Visions of the Rebels: A Study of 1857 in Bundelkhand

Author(s): Tapti Roy

Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, Special Issue: How Social, Political and Cultural
Information Is Collected, Defined, Used and Analyzed (Feb., 1993), pp. 205-228
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312882 .
Accessed: 09/03/2011 12:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern
Asian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
Modern Asian Studies 27, I (I993), pp. 205-228. Printed in Great Britain.

Visionsof theRebels:A Studyof I857 in

Bundelkhand
TAPTI ROY

Centre
for Studiesin SocialSciences,Calcutta

The available literature on the uprising of 1857 is fairly voluminous.

Successive generations of historians have studied the subject in its
varied aspects. Their concern, however, quite often lay with long-term
political issues, with questions of the growth of the colonial state, of
nationalism, of the unity and integrity of the country. These problems
were made central to the study of the rebellion not because they were
of any relevance to the rebels but because contending imperialist and
nationalist historians were seeking to accommodate the event in a
longer time span of history. The rebellion of I857 was thereby
assimilated to a linear order related to a context that largely lay
outside of the occurrence itself. To most early English writers the
mutiny marked the watershed between Company rule and Crown
rule, an interlude in the transition to a better imperial system. For
Indian writers it was the beginning of India's struggle for national
independence.'
Such interpretive analyses leave out of their review the experience
of the rebels and how they viewed the events through which they
lived. What, for instance, was the meaning and significance of their
actions to themselves? What was their ultimate end in mind? This
essay seeks to locate the experience and actions of the rebels in 1857 in
the context of the time and the place and to understand how they
perceived them.
I am grateful to Rajat Kanta Ray and Gautam Bhadra for their comments and
Suggestions. I am responsible for all the weaknesses that still remain in the paper.
Eric Stokes and Rudrangshu Mukherjee are, among others, notable exceptions.
See Stokes, The Peasantand the Raj: Studiesin AgrarianSocietyand PeasantRebellionin
ColonialIndia (London, 1978); Stokes, ThePeasantArmed:TheIndianRevoltof 1857 ed.
by C. A. Bayly (Oxford, I986); Mukherjee, Awadh in Revolt,1857-1858. A Studyof
PopularResistance(New Delhi, 1984).
oo26-749X/93/$5.oo + .0oo ( 993 Cambridge University Press
205
206 TAPTI ROY

The uprising is often seen as a series of negative actions. Attacks,

assaults, depredations, destruction, all directed towards uprooting the
British State were regarded as elements constituting the phenomenon.
Any positive attempts at coordinating and organizing men and
actions were seen to have emerged almost accidentally. As if several
negative moments came together unintentionally in a temporary
'flash'. The colonial state thereby laid claim to the only positively
construed power that staged a comeback.
The present paper argues that the rebels were involved in a fight for
power, in an endeavour to capture the apparatus of the State. This
itself was a positive end but not an end in itself. Months after the
transfer of power different sets of rebels very consciously set out to
build their alternatives to the colonial State and to defend them. An
assessment of the strength of the adversary determined their strategies
of action. This was an area where one could trace out the pattern of
convergence of diverse actions towards a totality of political
consciousness.
What needs to be done with more rigour is simply to chart out
sequentially and chronologically the actions and events constituting
the rebellion. The importance of stringing together the varied acts of
protest, of seeking to disclose how different sections of rebels
organized themselves and how they chose to demolish and build
structures of power, is self-evident. It would then be a viable exercise
to work backwards into the history, social existence, perception and
consciousness of rebels at different, dissimilar levels.

II

Our knowledge is derived from the information that English officials

documented and preserved. The beginning of the uprising, those
moments that 'sparked' it off were recorded in great detail, as were
those rebels and their actions perceived as most threatening to the
existence of the State. A period of relative silence persisted over
months when the officials were absent from their respective stations
and information was gathered from some safe distance away. With the
march of counter-insurgency forces, news once again came more
regularly. Such disjointed information spaced out over time was par-
ticularly applicable to places like Bundelkhand, slightly remote as it
was from centres of focal attention. For places like Delhi and Kanpur,
narratives would be relatively more continuous.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 207
The East India Company acquired the division of Bundelkhand in
fragments. The area constituted by the districts of Banda and
Hamirpur fell to the British as early as in I804. The kingdom of
Jalaun lapsed to the English administration in 1840 when its infant
Raja died. Jhansi was temporarily governed by the English between
1839 and 1842,. When Gangadhar Rao died in 1853 they took over the
kingdom immediately, disallowing any adoption.
Rebellion in Bundelkhand began with the mutiny of soldiers
belonging to the 2th Native Infantry regiment at Jhansi on 5June. It
was around 3 in the afternoon when some soldiers raised a false alarm
that dacoits had attacked, rushed to the magazine and seized it.2 This
set off a series of standard actions associated with mutinies in all
stations. The treasury was captured as the i 4th Irregular Cavalry and
artillery regiments rose by the following evening. Jails were thrown
open and several civilian Indian officials in the town joined the
soldiers. Together they went up to town, and threw open the Orchha
gate to the cry of 'Deen ka Jai'.3 A general plunder and looting of
property of the Europeans and their Indian ac-
complices followed. Records were taken out and made a bonfire of in
the open field. Most of the English officers and their families had
meanwhile taken shelter at the Jhansi Fort. Those who had not were
killed. Besieged Europeans finally surrendered on the evening of the
8th; they were herded to a nearby garden and slain.
On IoJune, the right wing of the 12th Native Infantry and left wing
of the i4th Irregular Cavalry posted at Nowgong revolted.4 Thirty-
two miles from Jhansi yet another detachment at Kurrera also
mutinied.5
In Lalitpur the sequence was in some senses reversed. Initiative to
withdraw from the station was taken by the paranoid English officials
on the 12 June. They feared most the thakurswho had risen up in arms
2 From R. Hamilton, Agent Gov. Gen. for Central India to G. F. Edmonstone,
Secy to the Govt of India with Gov. Gen. camp Jhansi, 24 April 1858, Foreign
Political Proceedings [For. Pol. Progs], 30 Dec. 1859, nos 280-8, National Archives of
India (NAI). S. A. A. Rizvi and M. L. Bhargava (eds), FreedomStrugglein Uttar
Pradeshvol. III (Uttar Pradesh, I959), pp. 14-20 (hereafter FSUP).
3
'Victory to Religion', G. W. Forrest, Selectionsfrom theLetters,Despatchesand other
StatePaperspreservedin theMilitaryDepartment of the Governmentof India, 1857-58, 4 vols
(Calcutta, 1893-I912), FSUP, pp. 42-6.
4
Deposition of Sewak Singh Kshatriya Kanburya, Sipahi of Palton Hewett, Regi-
ment I2. Lucknow Collectorate Mutiny Basta, Uttar Pradesh State Archives Luck-
now (UPSAL), FSUP, p. 4.
5 From S.
Thornton, Dy Coll. To Maj. W. C. Erskine, Commr Samthar, 21 Aug.
1857, for Sec. Cons, 30 Oct. 1857, nos 602-3 (NAI), FSUP, pp. 8-14.
208 TAPTI ROY

