A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books
The recent flurry of activity all over the Western World, particularly in USA and UK, surrounding the sudden discovery that many of the heros of the Western World had a different history in pats of the conquered non white world. This demarcation between White and non White world is absolute an race was indeed the foundation of the ideology that sustained domination and conquest. For over foue hundred years Asia and Africa were subjected to untold horror--Slavery, Cultural Subversion, Racial oppression--among others and the result of western hegemony was the degradation of a whole segmen of Humanity. Unfortunately the so called "post colonial" "social science and literary theory' informed "scholars" do great harm by completely neglecting the real issues at hand and diverting their attemtion to Ideology, Identity and Imagination. Human suffering cannot become a mere discourse, a trick of language as it has in recent works. I recently read a book about the Religious policies of the Portuguese in Goa and there was no mention of the Inqusition that claimed more than 55.000 lives and was endend only due to the pressure from the East India Company Administration in Bimbay. History has to engage with truth and Memory and cannot we cannot erase the horrors of the past by resorting to censorship of public memory, It is a very cheap way of sanatizing History. The example I have chosen is the Memory of one of the most brutal Generals of the East India Company, General James Smith-Neill (1810-1857.
The photograph on the left is of the statue as it stood on Mount Road (now Anna Salai). The statue was inaugurated by Lord Harris, the Governor of Madras to honour the memory of James Neill who was killed on September 25 th 1857 just as he was reconquering the city of lucknow for the British from the hands of the Indian soldiers who had rebelled against the Company. The record of General Neill as a soldier is horrendous and by contemporary standards he would be quite honsstly called a "war criminal" But the English in their time saw him as an avenger who retored the dignity of the White Race and chaistised the rebels for the crime of killing women and children at Bibighar. Kanpur or Cawnpore as it was spelt in the days of the Raj.
The Uprising of 1857 remains a very contentious subject till this day in India. For one thing the Rebellion was crushed using Soldiers from Punjab, Madras and Nepal a fact that Indian historians have to expalain away in order to sustain the narrative of a Grand Revolt. The British reponse was brutal i the extrme and General Neill exemplied the Terror Tactics deployed by Lord Cannng and his Military to beat down the Indians. Neil may have been a hero to the Raj but he is certainly no hero to his victims. The question is: Does removing his statue really an act of retribution or does it play int the hands of such monsters whose record of horror is very son forgotten. Neill must be remembered for his atrocities. But today he is forgotten and Indian Historians do not even mention them. I am the only Historian who has catalogued the crimes of Heneral Neill as part of my contribution to the Commemoration f the 150th Anniversary of the Mutiny. History has the task of Memoria or remembering the past. not censoring it for the sake of virtue signaling.
James Neill reached Allahabad almost straight from the Crimean War where his unit was posted and he participated in the attack on Sebastapol. From Allahabad he marched the Madras Fussiliers toKanpur and this march was marked by brutality. Suspected rebels were rounded up and hanged without any remorse. Indian vilages were set abalze to terrorize the native population. Women and childen were not spared and it was just blood and gore all the way from Allahabad to Kanpur and thence to Lucknow. The extreme brutality of Neil's March to Lucknow is seen as revenge for the Bibighar massacre in which a Muslim butcher acting on the instigation of his lover killed the women and children who had escaped from Lucknow under the safe passage granted by the rebel leader Nana Saheb. There is absolutely no evidence to show that Nana Sabeb was either involved in or was even aware of the event. But in the public memory of the English, Nana Saheb was Satan incarnate. On 25th September General Neill was killed by a sniper as he was entering Alam Bagh.
General Neill was burried in an unmaked grave and the exact lcation is still a mystery and that was to protect his remains from being vandalized by his victims. The photograph on the left is the only photo showing the grave but its identification is still controversial. The Memorial set up to honour the dead of the bibighar Massacre was torn apart in 1947 soon after Independence, ninety years after the event itself. With such deep imprint, politicians and organizers of populist movements like the Black Live Matter movement have to tread cautiously.
For several decades the statue of General Neill occupied the very strategic location outside the Spencers' and on Mount Road. Severl visitors have remarked without a trace of irony about the salience and relevance of General Neill. But the advent of Nationalism changed the narrative. The blue eyed boys of the Raj became the villiams of the Indians who were keen to reinscribe themselves in History by claiming the great force of Nationalism, And Gandhi endorsed the idea in his own confused and inarticulate way: He said that the removal of the statue will not cure the "disease" it will alleviate the "agony" and "point the way to reachig the disease". How the removal of a statue will achieve all this Gandhis does not elaborate. But in his typical style of using exaggeraed and expansive hyperbole, he lit the fire. And it caught on.
The Neill Satyagraha in which the hret leader Kamaraj cut his political teeth was the first salvo for freedom fired in Madras which was slipping into an abyss even as this agitation unfolded. In 1937 Rajagopalachari had the Statue removed and today it stands as a museum piece in the Egmore Museum.
