The history of that treacherous and devastating Indian insurrection of 1857 carved in South Asian Muslim memory as ghadr [rebellion, treason] still has many blind spots that need to be thrown into sharp perspective. Despite a good deal of scholarly research on this subject, the finer details of the rebellion continue to lie in an unattended obscurity. What we have generally received in mainstream historical writings is a picture painted in broad strokes.

A remarkable fact of the story of the Muslim rebellion of 1857 is that, in the major urban centres such as Delhi and Awadh, it was largely led by Ulema [religious scholars]; and more, this sustained, fearless and blood-drenched freedom struggle came to pass regardless of the actors’ subsequent ideological position concerning the two-nation theory and their eventual party affiliations. Indeed, here we have a phenomenon that seems historically rather improbable.

Why would religious scholars, overwhelmingly invested as they were in the knotty issues of Muslim piety and ritual, involved heavily in the philosophical rigour and logical minutiae of shari‘a law articulation, risk their life, property and the fate of their vulnerable families to rise up and play a leading role in the freedom struggle? Yes, indeed, it is questions like these that make history interesting, intricate and complex.

While the precise chronology of events leading up to and during the 1857 insurrection still floats on somewhat muddied waters, this much can be said with a degree of confidence: it was in the summer of 1857 that Urdu newspapers started to publish fatwas [religious edicts] declaring jihad [armed struggle in this context] against colonial rulers to be incumbent upon Muslims. Here, one recalls the uncompromising courage of three newspapers in particular: Delhi Urdu Akhbar, one of the earliest newspapers in this Mughal seat of power; Sadiqul Akhbar, another newspaper from Delhi; and Awadh Akhbar of Lucknow.

Then, among the Urdu newspapers inciting the uprising and aggressively disseminating anti-British fatwas and rebellious material was the very vocal Al-Zafar. In fact, Al-Zafar was considered highly dangerous by the British officials, with its editorial team constantly facing imprisonment, exile, or even execution. So it went underground and obscured itself as a clandestine publication, and it is for this reason that we do not have clear details about it.

Deeply ironic here is the fact that the design of the panopticon was an integral element in Bentham’s “prison reforms” initiative — a mode of merciless control about which French philosopher Michel Foucault had much to say in his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975).

Among the early signatories of the fateful fatwa was Mirza Ghalib’s respected and beloved friend, the commanding editor of his standard Diwan, Allama Fazl-i-Haqq Khairabadi, a formidable intellectual and Arabic poet, and an outstanding Muslim rationalist scholar of his times. The Allama was held in high esteem by virtually all leading Muslim figures of India, covering an ideologically wide and highly diverse spectrum — Sir Syed Ahmad Khan; the Grand Mufti of Delhi, Sadruddin Azurda; and the wandering Sufi Ghous Ali Shah Qalandar among them.

Following a spate of anti-colonial activities — during which Allama Fazl-i-Haqq even met the utterly impuissant Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor — it was decided that the insurrection (dubbed “jang-i-azadi”, war of freedom) will begin in the month of May, 1857. Eventually the rebellion did break out on the 10th of that month, from a military camp in Meerut.

Charged with the capital crime of high treason, the Allama was arrested by Indian colonial officials in 1859, prosecuted, and exiled to that dreaded Port Blair prison on the Andaman islands, a punishment called Kala Pani. At this infamous prison, the inmates were held in isolation in windowless cells under unspeakably cruel and inhuman conditions; they were fed warm watery legumes, and were subjected to harsh labour. And when they died, as they did all the time in large numbers, bodies were dragged by the feet, covered with sand, and left to decompose.

But here we have another phenomenon of history that seems highly improbable, so improbable that it unsettles us into utter disbelief. The Port Blair Cellular Prison was the embodiment of what is called the panopticon conception — a system designed to observe all inmates of an institution from a single observation tower, without the inmates themselves knowing if they are being observed or not.

Now, what is an eminent surprise here is that this mode of incarceration was the brainchild of none other than the father of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, the famous English philosopher and social reformer. Then, deeply ironic here is the fact that the design of the panopticon was an integral element in Bentham’s “prison reforms” initiative — a mode of merciless control about which French philosopher Michel Foucault had much to say in his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975).

And more, this story has a multiplicity of ironies, for the Kala Pani generated many literary masterpieces. Allama Fazl-i-Haqq wrote fascinating Arabic poems during his ruthless incarceration in the panopticon and, while suffering from excruciating pain, he wrote with tremendous emotional energy his Al-Thaura al-Hindiyya [The Indian Insurrection], by far the most graphic and hair-raising description of the treatment to which the Indian freedom fighters were subjected.

The connection between the 1857 rebellion, Kala Pani, Jeremy Bentham, British colonial excesses, and Michel Foucault’s ideas is a fantastic story indeed, simply beyond belief.

The columnist is a faculty member of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Karachi, and Executive Academic Advisor of the University of Lahore

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 22nd, 2024