in the country surrounding Lalitpur. As the officers prepared to leave,

however, the soldiers refused to accompany them. '. . . not a man of us
[sic] will go with you, however we wont take your lives, but you must
be off', they told the foreigners and claimed for themselves on behalf of
the king of Delhi, the treasure that they had earlier been entrusted
with.6 They seized the magazine and made off for Jhansi.
The first to rise in Orai, the district town ofJalaun, were not the
infantry soldiers but chaprasisof the custom department followed by
the police. English officials were forced to evacuate. As Orai fell on the
way north from all stations of Bundelkhand, soldiers came pouring in.
Troops fromJhansi on arriving released prisoners, plundered govern-
ment treasure and property, and burnt down and destroyed all
records and buildings. A week later soldiers from Nowgong plundered
again. Contingents from Lalitpur arrived on the 2 ISt; later all left for
Kanpur.7
In Hamirpur soldiers revolted on the I4th, replicating the actions of
their counterparts elsewhere. In addition, wealthy men were looted
and the Christian preacher and his family killed along with some of
those officials who could not escape. The Bengali babuswere attacked
and plundered as in Jhansi for 'writing English'. On 20 June a
troop of cavalry and a company of infantry soldiers came from
Kanpur to assist in the carrying of treasure from Hamirpur the follow-
ing day.8
Mutiny in Banda began as in Hamirpur on the I4th even though
villagers in the north had been up in rebellion for some time. A verbal
message from a Deputy Collector posted at the northern ghat that
mutinous cavalry troops were crossing the Jamuna into Banda, was
conveyed to F. O. Mayne, the Collector, in an open Kacheri.News
spread like 'wild fire' and the situation was no longer the same again.
Police would not 'obey' orders and soldiers now refused to give up a
single rupee out of the treasure entrusted to them. They seized the
magazine and plundered among other things the missionary schools.
Europeans in the school were released only after they had been con-
verted to Muslims.9
6
From Lt A. C. Gordon, Dy Commr 2nd class Chanderi to Maj. Erskine, Commr
Sagar Dvn, Sagar, 17 Sept. 1857. For Sec. Cons. I8 Dec. I857, no. 237, NAI.
7
Further Papers (no. 7) relative to the Mutinies in the East Indias. Enclosure 34 in
no. 8, pp. I55-6. Narrative of Events (N.E.) attending the outbreak of disturbances
by G. Passanah, Dy Coll. ofJalaun, May 1858, para. 2, p. 498. Statements of Makhan
Kumar & Bisasu Lakshman, servants of Lt Browne, who left Orai on or about i Sept.
I857. Agra, 9 Sept. 1857. Home Dept Public Branch, 6 Nov. I857, no. I8, NAI.
8 N.E. in p. 491.
9 N.E. in Hamirpur, 1857-58, para. 9,
Banda, 1857-58, pt I, paras 18-22, pp. 318-20.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 209
We do not know very much about the times when these acts of
protest were decided upon. News of mutinies in Meerut and other
stations in the north had been rife since the time when they began. Yet
it was on different days that soldiers in the four towns chose to move.
One can, however, discern a pattern in these uprisings. The head-
quarters usually took the lead with splinter battalions following. In
Bundelkhand, Jhansi certainly showed the way. It was the head-
quarters of both the 2th Native Infantry regiment and i4th Irregular
Cavalry. Elsewhere in Lalitpur was stationed the 6th Regiment of
Gwalior Contingent, at Orai were two companies of the 53rd and 56th
Native Infantry. A detachment of the 56th Native Infantry was gar-
risoned at Hamirpur while soldiers at Banda belonged to the Ist
Native Infantry. The headquarters of the two latter regiments was at
Kanpur. Being fewer in number and lesser in strength these smaller
units rose later and upon doing so then headed for their headquarters.
According to the written deposition of a Bengali, a letter was
brought to Jhansi from Delhi stating that the entire armed forces of
Bengal Presidency had mutinied. Since the regiment inJhansi had not
done so, the soldiers would be regarded as outcastes. Four men took
the lead and mobilized others to rise. They asked all men of the 'deen'
to flock to their standard and offered to remunerate each person for
his service at the rate of I2 rupees per month.'? As regards prior
planning and deliberations there is available only one reference to a
meeting held at Hamirpur on I2 June. It was attended by the head
men of each band of auxiliary troops, the Subahdar of the 56th Regi-
ment and one or two Indian civilians. Next day, guards at the
treasury refused to give up the keys when asked. On the morning of
the i4th, troops posted over the Collector's bungalow withdrew their
guns and turned them on the house." On the morning of 12 June a
party of forty sowarsbelonging to the I4th Irregular Cavalry regiment
arrived at Latitpur from Nowgong. Later that day, the 6th Regiment
of the Gwalior Contingent posted there, mutinied.
Overthrowing British rule from their respective cantonments was
the first step in the grander design of the soldiers of constructing an
alternative rule with Delhi or Kanpur as the capital. They therefore
moved out of their stations initially on to Delhi where already a new
political order had been proclaimed. The administrative structures
that were set up in Delhi and later in Kanpur served not only as

10 Written deposition of a native of

Bengal G. W. Forrest, Selectionsfrom the State
Papers, vol. IV, FSUP, pp. 42-6.
' N. E.
Hamirpur, i857-58, para. 9, p. 491.
210 TAPTI ROY

models but also provided a centralized direction to the mutinies

everywhere. The soldiers' inclination to move was more than a blind
impulse to go to Delhi or Kanpur. In their conceived strategy of
actions, it was imperative to build, uphold and strengthen a supra-
local political order.
The soldiers were seldom involved with routine administrative
affairs locally. As the former potentates set out to assume power,
however, they had to reckon with the soldiers' authority that the latter
drew from their actions. Quite often the Rajas could take up the
charge of their regions only after that was formally sanctioned by the
soldiers who at the same time devolved powers to a council of minis-
ters and retained for themselves a major share in decision-making.
Immediately after rising, soldiers in Jhansi demanded assistance from
Lakshmi Bai, threatening to kill her if she did not comply or if she
extended any assistance to the English.'2 In Banda, when the Nawab
proclaimed his rule following the mutiny, soldiers brought out
another proclamation that read: 'Khulqkhodiki, mulkBadshahka, Hukm
SubahdarsepoyBahadurka'. The Nawab was forced to acknowledge
them and patch a reconciliation on their terms.'3
In the process of rearranging local political structures, soldiers also
patched local differences so that the over-arching order would not be
disrupted. Ali Bahadur's right to rule in Banda was disputed by a
local chieftain of Ajaigarh, a small independent principality. Soldiers
decided that pending a reference to Nana Sahib, Ali Bahadur should
be left in charge.'4 Loyalty to the king-Peshwa or the Mughul Bad-
shah was an indispensable prop in their political design. On several
occasions, the soldiers refused to hand back the treasure entrusted to
them by the English on the ground that they considered it as belong-
ing to the king in Delhi.'5
In order to consolidate defences against English forces in the
capital, soldiers had to assemble and congregate there. Bundelkhand
witnessed a two-way movement of soldiers; while regiments posted
there marched out, several others came in on their way up north.
Those who came from the east or southeast stopped at Banda, those
from the south and southwest halted at Jhansi. After Delhi and
12 Written
13
deposition of a native of Bengal (see fn. io).
'The world is God's the country is the Emperor's and it is the rule of the
soldiers'. N.E. in Banda, paras 18-22, pp. 318-20.
14 From Ellis, Pol. Asstt for Bundelkhand & Rewa to
Secy to the Govt. of India,
Nagode, 2 July I857, For. Sec. Cons, 31 July I857, no. I82, NAI.
15 From Gordon to Erskine,
17 Sept. I857, For. Sec. Cons, i8 Dec. 1857, no. 237,
NAI. N.E. in Banda, paras I8-22, pp. 318-20.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 21 I