Mathew Noble cast two identical statues. The other one stands in Ayr, Scotland and it is on the list of statues whose removal has been deaded by the radical groips in UK. A question that we in India can legitimately ask: Who owns the Past the Pepetrators or their Victims
The recent flurry of activity all over the Western World, particularly in USA and UK, surrounding the sudden discovery that many of the heros of the Western World had a different history in pats of the conquered non white world. This demarcation between White and non White world is absolute an race was indeed the foundation of the ideology that sustained domination and conquest. For over foue hundred years Asia and Africa were subjected to untold horror--Slavery, Cultural Subversion, Racial oppression--among others and the result of western hegemony was the degradation of a whole segmen of Humanity. Unfortunately the so called "post colonial" "social science and literary theory' informed "scholars" do great harm by completely neglecting the real issues at hand and diverting their attemtion to Ideology, Identity and Imagination. Human suffering cannot become a mere discourse, a trick of language as it has in recent works. I recently read a book about the Religious policies of the Portuguese in Goa and there was no mention of the Inqusition that claimed more than 55.000 lives and was endend only due to the pressure from the East India Company Administration in Bimbay. History has to engage with truth and Memory and cannot we cannot erase the horrors of the past by resorting to censorship of public memory, It is a very cheap way of sanatizing History. The example I have chosen is the Memory of one of the most brutal Generals of the East India Company, General James Smith-Neill (1810-1857.
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| The Statue of General Neill standing on Mount Road, Madras |
The photograph on the left is of the statue as it stood on Mount Road (now Anna Salai). The statue was inaugurated by Lord Harris, the Governor of Madras to honour the memory of James Neill who was killed on September 25 th 1857 just as he was reconquering the city of lucknow for the British from the hands of the Indian soldiers who had rebelled against the Company. The record of General Neill as a soldier is horrendous and by contemporary standards he would be quite honsstly called a "war criminal" But the English in their time saw him as an avenger who retored the dignity of the White Race and chaistised the rebels for the crime of killing women and children at Bibighar. Kanpur or Cawnpore as it was spelt in the days of the Raj.
The Uprising of 1857 remains a very contentious subject till this day in India. For one thing the Rebellion was crushed using Soldiers from Punjab, Madras and Nepal a fact that Indian historians have to expalain away in order to sustain the narrative of a Grand Revolt. The British reponse was brutal i the extrme and General Neill exemplied the Terror Tactics deployed by Lord Cannng and his Military to beat down the Indians. Neil may have been a hero to the Raj but he is certainly no hero to his victims. The question is: Does removing his statue really an act of retribution or does it play int the hands of such monsters whose record of horror is very son forgotten. Neill must be remembered for his atrocities. But today he is forgotten and Indian Historians do not even mention them. I am the only Historian who has catalogued the crimes of Heneral Neill as part of my contribution to the Commemoration f the 150th Anniversary of the Mutiny. History has the task of Memoria or remembering the past. not censoring it for the sake of virtue signaling.
James Neill reached Allahabad almost straight from the Crimean War where his unit was posted and he participated in the attack on Sebastapol. From Allahabad he marched the Madras Fussiliers toKanpur and this march was marked by brutality. Suspected rebels were rounded up and hanged without any remorse. Indian vilages were set abalze to terrorize the native population. Women and childen were not spared and it was just blood and gore all the way from Allahabad to Kanpur and thence to Lucknow. The extreme brutality of Neil's March to Lucknow is seen as revenge for the Bibighar massacre in which a Muslim butcher acting on the instigation of his lover killed the women and children who had escaped from Lucknow under the safe passage granted by the rebel leader Nana Saheb. There is absolutely no evidence to show that Nana Sabeb was either involved in or was even aware of the event. But in the public memory of the English, Nana Saheb was Satan incarnate. On 25th September General Neill was killed by a sniper as he was entering Alam Bagh.
 |
| General Neill.'s unmarked Grave in Lucknow |
General Neill was burried in an unmaked grave and the exact lcation is still a mystery and that was to protect his remains from being vandalized by his victims. The photograph on the left is the only photo showing the grave but its identification is still controversial. The Memorial set up to honour the dead of the bibighar Massacre was torn apart in 1947 soon after Independence, ninety years after the event itself. With such deep imprint, politicians and organizers of populist movements like the Black Live Matter movement have to tread cautiously.
For several decades the statue of General Neill occupied the very strategic location outside the Spencers' and on Mount Road. Severl visitors have remarked without a trace of irony about the salience and relevance of General Neill. But the advent of Nationalism changed the narrative. The blue eyed boys of the Raj became the villiams of the Indians who were keen to reinscribe themselves in History by claiming the great force of Nationalism, And Gandhi endorsed the idea in his own confused and inarticulate way: He said that the removal of the statue will not cure the "disease" it will alleviate the "agony" and "point the way to reachig the disease". How the removal of a statue will achieve all this Gandhis does not elaborate. But in his typical style of using exaggeraed and expansive hyperbole, he lit the fire. And it caught on.
The Neill Satyagraha in which the hret leader Kamaraj cut his political teeth was the first salvo for freedom fired in Madras which was slipping into an abyss even as this agitation unfolded. In 1937 Rajagopalachari had the Statue removed and today it stands as a museum piece in the Egmore Museum.
Mathew Noble cast two identical statues. The other one stands in Ayr, Scotland and it is on the list of statues whose removal has been deaded by the radical groips in UK. A question that we in India can legitimately ask: Who owns the Past the Pepetrators or their Victims
