Analysis: Legacy of 1857 continues unabated
NEW DELHI: The brave and fractious anti-British uprising of 1857 was put down with a heavy hand. It took another 90 eventful years for Hindus and Muslims who claimed to have jointly led the anti-colonial showdown to part ways. Anger, acrimony, violence visited both communities and tore up large swathes of their habitats across the subcontinent .
As the year 2017 marks the 160th anniversary of the uprising, let’s examine the role played by the two groups at a defining moment in history.
If there were Hindu, Muslim or Sikh participants in the rebellion, there were Hindu, Muslim and Sikhs allies of the British as well. The Shia Nawab of Oudh rebelled and the Shia Nawab of Rampur sided with the British.
If Sunni purists joined the mutiny, then Bhopal, under the influence of the ultra conservative Ahl-i-Hadees, remained loyal to the East India Company. Many Sikhs, Pathans, and a whole host of Hindu chieftains joined the British against the rebellion.
Many of us celebrate Hindu-Muslim unity of 1857, but we ignore the disunity both between and within the communities. Both premises — of 1857 and 1947 — were therefore suspect. There was no monolithic Muslim identity in either case. There was no monolithic Hindu identity either. This was proved in 1857, but overlooked in 1947, possibly to address new exigencies of electoral politics.
Everyone wanted to show their popular prowess at the ballots so they gathered everyone that was not traditionally in either camp as one of theirs.
Had both sides heeded B.R. Ambedkar, they would have analysed the defeat in 1857 more rationally and approached the division of 1947 with far more circumspection than they provisioned for. The role of the backward castes, including the erstwhile Untouchables (today’s Dalits), continues to be underplayed in the popular imagination.
In the popular imagination, 1857 is touted for Hindu-Muslim unity and 1947 is remembered for their disunity. Ambedkar had a different view of both. Consider his typically cutting passage from The Annihilation of Caste: “The first and foremost thing that must be recognised is that Hindu society is a myth,” says the book Dalits regard as their bible.
“The name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by the Mahomedans to the natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. It does not occur in any Sanskrit work prior to the Mahomedan invasion. They did not feel the necessity of a common name, because they had no conception of their having constituted a community.
“Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of castes. Each caste is conscious of its existence. Its survival is the be-all and end-all of its existence. Castes do not even form a federation. A caste has no feeling that is affiliated to other castes, except when there is a Hindu-Moslem riot. On all other occasions each caste endeavours to segregate itself and to distinguish itself from other castes.”
Caste matters
How did the caste tangle feature in 1857?
Consider the airbrushing of certain embarrassing traits from historical discourse. Whose exploits are we more familiar with between Ramabai Pandita and Begum Hazrat Mahal? Ramabai was born to a progressive Brahmin family of Maharashtra. She suffered for her association with the Untouchables in her neighbourhood, one of whom she married during a visit to Bengal.