Kanpur were reoccupied by the English, Kalpi in Jalaun was chosen

as the new headquarters from about September I857. Nana Sahib and
his lieutenant Tantia Topi moved here around October and the latter
took upon himself the leadership and organization of defence.16
Soldiers thereafter came pouring into their new capital. The estimated
strength of soldiers in Kalpi by November-December 1857 was near-
ing I2,000. They included among others contingents from Mhow,
Jhansi, Banda, Mandla.17
The fort of Kalpi was being reinforced with guns, ammunition and
treasure at the de facto command of Tantia Topi. Ultimately,
however, both he and Nana Sahib represented, impersonated, the
strength of those innumerable soldiers up in arms against the English.
Tantia Topi's first move was to mobilize local chiefs and bring their
efforts together. Written proclamations and letters were sent to inform
all of the progress of the rebellion, the dangers that assailed it and the
need to safeguard it. Messages also carried open calls for action, for
outright war against the enemy. Religion was proclaimed to be in
danger. The means for reaching solidarity was sought in Christian
heresy that had to be rooted out of the soil lest it desecrated the
latter's purity and defiled its sanctity. The agents of pollution had to
be purged; hence all Europeans killed. The jeopardized religion
allowed no choice. There could either be total crusade against the
infidels or identification with them. If one supported rebellion it had
to be an active one for the sake of the safety of religion. If one did not,
he himself would become a polluting agent, an infidel, a Christian. He
had to be destroyed.'8 Therefore, when the Raja of Chirkhari, a small
State in southern Bundelkhand, refused to cooperate with the rebels
his fort was attacked and invaded.'9 In Orai they seized the Chief of
Gurserai, an English nominee, and laid aside his authority over
Jalaun.20
The best efforts failed to arrest British forces and crucial battles
16
From Durand to Edmonstone, 15 Oct. 1857, For. Sec. Cons, i8 Dec. 1857, no.
838, NAI.
17
Copy of a Service Message received by Electric Telegraph from Panna, 19 Nov.
1857, For. Sec. Cons, i8 Dec. i857, no. I86, NAI.
18
Translation of a circular letter from Tantia, dated 31 Dec. x857, For. Pol. Progs,
30 Dec. 1859, Suppl. no. 619 FSUP, p. 211 . Trans. of a circular letter addressed to the
chiefs of Bundelkhand by an individual styling himself Mohamad Ishaq, Aide-de-
camp to Maharaja Sreemunt Peshwa, 2 Jan. 1858, For. Pol. Cons, 31 Dec. I858, no.
2132, FSUP, 21 1-I2.
19 Abstractpp.translation of a letter from Ramchand
Pandurang Topi, Chirkhari, 7
Feb. I858, For. Pol. Progs, 30 Dec. 1859, Suppl. no. 633, FSUP, pp. 234-5.
20 N.E. inJalaun, para. 7, p. 50I.
212 TAPTI ROY

were fought over Jhansi between 3 and 6 April. We learn from the
daily diary of Hugh Rose, general in command of the Central India
Field Force deployed in Bundelkhand, about the grim determination
with which soldiers resisted. Perfect discipline and coordination were
maintained and English forms of battle formations retained. Even
words of command for drill, grand rounds were often given out in
English.21
A last die-hard effort was made to hold Kalpi. It was unusually
well-fortified; there was an arsenal full of stores and ammunition, a
subterranean magazine and four foundries for making cannons. Bat-
teries were erected on the ghats over Jamuna and on the Hamirpur
road, in order to prevent British forces from marching in. Fresh levies
were also raised from the local people while more and more soldiers
gathered.22The battle over Kalpi began on 22 May. Soldiers swore by
the waters ofJamuna that they would either drive the British force into
the river or die themselves. After some hard fighting Rose finally was
able to take over the town on 23 May. Soldiers dispersed in disorderly
bands; the mutiny in Bundelkhand was over.
Soldiers constituted a community apart, acted in rebellion as a
community whose norms were laid down by the exigencies of the
State. The specified regimental formations, the definite arrangements
imposed, became the very basis of their existence as men in uniform.
The notion of order, hierarchy and power that was impressed upon
the minds of soldiers informed their actions in I857. Their political
vision extending beyond their immediate world and centring on a
capital was derived largely from their shared experience of service
under the colonial State. News of the uprising and collapse of British
rule was disseminated with remarkable rapidity among regiments as
widely distanced as Meerut and Dinapur. It was also with remarkable
consonance that soldiers aspired to rebuild and uphold their own
substitute for the British State, their endeavours being once again to
build another centralized, supra-local political realm.
In rebellion, even while overturning the colonial structure of power,
soldiers retained their regimental formations as long as they could.
One of the three units of the army would take the initiative and others
followed. Again, outbreak in the headquarters prompted splintered
battalions stationed in the sub-areas to rise. Within each regiment,
21
From Maj. Gen. Hugh Rose to Maj. Gen. W. H. Mansfield, Gwalior, 22 June
1858. Forrest, SelectionsfromStatePapers,vol. IV, FSUP, pp. 387-405.
22 Ibid.
Abstract of Intelligence, 9 April 1858, For. Sec. Cons, 28 May 1858, no.
i28, NAI.
 A STUDY OF I857 IN BUNDELKHAND 213
the hierarchy of ranks was adhered to. In Jhansi, for instance, most
decisions were taken by Kala Khan, a Risaladar of Cavalry and Lal
Bahadur, Subahdar of Infantry, seniormost ranks among Indians in
the army.23Interestingly, Lal Bahadur, the only junior commissioned
officer had tried hard to dissuade other soldiers from mutinying.24
This, however, did not stop him from taking charge once the order
had been turned over. Even in Hamirpur, the Subahdar of 56th
Infantry took command after the mutiny had begun, proclaiming the
rule of the Emperor here.25
The code of service in the army, the ethics and conduct of the
'sipahi',however, preserved more than just the identity of the uniform.
The soldiers in Jhansi forced open the city gate to the call of Deenka
Jai and it was with frequent references to words like Deenand Dharam
that the urgency for rising in arms was stressed. In the proclamations
and parwanasissued during the mutiny from all the major cities,
rebellion was perceived not so much as a struggle for political aspira-
tions as an imperative course of action for upholding a religion that
was in danger under the English. It was a contest for preserving faith,
therefore its outcome was postulated in terms of the victory of reli-
gion.26This was the ideological framework within which all actions
and counter-actions were arranged. Service in the army, serving as
soldiers was a matter of honour (izzat), a notion that complemented a
sense of duty, a moral pledge to obey the master/State who was the
bread giver (provided salt). That pledge could be flouted only if some
loftier cause as one of religion was involved.27
Local potentates of Bundelkhand, the Rajas and chiefs came to be
associated with the mutiny soon after its outbreak. Yet, unlike soldiers
or the thakurs, they rarely if ever took any initiative during its com-
mencement. In fact, we hear about the Rajas because they were
handed over charge of administration by the English before leaving
23
From G. Browne to Commr Sagar Dvn, Agra, Ii Sept. 1857, Home Dept Public
Branch, 6 Nov. I857, no. I8, NAI. Abstract trans. of the Statement of Sahibuddin,
Khansamah of Maj. Skene, FSUP, pp. 20-4.
24Abstracttrans. of the statement of Aman Khan, 14 April i858, For. Pol. Progs, 30
Dec. 1859. Suppl. no. 283, FSUP, pp. 24-7.
25
N.E. in Hamirpur, para. 9, p. 49I1
26
Trans. of a Procl. addressed to the Native Soldiers of the Regiments of Infantry,
Cavalry & Artillery & cantoned at Lahore. Trans. of a Procl. issued by the Hindus
and Mussulmans assembled at Delhi. From offg secy to the Chief Commr Punjab to
G. F. Edmonstone, Rowalpindi, i9 June i857, For. Dept Sec., 30 April i858, nos 13-
14, NAI.
27 Conversation between Simon Fraser, Commr of Delhi, and the soldiers is inter-
esting in this context. S. A. A. Rizvi, SwatantraDilli (Varanasi, 1957), p. 52.
214 TAPTI ROY

