The Mutiny.

Most of us know in a more or less scrappy fashion the traditional account of the Indian Mutiny. I suppose in its essentials it runs something like this: on one side of the struggle were the English, noble, upright, honest, God-fearing and just— who were governing India for the benefit of the Indians themselves. On the other side were the natives, most of whom were Sepoys who perversely refused to use cartridges smeared with grease. When ordered to do so by their white masters, they refused, and thus the revolt started. The Sepoys, according to history books were cruel, callous barbarians, who murdered and killed all those white people who fell into their hands. After a severe struggle, marked by temperateness, bravery and justice on the part of the British and by ruthless cruelty on the part of the Sepoys, the rebellion was put down. Following tradition again, we have all at one time or another worshipped Nicholson—the Nikkul Seyn, who is the hero-god of many a boyhood dream—we all have gloried in the exploits of Havelock, Wilson and Hodson in their valiant defence of British honour; and we have all felt rage and disgust when we have read the account of Cawnpore. Not a few, I suspect, will always tingle a little with a faint shadow of that hate which was once so vividly directed against the devilish Indians.

The Evolution of the Lab.

To those brought up on this staple story—it is set forth in full in that most contemptible of all histories, The Tale of the Great Mutiny, by the Rev. W. H. Fitchett, LL.D.—it comes with all the suddenness of a shock of horror and shame to read this book¹ by Edward Thompson and find that another of one's most cherished illusions has been utterly destroyed. For here is a man who has not feared to tear down the veil which has surrounded the Mutiny, and to break once and for all the rose coloured glasses of ignorance and prejudice. In effect Thompson's book is a review of the whole mutiny. Its text is that there can be no co-operation between Indian and Englishman, that there can be no end to Indian unrest, so long as the deeds which were perpetrated by the English in suppressing the Mutiny—never mentioned in history books, of course—remain a memory of burning injustice seared by helplessness against such misrepresentations, upon the minds of the Indian people. The impression that the book must make upon the thoughtful reader, is one of determination never more to be a party to this shameful fabrication which is, year in, year out, being drilled into the minds of our too docile school children.

Consider the evidence that Thompson brings forward to present "the other side of the medal." It may be noted first that the evidence is all drawn from the accounts, memoirs, or letters of eye-witnesses to the actual occurrences. We see that the Mutiny was felt by the Indians to be no mere military rebellion, but a war—a righteous war—of independence, precipitated by the annexation of Oudh, which the Indians thought to be the prelude to a complete loss of independence, and fanned into a violent flame by a command which meant contamination—the order compelling the use of grease on the cartridges. We see further that the British did not remain calm and cool when the Sepoys were finally driven into desperate rebellion at Meerut. The English became as mad, as homicidally mad, as the Sepoys themselves. They became mastered by that Hysterical cruelty which always springs from terror. There can be no other explanation for the fact that, crime for crime, the Christians were always the equal, sometimes the masters even, of the natives. There can be no other explanation for the English setting themselves up as judge, jury and witness combined, just as there can be no other explanation than desperate terror for the crime of Cawnpore.

In a way the natives had justification for their cruelty when all they received from the English, if they were captured, was hanging or being shot from the mouth of cannon—in one letter home, a clergyman's widow relates how the spectators at one of these executions were liberally besprinkled with blood and pieces of flesh—or being shot offhand or even impaled. Thus we learn that Nicholson-the god-hero—was in favour of flaying alive or burning the Sepoys. His letters show him sanctimoniously seeking Biblical justification for his acts. Torture was actually carried out in many cases. But the climax of madness was reached when a Mr. Cooper performed an exploit which he thought would make his name eternally famous. Mr. Cooper

¹ "The Other Side of the Medal." by Edward Thompson.

page 14 captured 282 Sepoys, the remnants of those who had revolted and murdered their superior officer at Lahore. These Sepoys he confined in a fort at Ujnalla overnight; on the next morning he had 237 of them executed and thrown into a dry well near the fort, the remaining 45 Sepoys having perished from terror, suffocation and heat overnight. Thus in one master stroke Mr. Cooper managed to combine the Black Hole with Cawnpore—and for his exploits he was publicly congratulated by Lord Lawrence, Governor of the Punjab.

Other deeds of derring-do were performed by the relief columns. Their star item was the burning of every village on their route of march and the executing of every villager and Sepoy who fell into their hands. Thus we are told "peppering away at the niggers" was a very pleasant pastime, "enjoyed amazingly." Finally this government of massacre was supplemented with government by gallows when Delhi was captured by the British, and so the latter became the lineal heirs of that Nadir Shah, who in 1739 slaughtered untold thousands when he captured Delhi. And yet, with all these facts upon which to found his judgment, one writer on the Mutiny concludes his three volume history unctuously and grandly thus: "Justice was done, mercy was shown to all who were not guilty of deliberate murder, the land cleansed of blood."¹ One might throw the lists open to the literature of the whole world, and still not find a more superb example of smug effrontery.

This customary misrepresentation of the Mutiny is nothing but a flattering of national esteem. Its object is to keep up the pathetic faith of the Englishman in the glories of the British armies, to bolster up his pride in his magnificent Empire, in its justice, its mercy, its chivalry. But is it just to suppress one side of the truth on the half-hearted excuse that a statement of both sides of the case will cause racial ill-feeling? Thompson shows how the fear of the Mutiny—the fear of another bloody rising—has run like a red thread through the history of the relations of Englishman and Indian during the last sixty years. It has given us Maler Kotla, where Cowan in 1872 summarily blew from the cannon's mouth fifty Sikhs who were in rebellion; it has given us those "measures of retributive justice" sanctioned by Lord Roberts at Kabul in 1879 which have left the Border sullen and threatening ever since; finally, it has given us Amritsar, which set a nation of three hundred millions throbbing and shuddering with a unity of passion they had never known before; and it is likely to give us something more terrible still if things are not soon mended.

Is there any remedy, then? Yes; it consists primarily in a new orientation of our histories of India, so that stress will be laid on Ujnalla just as much as on Cawnpore, on the Black Hole just as much as on Delhi. Or better still, the dark incidents should be expunged altogether from both fiction and history. More fundamental, however, is the necessity for a change of heart, a change of attitude towards India by the British people. There must be atonement for this policy of misrepresentation. From the English, the Indians should expect the magnanimous

¹ G. W. Forrest—History of the Indian Mutiny. Vol. III, page 623.

page 15 gesture of a great nation, so great that it can afford to admit mistake and wrong doing, and too proud withal to distort facts. Only with this new attitude can there come understanding, friendship and forgiveness. Without it, the future is black indeed.

Strange to say, this book of Edward Thompson's is not yet in the College library. May one hope that this is only a temporary oversight?

—E.B.