Location: On Rani Jhansi Road, Kashmiri Gate, New Delhi Over a century ago, when India was struggling under the British Raj, some brave hearted rose against the colonial rule and started what is now called the “First battle of Independence”. It wasn’t easy; thousands of soldiers lost their lives battling the cruel Britishers. Their heroism and sacrifice is what the Mutiny Memorial now commemorates. Located on the Rani Jhansi Road in Delhi, the memorial was [...]
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the changes brought about due to the revolt of 1857 had considerably settled down. The country was now not in the hands of the East India Company but rather the British government ruled the subcontinent. Even though it was the government ruling the subcontinent, the rule was only in theory. The main power lay with the Viceroy of India and the Secretary of Sate. The post-1858 [...]
With the clamour of what is called the Revolt of 1857 quietening, any close notion of unity was left far behind. Even in the revolt, the resistance to colonial rule had been local. This is not to take away anything from the dissenters, only to state that around the penultimate decade of the 19th century, something called India was not even in the vocabulary or imagination of the people residing in the sub-continent. While parties [...]
How do we come to know history? By the word “know” what I mean to impress is how a complete system of knowledge is generated, refined as well as circulated. I use a particular event: that of the events of 1857, well known to us to show how history is generated as a discipline and how it gets circulated among various interest groups. To begin with: students of history – correction, school students of history [...]
The Revolt of 1857 goes by many names. Each of them is loaded with some connotation or the other. There is the condescending “revolt”, the similar “rebellion”. The Indian preference is for the “first war of independence.” We have been fed through history books all about what the Revolt of 1857 was. What would be more interesting and far more revealing, I thought, would be how the Revolt of 1857 has been studied. How, in [...]