their respective stations. The first to come to our notice were Lakshmi
Bai ofJhansi, Ali Bahadur of Banda, Mardan Singh of Banpur in the
Lalitpur Subdivision and Kesho Rai of Gurserai in Jalaun. The first
two were physically present at the place of mutiny, Mardan Singh and
Kesho Raj were asked by the English to come to Lalitpur and Orai. It
was their presence in the towns that compelled the Rajas to contend
with the mutiny and a situation where English order had been
replaced.
In Jhansi, soldiers had early forced the Rani to furnish them with
guns, ammunition and money. Besieged English simultaneously sent
out urgent messages for assistance, most of which did not reach her.
Her own soldiers and retainersjoined the mutineers and put pressure
on her to comply with their demands.28
Mardan Singh of Banpur happened to be the Chief of the senior
branch of Bundela Rajputs who had risen up in arms immediately
after the mutiny in Jhansi. This made him a suspect in the eyes of the
English and yet the Deputy Commissioner, left with no alternative,
asked Marden Singh to take charge of Lalitpur. And A. C. Gordon
wrote that the Raja had acted quite 'correctly' professing to do his
best in the interest of the English.29
It was under similar circumstances that Ali Bahadur found himself
left responsible for Banda, his own retainers and soldiers having
joined the mutineers of the Ist Native Infantry. F. O. Mayne, the
English Collector, extolled the exemplary behaviour of the Raja in
extending them shelter and assistance.30Kesho Rao was also asked by
the Deputy Commissioner of Jalaun to assist district officials in his
absence.31
Under these altered conditions the local Rajas set out to reorder
their surroundings and come to grips with the political situation.
They issued proclamations in their own names and started working
the bare minimum of an administrative system. But these potentates
did not perceive the mutiny as a source of their authority; on the
contrary they looked upon themselves as successors to English rulers.
They made sure, for instance, that the officers gave them written
testimonials regarding their conduct and their acts of assuming office.
28
Deposition of a native of Bengal. FSUP, pp. 44-6. Trans. of the statement of
Bhugwan Brahmin for Pol. Progs, 30 Dec. I859, no. 284, FSUP, p. 28.
29 From Gordon to the Commr S & N. Territories, 19 June 1857, For. Sec. Cons,
I8 Dec. i857, no. 237, NAI.
30 N.E. Banda, pt I,
31
para. 20, p. 319.
Parl. Papers,H.C. vol. 44, pt III, 1857-58. FurtherPapers (No. 7) relativeto the
Mutiniesin theEast Indias,Enclosure 34 in no. 8, pp. 155-6.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 2I5

Mardan Singh attacked soldiers of the 6th Regiment and fought with
them outside Lalitpur.32Lakshmi Bai and Ali Bahadur regularly cor-
responded with the English expressing their helplessness in the face of
'disorder' caused by the soldiers and earnestly solicited help.33
Lakshmi Bai also wrote to the ruler of Datia urging the need for all
chiefs to combine efforts and 'check the disturbances'. She was said to
have told representatives from Datia and Orchha that 'till arrange-
ments were made from Jabalpur [by the English] such measures
should be taken at Jhansi that no disturbances would occur'.34
Notions of 'order', 'disorder', 'alignment', 'confrontation' were
derived from the experience of the Rajas as former rulers and as yet
they were in the 'right' and the mutiny was 'wrong'.
As the return of the English seemed no longer imminent, with their
authority receding from larger and larger regions of northern and
central India, local political forces were resurrected. Bundelkhand
once again swarmed with a number of small independent principali-
ties. Attempts by these local rulers to refurbish their power were
accompanied by a scramble for more areas and larger shares of ter-
ritory. In this pursuit, Chiefs often failed to avoid open armed conflict.
Troops of opposing Chiefs vying for the same region clashed and
almost every district had its own internal battle to witness.
Out of this process of resetting the political mosaic emerged new
patterns of alignment among the Chiefs. Mardan Singh of Banpur
came to relieve Jhansi with reinforcements in the face of which troops
of the Tehri State withdrew.35Ali Bahadur was supported by Narain
Rao of Kirwi to combat forces of the Rani of Ajaigarh.36Caste ties
brought Rajas of the two Bundela States, Banpur and Shahgarh,
together.
The political situation, however, had not quite put the clock back to
its pre-British days. The situation in which the Chiefs could operate
had been determined by the mutiny and the power that soldiers and
civil officials had gained as a result decisively constricted the freedom
32
N.E.Jhansi, paras 58, 70, pp. 518, 520-I.
33 Trans. of Kharitas of the Rani ofJhansi to the address of the Commr & Agent Lt
Gov. Sagar Dvn, I2 June I857, I4 June 1857, Trans. of Kharita detailing Narrative of
Events which transpired in Jhansi on 5 June I857, For. Sec. Progs, 31 July 1857, pt
II, no. 354, FSUP, pp. 67-9. From Ellis to Secy to the Govt of India, Nagode, 2 July
I857, For. Sec. Cons, 31 July I857, no. I82, NAI.
34
Deposition of Lalu Bakshi on 6 April 1858. Trial proceedings in the case 'Govt
vs. Lalu Bakshi'Jhansi Collectorate Mutiny Basta, FSUP, pp. 48-57.
35 N.E. Jhansi, para. 78, p. 522.
36 Narrative of events in the N.W.P. for the week
ending the 13 March i858, Home
Dept Public Branch, 30 April i858, no. 9I, NAI.
216 TAPTI ROY

