most of India. This is a huge chunk of modern Indian history. Also, the Mughals are more accessible in terms of historiography. If I were to write about Pallavas and Cholas, I would have to learn Sanskrit and Tamil. The Mughals are a part and parcel of the Indian landscape. Babur’s memoirs stand out as one of the greatest ever written.
Q) You write vividly and in somewhat elegiac tone about the last days of the Mughal empire. Your portrayal of India’s last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar is profoundly moving and has a tinge of sadness about it.
A) In general, I am attracted to sad stories. I like sad stories and sad songs. Sad songs remain in your hearts and minds longer.
I was inspired by The Fall of Constantinople 1453 — a masterpiece of history writing. Steven Runciman is my hero of history writing. When I was a student, I always dreamt that this is how I would like to write history one day. There is something deeply moving about the last days of the Mughal empire. In 1857-58, the Mughal Delhi was eradicated as brutally and completely as the Byzantium was erased by the Turks.
Q) You did exhaustive research about the Mughal period. Which sources did you rely on reconstructing the everyday life of that period in such vividness and details?
A) There is density of archival material about the Mughal period. There is fabulous richness about these records. In the course of writing this book, I came across The Mutiny Papers, which have been lying in National Archives of India. This allows 1857 to be revealed for the first time in history from a properly Indian perspective and not just from the British sources on which most of accounts of the period rely. Astonishingly, the Mutiny Papers has not been used by many historians writing about that period. This is the sort of treasure historians will kill to discover. This is the most accessible archive. It records life in this city just before the whole place was wiped out. It represents the people of Delhi and their most basic conditions. It reveals everyday life in spectacular details.
Q) Your approach to history writing — telling a good story in engaging prose — stands out from the academic style of writing history. Do you think there is need to think afresh about the state of history-writing?
A) History writing need not be boring. This is what people like Edward Gibbon and (Thomas Babington) Macaulay have done all this time. There has been much orientalising and exoticising of the East. But Foucault’s approach has run its course. We need to rescue history writing from irrelevance.
History writing is a street with many mansions. It’s certainly not the case that you have to write in post-colonial, post-modern jargon. This kind of jargon-ridden writing obscures, rather than illuminates. Runciman writes the most exquisite prose. And guess who was his model? Beatrix Potter. The idea is to write short simple sentences and tell a great story with utmost clarity.
Q) You have written about the 1857-58 events in refreshingly modern post 9/11 terms. Those who rebelled against the British ruler and accepted Zafar as their leader used the vocabulary and idiom of jihad. How much was religion a force behind the 1857 revolt?
A) In the Mutiny Papers, the mutineers and Red Fort expressed themselves in religious language. And there was some basis for it. By this time, the East India Company had ceased to be religiously neutral. Their job was not just to rule India but to redeem it.
By this time, missionaries were very active. They carried out their activities in different ways. Prisoners were offered inducements to convert to Christianity. These cartridges (a popular theory has it the British greased cartridges with the cow fat and pork that offended religious sensibilities of both Muslim and Hindu soldiers and sparked the uprising against the British rule) were not some form of native lunacy. The company did indeed have an active policy of proselytisation. The cartridges had different significance. But behind these religious sentiments, there were deeply felt secular social, economic and political grievances.
Q) How can one place 1857-58 events in the context of the post 9/11 world?
A) The sense of resentment they felt towards the company could be compared to the American policies in the Middle East. The kind of things that provide support to Osama bib Laden are grievances against American foreign policy. Every historian interprets the past through the subjective lens of the present. Two things will survive this book. The book aims to restore the centrality of Delhi as the centre of 1857-58 events. It is a simple, empirical and unambiguous fact. Delhi was by any neutral, empirical standards the centre of the 1857. Most narratives go back and forth between Delhi, Lucknow, Jhansi and Kanpur. Many historians make Delhi one of the many centres of 1857. Placing Delhi back in the centre of things is the aim of my book.
Veer Savarkar, who coined the term and wrote the book The First War of Independence, put Mangal Pandey on the pedestal. Mangal Pandey was frankly marginal to the action. In reality, Zafar was the centre. One fails to understand why so many historians have failed to emphasise it. It is amazing how so many Hindus chose the Mughal emperor as their leader. One hopes that history outgrows its penchant for post-colonial writing.
Q) Nick Robins has written a book on The East India Company where he talks about the need for atonement and facing up to the bitter truths about the British rule. As a writer and a Briton in love with India, how do you look at the savagery that followed after the British ruthless suppression of what they called the uprising?
A) The scale of the massacre that took place, mass vandalism and mass rape that accompanied it seems to be unequivocally war crimes of greater magnitude than 100 Amritsars.
Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts are brilliant young historians. They are trying to present the British empire as an engine of progress and a model of globalisation. We must also look at the dark side of the empire. I know of no darker moment in the British imperialist history than what happened in 1857.
Q) You have been accused of West-bashing and Britain-bashing by some reviewers in Britain?
A) It’s a complex story – nothing is in black and white. One can’t be accused of Britain-bashing for highlighting war crimes.
Q) What’s your next book about? Do we get to read more about the Mughal period in your future works?
A) My next book is a collection of essays on Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. It’s called The Blind Man and the Elephant. The Last Mughal is the last volume of the Mughal Quartet I am working on.
Author Profile
- Manish Chand is Founder-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of India Writes Network (www.indiawrites.org) and India and World, a pioneering magazine focused on international affairs. He is CEO/Director of TGII Media Private Limited, an India-based media, publishing, research and consultancy company.
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