From http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080518/jsp/opinion/story_9279784.jsp Sunday , May 18 , 2008 ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India ================================================= STRANGE MEMORIAL - Stories to counter tales of Christian endurance in 1857 by Malavika Karlekar Whether a century and-a-half after the events of 1857-8 should be commemorated or damned, clinically analysed or passed over (if that's possible) depends on one's standpoint. A re-visiting of those days has been possible through a number of texts, visual displays and discussions recently available to nudge the over-programmed urban Indian psyche. At a more individual level, visits to momentous sites stimulate responses of almost primeval xenophobia - not limited only to the opposition to Mutiny tours. During balmy winter days, the well-maintained Residency complex in Lucknow is a destination where one is likely to bump into Britishers examining lithographs and memorabilia in the museum with a certain degree of pathos, and in rare cases, a tinge of regret. "Amazing," commented a member of the 9th Lancers, "that's my regiment, you know. Tragic... after all they were all like brothers..." and his voice trailed off as he was lost in reverie before Harry Payne's The Relief of Lucknow. Indian viewers, of course, are unlikely to buy the fraternal take, their emotions equally charged as they walk through the basement museum, feigning insouciance at such touristy diplomacy. Perceptions and memories have found their way into lithography, aquatints and photographs, and diaries, journals and letters soon became important sources of information and the basis for fictional accounts such as J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur. Written in 1973 - in the year that it was awarded the Booker Prize - the book relies heavily on the letters and diaries of those incarcerated in the fortified Residency complex during the relentless summer of 1857. Not unsurprisingly, the minutiae of life are recorded well by a number of women in as many as 27 diaries that still remain. Christian endurance in the face of pagan perfidy is the subtext in many such writings. These jottings have an immediacy, a palpable tension and pain as they record the death of "my poor darling boy" or debate questions on what should be the women's course of action if the enemy manages to get through the fortifications. Some kept poison, others spoke of suicide pacts with their husbands. Many had been killed, several endured hardship, injury and loss. Cholera claimed Mrs Hale in the Begum Kothi followed by others with small pox. 'Atrocity stories' gained credence and became what Pat Barr has called "one of the set-pieces of the British Imperial Story in India". Indian stories of suffering, however, were far less known. Farrell has used available writings imaginatively in his book which, in an Eighties' evaluation, the novelist, Margaret Drabble, felt was "predominantly ironic", not relying on "vulgar suspense" but rather raising "questions about the relationship of past events to the present and indeed the future". Nor is comedy absent - "indeed some of its darkest moments are surreal farce". Thus, the Collector sat at his table trying to sweeten his tea as musket balls sailed through the window - and three young subalterns "dived smartly under the table, leaving the Collector to drink his tea alone. After a while they re-emerged smiling sheepishly, deeply impressed by the Collector's sang-froid". Soon food was in short supply, disease rampant and the upper crust and not-so-upper-crust were reduced to eating beetles. When powder and shot ran out, cannons were loaded with monogramed silver cutlery and false teeth. Ubiquitous padres continued their pursuit of hapless listeners, intent on enunciating loudly an exegesis on Supreme Design. And so on. Fiction of course provides much scope for embellishment, particularly when the historical facts were so compelling in what William Dalrymple has called "one of the great unwritten genocides of the British Empire". Interestingly, a couple of years before The Last Moghul, the prodigious work of Portsmouth-based historian, Alex Tickell, resulted in the re-publication of Shunker: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. A little-known short story written in 1877 by Shoshee Chunder Dutt, it can be read in several different registers. Not only does he introduce an element of mystery through the vital meeting between Nana Sahib and a thickset man from Ukraine whose "advice and direction gave a plan and system to the Sepoy revolt of 1857" but also uses rape as a trope for a nuanced understanding of how scores were settled at the individual level. At a time when British relations with central Asia were not the best and the Great Game was to gather momentum, not unsurprisingly, the civil servant-author's suggestion that there may have been a Russian hand in the planning of 1857 caused a certain amount of consternation in the establishment. Despite the somewhat florid style of the times, the narrative moves quite seamlessly from the Cawnpore massacre to the village of Soorajpore about 30 miles away where a couple of fugitives, Bernard and Mackenzie, seek shelter. A mother and daughter take pity on the pair - who are, in no time, harbouring lascivious thoughts towards the latter. This in spite of the fact that the women do not betray them when sepoys come looking for fugitives - and the daughter persuades her mother to let them stay for another night. A fatal mistake, as the "traitors broke open the room in which the females slept... the victim struggled hard, but in vain; when the violence was completed she was as insensible as a corpse". The mother gives chase, but in vain, and her daughter begs to be allowed to die. Her mother will not hear of it ("yours was not the crime") and has little time for the girl's despondency. She assures her that her husband will not cast her away - but to no avail. Knowing the stigma attached to a violated woman, the girl had "swallowed all the rat's-bane that was in the house". Meanwhile, Bernard and Mackenzie are in flight - and as predicted, are able to buy a bullock cart from Shunker, the husband of the dead girl, who was on his way home. When he hears of his wife's fate, he is convinced that the two men are the villains and decides on revenge. He enlists the help of a havildar who had become a rebel after being slighted by an officer. Mackenzie is miraculously found and hung without much ado. High drama follows as Nana Sahib and his wife are retreating to Nepal when they are waylaid by Bernard and another colleague. Once more, a somewhat unconvincing serendipity brings Shunker to the scene in the terai as Nana Sahib's wife struggles in the arms of Bernard. She "screamed loudly... till he stunned her with a blow. But the consummation of further wickedness was prevented by the arrival of the assistance the lady's cries had called up; and in the next moment Bernard was struggling within the strong grasp of Shunker, from which he never came out alive". Though Dutt's characters are plausible, one may quibble with the somewhat naïve storyline of Shunker. In any event, value does not lie in its literary merit but rather in the fact that an Indian in the service of the raj published such a tale at a time when the wounds of 1857 were nowhere near healed. Many families still quailed at memories of the fate suffered by their women and children. Counter-narratives were hardly ever heard or available to the rulers - and in fact Dutt's forthright plot and descriptions ("Miss Jemina and Miss Fitzbuggins shook their pretty little fists at manacled sepoys, and called them 'niggers''') caused a certain unease. Britannia may have been ruling the waters of India - but exposing its seamier undercurrents that has gathered credence in post-colonial times, had early beginnings. =====================================================