of action of these erstwhile rulers. Most decisions, especially the cru-

cial one of fighting English forces or surrendering to them, were taken
by soldiers and officials, and the potentates were quite powerless to go
against them. This is all the more true for Bundelkhand as it witnes-
sed a continuous movement of troops through places like Banda and
Jhansi. Once this region became the primary theatre of action, the
Rajas' line of communication with the English snapped and they were
drawn into the mainstream of rebellion.
The pressure on all Rajas was not uniform. Soldiers chose to rally
around one instead of the other Chief and the former was thereby
forced into working out strategies of defence against the English. In
Banda, it was Ali Bahadur against the Ajaigarh Rani, in Jalaun the
Rani of Tehri and not Kesho Rao of Gurserai, in Jhansi she was
Lakshmi Bai instead of the Rani of Orchha. As the mutiny decided
upon them to symbolize the centre of its political focus, they increas-
ingly came to be identified with it.
Individually, circumstances and reactions differed. For Mardan
Singh as the chief Bundela leader the options had closed quite early.
He represented the Rajputs long up in arms. He moved out of Banpur
to assist personally the rebel forces early in I858.37Around the same
time, Ali Bahadur was exchanging letters with other Chiefs planning
moves and counter moves to forestall the English.38Lakshmi Bai till
January I858 was yet to make up her mind. She sent a Vakil to Sipri
to meet the English. If the Vakil was treated well, she would not fight
but if he was shown displeasure, she would fight till the end.39The
march of Hugh Rose's forces upon Bundelkhand left her with no
choice. In contrast, the Raja of Chirkhari was not touched by the
mutiny and he remained to support the English.
Counter-insurgency forces compelled the Chiefs in some senses to
act on their own initiative. They set out to make provisions for the
contest they realized they would have to face. Successive battles and
defeats threw rebel defences into disarray. To make fresh reinforce-
ments and build new bastions of defence rulers often had to move out
of their own cities. With the battle of Gwalior in May 1858, the
chapter of the Rajas was closed as the English set out to recapture
principal towns in Bundelkhand.
37 News for Bundelkhand, 5Jan. I858, For. Sec. Cons,
38
25June 1858, no. I 5, NAI.
From F. O. Mayne, to Thornhill, 4 Aug. I858, For. Pol. Cons, 8 Oct. I858, no.
13, NAI.
39 Abstract of
Intelligence from Bundelkhand 26 Jan. I858. For. Sec. Cons, 26
March 1858, nos 32-3, NAI.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 217
Lakshmi Bai died fighting in Gwalior; death turned her into a
martyr. As all the others surrendered, their actions eclipsed into
oblivion.
Rajas had never rebelled against the British State and yet they were
seen in the frontiers of action to stall counter-insurgency forces. In the
absence of the English, these regional potentates stood for an alterna-
tive order and thereby provided rebellion with its political nucleus.
They were in the process drawn into the midst of actions over which
they had little control in a context that they were in no way respon-
sible for. This caused a degree of ambivalence and vacillation in their
behaviour in I857-58. Effectively none of them wielded any great
power over regions where they were supposed to be rulers during the
uprising. To the English forces, however, the Chiefs appeared leaders
of rebellion. Once again, the latter were forced into confrontation
which, given a choice, they would perhaps have all avoided.
Close on the heels of the mutiny, the thakurs rose up in arms in the
different districts of Bundelkhand. Bundela, Puar, Kuchwaha Rajputs
collected in large numbers, surrounded local thanas and forced the
police to evacuate. They reoccupied and reinforced their garhis (mud
forts). Driving out local government officials, they carved out niches
of control for themselves collecting revenue from their newly founded
dominions. These thakurs by and large operated quite independently
of the actions of the soldiers and the local potentates. They put up
their own kings, raised their own flags, framed their own rule, rarely
seeking legitimacy from their immediate superiors, Lakshmi Bai or
Ali Bahadur.
A short-lived collaboration was forged during the months between
January and May 1858. In Chanderi thakurs with their men flocked
around the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh to mobilize strong opposi-
tion to English forces. Once Chanderi was taken by Hugh Rose atten-
tion turned toJhansi. Just before the battle overJhansi, the town had
some 7,000 rebels fortifying it. Among them 1,500 were soldiers while
the rest were thakurs and their retainers.40The final defeat of the
rebels at Kalpi on 22 May I858 broke up the confederacy. Soldiers led
by Tantia Topi proceeded towards Gwalior and the thakurs returned
to their respective countries.
Hardly had the English forces turned their backs on Bundelkhand
when the thakurs raised a fresh rebellion. A formidable concentration
40 Abstract of Intelligence from Tehri, Io Feb. 1858, For. Sec. Cons, 26 March
I858, no. 42, NAI, FSUP, p. 250. Abstract of Intelligence, Alipura I6 March 1858.
For. Sec. Cons, 30 April 1858, no. I47, NAI, FSUP, pp. 295-7.
2I8 TAPTI ROY

of Rajput forces in several pockets of the districts attacked and

uprooted the newly erected government establishments. Their
insurgency spread apace with instances of British reoccupation being
neutralized by the success of the thakurs in negating them.
Documents now throw up names of individual thakurs who led the
others. In Jhansi, there were Bundela Chattar Singh, Bakht Singh
and Jowahar Singh while in Jalaun Kuchwaha Dowlat Singh and
Puar Burjore Singh emerged as leaders at the head of large bodies of
men. Despat, the celebrated and much-feared Bundela, denied
English officials any entry into Hamirpur. Thakurs would not only
attack and demolish thanas and tahsilis but would actually occupy a
particular region, fortify it and even try to extend their dominion.
Burjore Singh put up his own flag over Lahar tahsil in western Jalaun
in June i858.41 Despat formally proclaimed Khalqkhodaki, mulkbad-
shahka, Raj Peshwaka, Hukmdespatka42in the town of Rath in Panwari
pargana of southern Hamirpur. The proclamation was read out in
several villages. Revenue was collected and all suspected accomplices
of the English eliminated.43Different sets of alignments brought two
or three thakurs together. Dowlat Singh, for instance, was always
reported to have been with Burjore Singh while Despat was
accompanied by his younger brother Nanhey Diwan and Chattar
Singh.
English reoccupation of the principal towns and their presence all
over northern India increasingly altered the situation for these
thakurs. As British arms came heavily against them, their area of
operations grew progressively more curtailed and leverage of actions
more constrained. Driven constantly by counter-insurgency forces,
thakurs had to be always on the move, scurrying across the country
from one place to another. Sporadic raids, sudden attacks and sur-
prise marches now came to characterize their protests, and open
resistance turned into partisan and guerilla warfare. They were
pushed further and further away from the open country and forced to
seek shelter in hills, ravines or neighbouring independent states and
eventually to be on the run. Their defiance, however, continued till
I859, long after the last rumblings of the mutiny had been decisively
muted.
41
Urdu-Persian Records, Jalaun From Sayyid Munawar Ali, Thanadar Deva, 7
July 1858, Basta no. I, File no. i, Uttar Pradesh Regional Archives Allahabad
(UPRAA).
42 'The world is God's the
country is Emperor's the rule is Despat's'.
43 Urdu-Persian Records, Hamirpur. Thanadar of Islampur, reporting from
Jalolpur, n.d. Basta no. 8, sl. no. io. File no. io, UPRAA.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 2I9

The word 'thakur' is used here as in English documents and

popular parlance in its widest connotation to mean Rajput landed
magnates of all ranks. The resistance of these men cannot really be
encompassed within the time-frame of the rebellion of 1857-58 with a
definite beginning and a fairly tangible end. The thakurs of
Bundelkhand had a long tradition of resistance both in the pre-col-
onial and colonial periods. English officials in their characteristic
language described them as men 'prone to turbulence', 'men
impatient of control, who acknowledged no law but that of force'.
The English, too, periodically had faced the opposition of these
thakurs. As they acquired the region in fragments it was usually on
the eve of such transfer of power that Rajput landed magnates stood
up to resist. Once control of the State became more entrenched and
certain, despite greater economic distress, their protests became a lot
more muffled. Their response to the uprising of I857-58 was largely
determined by their past tradition of resistance, what in the eyes of
those in power was perpetual insubordination. In 1833-34, a number
of ghariband4thakurs in Jhansi and Jalaun, resenting their regional
Chiefs' measures to reduce them, took to arms.45Again in 1839, when
the English took control of Jhansi, thakurs of Udgaon, Jigna, Noner
and Bilhari withheld revenue payments and levied their own tax,
'taki' on people in direct defiance of the regulations of the govern-
ment.46 It was the same thakurs who carried their protest into the
conflagration of I857-58. When Scindia handed over Kuchwahagar
parganas to the English in 1844, the thakurs had been up in rebellion
against the Mahrathas.47 Kuchwahas once again rose in I857.
Individually too, the interaction of the thakurs with government had
not been without tension, as experiences of Despat or Burjore Singh
show. Their uprising contained residues of their former political
behaviour and preserved their normative patterns of linkages,
alliances and forms of action.
Being members of endogamous clans that subscribed to groups
agnatically related, thakurs belonged to a wide but defined kinship
44 A
particular tenure of Bundelkhand where the holder, nearly always a Rajput,
held several villages and resided in a garhi or a small mud fort, paying quit rent to the
regional king.
45 Trans. of a letter from Maharaja ofJhansi to the Rt Hon'ble the Gov. Gen. For
Ootacamund, Pol. Cons, 15 Aug. 1834, nos 40-4I, NAI.
4 From S. Fraser to Offg Secy to the Govt. NWP, 8 March 1840, For. Pol. Progs, 6
April I840, no. 53, NAI.
47 From D. Ross, Suptd of Jalaun to Sleeman, 30 Sept. I844, C.O.A. Jhansi
Records, vol. II, File no. 22, UPRAA.
220 TAPTI ROY

network which extended beyond their own estate but was placed
within a definite geographical confine. In moments of crisis, these
relationships and connections were translated into political linkages,
alliances and loyalties that formed the basis of their actions in I857-
58. Thakurs had each a given cognizable sphere of operations whence
they took off in 1857 and whither they retreated in I858-59.
Within this immediate world, ordinary villagers provided them
with shelter and provisions. Popular support for these thakurs,
partially out of deference for their social status, partially from fear and
partially from genuine sympathy towards their cause decisively with-
held the English from apprehending rebel Rajputs.
A common motif of action resorted to by thakurs in 1857 was
deliberately to prevent people from cultivating land in the English-
settled districts, a practice they undertook in their prescriptive
'bhumiawat'. This was a prevailing custom among Rajputs in
Bundelkhand to fight for landed inheritance. When any member of
the aristocracy, no matter how small, had a dispute with his ruler he
would collect followers and wage war on the latter's territories,
plundering and burning his towns and villages till the rebel was called
back on his own terms. During such a war, it was a point of honour
not to allow a single acre of land to be tilled upon the estate which the
dissenting thakur had deserted or from which he had been driven out.
Anyone trying to drive the plough was invariably put to death often
with his family. In such ventures thakurs using their numerous ties of
brotherhood and caste, were often able to raise a formidable and
successful opposition to the government.48Now in 1857, this form of
protest was used for deliberately forestalling the restoration of a
beaten political order.
We have to narrate actions at still another level, actions that appear
in records fragmented, piecemeal and episodic. They were undertaken
by actors denied the importance of the Rajas, the influence of the
thakurs or the organization of the soldiers. Their individual identities
were dissolved in categories that lumped them together as 'villagers',
'city-bad-mashes', 'followers' or just 'people'. The very nature of our
information also denies this narrative any continuity. Official reports,
our only evidence, were concerned with trying to capture the entire
gamut of the struggle from a distance. Actions that could be easily
graphed in a sequence gained greater attention. Those that did not fit
48 W. H.
Sleeman, Rambles and Recollectionsof an Indian Official (Karachi, 1973), p.
245; Col. I. Davidson, Report on the Settlement of Lalitpur, N.W.P. (Allahabad, 1871),
para. 43.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 221

into the structure of progression were generally overlooked unless they

directly challenged the apparatus of power. The attempts of the
'people' to challenge the State directly were continually intercepted
by the politics of the dominant groups. It was only when their insur-
rection preceded or was able to prevaiLpver the resistance of soldiers
or thakurs that the State took cogniza~d : of them.
The insurrection commenced in the Banda District in the villages of Murka,
in Purganah Buberoo, in Mow on theJumna and in the Dursenda Purganah.
I first heard of the assembling of armedmen,of secret councils, and loudly
uttering threats from the Purgunahs. This was in the beginning ofJune, and
they were soon followed up by the mutineers at Cawnpoor and Allahabad,
before which no actual outbreak or even a dacoitee had taken place in the
Banda District. The released convicts from Allahabad and Cawnpoor,
however, soon spread over the country and forced the Ghats on the Jumna,
not withstanding previous precautions, which had been more for the purpose
of apprehending fugitives than to resist armedmasses,and the insurrection of
the wholecountryfollowed too soon upon the disasters of Allahabad to allow of
any strengthening the Ghats--... The released convicts found the Banda
peopleonly too ready to join them. (emphasis mine)
F. O. Mayne, Magistrate and Collector of Banda, narrated the
course of events of September I857. He continues: 'The loss of the
Kumasin, Buberoo, Simounee and Pylanee Tehseeleessoon followed in
a like manner. I saw Tehseleeafter Tehseleegoing and the waves of the
rebellion rapidly approaching Banda itself, and was totally helpless to
prevent it. The whole District went to the bad in less than a week.'49
There is quite a noticeable reference in the third person to 'people'
who could mean anyone from the zamindar to the peasant. What is
specific is the acts of resistance.
It was in pargana Chiboo that government establishments first
gave in under pressure of popular rebellion. This followed the coming
in of prisoners from Allahabad on 8 June. The next day villagers of
Murka and Sungurra in the adjoining pargana Augasi rose up in
arms. When the tahsildar went to pacify them they attacked and
turned him out. On returning to his headquarters at Buberu, the
tahsildar found it surrounded by people from villages Murka,
Sungurra, Buberu. They plundered the tahsili office and treasury,
destroyed all records, dismantled the building and killed the Karinda.
Some three or four thousand men of Johurpur, Bainda, Simree and
Wasilpur in pargana Simouni assembled at Tindwari on I I June. The
tahsili office was destroyed, the treasury sacked, records burnt and

49 N.E. Banda, para. IO, p. 3I6.

222 TAPTI ROY

officials forced to flee. Indian officials without exception were driven

out.50Inhabitants ofJalalpur in Hamirpur district imprisoned Hyder
Hossein Khan, munsif of that place, in order to recover from him the
amount of fines which he had in his capacity of munsif imposed on
them.5'
Auction-purchasers and decree-holders were ousted in most places.
G. H. Freeling, Collector and Magistrate of Hamirpur, was dismayed
by 'the universal ousting of all bankers, buniyas, Marwarees etc from
landed property in the district, by whatever means they acquired it,
whether at auction, by private sale or otherwise ... it is strange that
in no instance do the class so favoured by our rule, the bankers and
other traders appear to have been able to keep their own in the
struggle.'52
Plundering and overrunning of neighbouring towns or villages was
another widely performed act. The town and bazaar of Rajapur in
Banda was attacked by inhabitants of surrounding villages but the
latter were repulsed by local merchants who got together a large force.
Orun, a town southeast of Banda, was plundered by neighbouring
zamindars and peasants.53 Every mutiny in town followed by the
expulsion of government officials would precipitate loot and plunder
by local townsmen and neighbouring villagers. In Banda, once the
message that mutinous cavalry was crossing over into the district got
around, 'badmashesrose in the city, and plundering commenced'.54
Wealthy men in the town of Hamirpur were plundered by the rebel-
ling soldiers and following their departure, as the official narrative
goes on to describe, '. . . the villagers in the neighbourhood completed
the work of pillage and destruction of property ... The usual
jacquerie commenced throughout the district, and the inevitable war
between ex-zamindarsand auction-purchasers'.55
Officials quite typically characterized this as 'outrages committed
by the village communities one upon another'.56Villagers of Gurha in
southern Banda stopped roads, plundered travellers and neighbour-

50
Ibid., pp. 337-40.
51 Trans. of a letter from Chester to Sreemunt Narain Rao & Madhav Rao, 30July
1857, Banda Coll. Records, Box no. 2, S1. no. 30, File no. 31, Dept XVIII, UPRAA.
52 N.E.
Hamirpur, para. 19, p. 493.
53 N.E.
Banda, para. o1, p. 316; From the Spl. Commr Banda, 31 Dec. 1858.
Banda Coll. Records, S1. no. 40, File no. 41 (II), Dept XVIII, UPRAA.
54
N.E. Banda, para. 14, p. 318.
55 From Chester to Strachey, 22 Oct. 1857 Home Dept Public Branch, 27 Nov.
1858, no. 6, NAI.
56 From Western to
Erskine, For. Soc. Cons, 30 Sept. I857, no. 573, NAI.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 223

ing villages. They had stopped English officials fleeing from Banda to
Nagode. Inhabitants of Murka overran neighbouring villages. People
of Pipra, a village in pargana Pailani blocked surrounding roads, set
up their own king and sacked the neighbourhood. Descriptions and
instances could be multiplied.57
Mayne closes his account on popular rebellion in Banda thus:
'Tulwars and matchlocks were scarce in Bundelkhand, but armed
with spears and scythes, and iron-bound lathies, and extemporary
axes, formed of chopping knives fastened on sticks, they imagined to
be warriors, chose their own kings, and defied all comers. Never was
revolution more rapid-never more complete'.58 European officials
fleeing their respective stations passed villages where in many
instances people turned up armed. P. G. Scot, an officer of the I2th
Native Infantry was escaping from Nowgong to Allahabad en route to
Banda. In his personal narrative he observed how almost every village
they passed was guarded and armed with whatever weapon people
could muster. Light country-made matchlocks and big bamboos were
all that they had but now they proved more effective than English
arms. '... shots from clumsy village-made matchlocks were coming
among us with awful force, while our shots fell half-way', Scot
observed.59
European fugitives in several places confronted hostile villagers. J.
W. Sherer, Magistrate of Fatehpur, recounted his experience of flee-
ing to Allahabad through Banda together with others. Tacitly and
openly villagers opposed them.60 Scot wrote: 'the feeling throughout
the country [is] that our rule was at an end', and Mayne concluded:
As for the people, ruined as they were by over assessment and bad seasons,
and half starving, still they would I think not have risen in rebellion, if they
had been left to themselves. It was only when excited by the reports from
other Districts, and hearing of the excesses committed elsewhere, and of what
was then supposed the total massacre of all Europeans at Allahabad, that
they too came to the conclusion that the British rule was now at an end, and
every man had best take care of himself.61
The narrative is then interrupted till counter-insurgency forces

57 List of Persons sentenced under the

special Comm. for the week ending 25 Dec.
i858. Banda Coll. Records, Si. no. 40, File no. 41 (II), Dept XVIII, UPRAA.
58 N.E. Banda, para. 8, p. 325.
59
Capt. P. G. Scot, PersonalNarrativeof theEscapefromNowgongto BandaandNagode
(n.d.), pp. 21-2.
60 Francis Cornwallis Maude, Memoirsof the Mutiny with which is incorporatedthe
PersonalNarrativeofJohn WalterSherer,vol. I, 2nd edn (London & Sydney, I894).
61
Scot, PersonalNarrative,pp. 20-3; N.E. Banda, para. I, p. 317.
224 TAPTI ROY

come marching in through Bundelkhand. Stray information, that two

villages in Hamirpur, for instance, drove out agents of the Nana sent
to collect revenue from them, is all we have for the period roughly
from July-August 1857 till about February-March 1858. Hugh Rose
passed villages and confronted a totally different scenario.
The country we marched through, in reaching the place [hansi] gave little
evidence of the change that had come over it since last traversed by
Europeans. Excepting that a few or no inhabitants were seen, the cultivation
had been carried on as of old, and the fields were teeming with corn ripe for
the sickle, but it seemed as though a plague had swept over the land, and
carried off its occupants. The villages were deserted.... 62
Inhabitants of Bhandere pargana in Jhansi crossed over to the sur-
rounding independent states;63 people of a great many villages in
southern Lalitpur were likewise found deserting.64 Returning to
Banda, English officials reported: 'The district generally quiet, but in
many of the villages the entire population had fled and settled in the
independent states, whence though no criminal charge is made
against them they will not return'.65
One major impediment to English assumption of power in i858 was
'want of cooperation on the part of the rural population and their not
supplying British detachment with information or assistance ...).66
There were many instances where villagers called in rebel forces or
one or the other thakur leader to occupy their immediate country so
that the English rule would not be re-established. Several villages in
the Jalalpur pargana of Hamirpur resorted to this measure.67 Vil-
lagers of Serowlie Buzurg in Sumerpur pargana of the same district
sent for two guns in order to attack English boats passing along the
Jamuna. They also erected batteries against forces sent from Kanpur
and fought with them.68 When revenue collection began in July i858
in Madhogarh in Jalaun, villagers summoned the rebels and collec-
62
J. H. Sylvester, Recollections
of the Campaignin Malwa and CentralIndiaunderMaj.
Gen.Sir H. RoseG.C.B. (Bombay, I860), pp. 84-5.
63
Intelligence of 15 April 1858, For. Sec. Cons, 28 May 1858, nos 134-5, NAI.
64 From Maj. Gaussen to Brig. Sage, I6 June 1858, For. Sec. Progs, I8 Dec. 1858,
no. 232, NAI.
65 From Bayley to Edmonstone, 29July I858, For. Dept N.W.P. Narratives, sl. no.

77, vol. 82, i858, UPSAL.

66 From Hamilton to the
Secy to Govt of India, For. Dept, 15 Feb. I859. Mil. Dept
Progs 18 March 1859, no. 361, NAI.
67 Urdu-Persian Records
Hamirpur Dist. From the Thanadar of Jalalpur, 27 July
I858, Basta no. 8, sl. no. 9, File no. 9, UPRAA.
68 From
Freeling to Pinkney, 26 Aug. I858. Hamirpur Magistracy Records, Box
no. 4, sl. no. 86, File no. I29, Dept XIII, UPRAA.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 225
tion had to be stopped.69Otherwise, people would just join Burjore
Singh or Dowlat Singh or any other thakur chief in their attacks.
Revenue collection was generally met with great hostility everywhere.
Rebel thakurs, on the other hand, by and large enjoyed support and
assistance from villagers. As late as in 1859, an English officer was
reporting from Jalaun: '. .. the sympathies of the villagers entirely
with the rebels. Information there is none, or what is far worse only
false information, and I find it impossible even from the inhabitants of
a plundered village to extract any reliable or useful information
respecting rebels'.70Besides, each leading rebel thakur had his own
area of operations within which the 'whole population of the country',
the 'general feeling of the people' would be in his favour.
A repertoire of these actions and behaviours does indicate conscious
designs to invert English rule locally together with attempts to erect
alternative political structures in 857-58. A positive course of action
was evolved for building and fortifying their realms. Officials
repeatedly observed that people chose their own kings. In a village of
Banda, Geora Mugli, Scot recollected how with the beat of tom-tom it
was being proclaimed that a certain Zunowar Ali was the King of
Delhi and India. The latter was very busy having meetings and
committees that deliberated in different places.7' That is about all we
know of Zunowar Ali and his government. Lacking the resources of
Despat or Burjore Singh, the struggle of such village Kings was easily
swept aside by State forces. While details about the thakurs' physical
appearance have survived, Zunowar Ali and others like him fade into
oblivion.
Protests at this level were organized within the space of individual
villages and derived strength from them. The state recognized its
threat in collective participation and retaliated by annihilating all.
Nunora, a village in Panwari pargana, Hamirpur was fined Rs 3,000
for being notorious in every way for assisting the rebels. The whole
village was implicated as 'every inhabitant of the village is doubtless
an accomplice in the crime'.72 A harsher sentence would simply
ravage and destroy the entire settlement. Resistance appeared to be
staged by all cultivators and zamindars together. If they were
69
Urdu-Persian Records, Jalaun Dist. From Lala Bulgarilal Muharee, thana
Madhogarh, July I858, Basta no. I, sl. no. 3, UPRAA.
70 From Osborn to
Dy Commr Orai, Camp Mohana, 23 June 1859. Comm. Office
Jhansi, Basta no. 11.5 (iii), sl. no. 41, File no. 46, Dept XXI of 1859, UPRAA.
71
Scot, Personal Narrative, pp. 31-2.
72
Report on Nunora, parg. Panwari, 21 Oct. 1859, Hamirpur Magistracy
Records, Box no. I, sl. no. 8, File no. I8, Dept XIII, UPRAA.
226 TAPTI ROY

deviants they were lost in the multitude as all were branded villains.
Three lists tabulated by local tahsildars in Urdu are instructive not so
much for the information they provide as for the official perspective
they give away.73 In most instances, they computed 'full village'
joined, 'entire village' rebels or all are rebels. In stray instances, castes
were specified but there again, clusters and 'mass' swamped individ-
uals or even groups. A cross-section of people ranging from lam-
bardars, chowkidars, patwaris to a brotherhood of Rajputs, Ahirs,
Lodhis, Chamars, Brahmins and generally kashtgars or cultivators
joined the rebellion. In the absence of detailed village notes we are
unable to do better than reproduce their actions in terms of their
plurality, collectivity and togetherness.

III

The complexities of the uprising of 1857 have to be understood in the

context of its specificity in time and space. It was through the unique
political experience of that summer of 1857 that the rebellion evolved,
gathering different strands of protest into one single concerted
defiance. Local situations and immediate conditions determined pat-
terns of mobilization, motifs of actions and articulations and the
varied expressions of political consciousness. The movement in effect
was a product of a particular time juncture and local responses to the
situation created by the former.
Responses were multifarious. The element of deliberate decision
and conscious participation was related to the experience and percep-
tion of men belonging to dissimilar positions. The sum total of respon-
ses made for a varied pattern, multiple layers of actions and
behaviours disguising a myriad assemblage of hopes, aspirations and
political vision. The features of the mutiny were different from the
uprising of the thakurs just as the reactions of the Rajas could be
distinguished from the behaviour of the people in I857.
Yet, they were all units that composed the uprising of 1857 as a
whole. Their specificity was subsumed by the general political atmo-
sphere of the year, territorial limits were thrown open by the interven-
73 Urdu-Persian Records, Jalaun Basta, no. 4. File no. 94, p. 8. List of villages that
joined the rebels. From the tahsildar ofJalaun, 7 Sept. 1858, Basta no. 4, File no. 94,
p. 22. List of villages some of whose residents joined the rebels. From the tahsildar of
Deva, 30 Aug. i858, Basta no. 4, File no. 94, pp. 4-6. Names of villages whose
residents voluntarily joined the rebels. From Debiprasad, Naib Tahsildar, Kunar, 31
Aug. 1858, UPRAA.
 A STUDY OF 1857 IN BUNDELKHAND 227
tion of broader politics. The villagers of Banda heard of revolts
elsewhere from released prisoners of Allahabad and as if to confirm
the news, fleeing Europeans were seen hurrying all over the region,
frightened, defeated and deprived of authority. Such incidents were
unprecedented. Never before had people seen such irrefutable proofs
of the British state being overthrown and ousted. Never before had
there been such feverish activity across a large stretch of the country
of rebel and counter-rebellious forces. Never before had the people of
villages stood up in defiance at a time when the soldiers were in
mutiny in the towns; never before had the Rajput thakurs flocked
around towns to fight alongside the soldiers. Times were different, the
situation was unmatched. At every level, men were forced to respond,
motivated to act, compelled to take some initiative. It was, however,
the particular situation of 1857, the specific context of rebellion that
formed the backdrop of all actions. The mutiny or the thakur uprising
or the people's actions did not stand individually as episodes by
themselves. They both contributed to and were products of the con-
flagration that replaced British rule in the year 1857-58; and it was in
their totality that the protests at all levels held significance.
It was this historical conjuncture that contained points at which the
fragments converged and despite dissimilarities, protests at different
levels conformed to a general pattern. It was in this wider political
context that all men located their common adversary, the British
state, and it was in counteracting this, that all layers of political
actions found a common factor in one another. Opposition to the state
and alienation from the British assimilated the fragments into a whole
and arranged the splinters into an alternative political structure,
albeit multi-layered. True the conjuncture of the units emerged in
negativity. All came together to contrive a concerted resistance to the
British attempt at staging a come-back. They did not always work
together. But the very act of resistance crystallized the parts to form a
whole. The spectre of the re-establishment of the British state brought
the myriad responses together in a collage of political actions.
Yet, the rationale of the movement did not lie solely in negativity.
Men cherished positive and constructive visions of the future to be
and worked towards that end. In all those months of 1857 and I858,
all were engaged in building an alternative political order in agree-
ment with their aspirations and ideals. Destruction and depredation,
too, contained political actions, positive choice, discrimination and
calculations. In their own way Despat, the villagers of Geora Mugli,
the soldiers of Delhi were all engaged in reconstructing their own
228 TAPTI ROY

world. That was how the context of the uprising emerged in its
entirety.
It would be unfair to the makers of rebellion to treat their actions
within the general and linear framework of being a stage, a mere
disjuncture in the interface of a colonial state and the people; 1857 has
to be relived in the experience of all those who contributed to make
the struggle what it was.