Mother of all Diaspora: Internal and External Threats

The mother of all diaspora involving Indians from the undivided country was the mutiny or the Rising of May 1857. The partition of the country in 1947 made the muhajirs another diaspora across the borders. General Pervez Musharraf is as much a muhajir as is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and L.K.Advani . Since then we have had the diaspora of 1984 when Sikhs in the capital and elsewhere in UP and other states moved into Tilak Nager of Delhi. Biharis and Bangladeshis shelter in East Delhi.

The extent of 1857 exodus was most traumatizing and far reaching in effect. The Times of India gave not only the first reports of the mutiny but the first analysis of the cause of it in its issue of May 12, 1857. Caste system, seniority system, brigading system, enlistment system and centralizing system, not to mention bullets greased with the fat of pork or beef as the causes of the mutiny. The over riding concern was basically cultural practices rooted in religion. A glimpse into what brought about the horrendous diaspora is a dispatch of August 1st 1857 from Frederick Cooper, Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar. He wrote to the Foreign Office in London about the fate of the mutinous sepoys, Bengali Muslim soldiers at Lahore, India.

“On the 30th of July, some 400 Sepoys from the 26th National Infantry escaped from the prison camp at Mianmir, where by order of the Crown they had been assembled and disarmed to prevent them from possibly joining the Mohammedan rebels at Delhi. Being weakened and famished, the Sepoys were easily pursued to the banks of the Ravi, where some 150 of them were shot, mobbed backwards into the river, and drowned. The survivors floated across the river on pieces of wood until they reached the opposite shore, whereupon they gathered together like a brood of wild fowl, waiting to be captured. Had they tried to escape, a bloody struggle would have ensured. But Providence ordered otherwise. Indeed, everything natural, artificial, and accidental combined to secure their fate.

“The sun was setting in golden splendour; and as the doomed men with joined palms, crowded down to the shore on the approach of our boats their long shadows were flung athwart the gleaming waters. In utter despair, forty or fifty dashed into the stream; and the sowars [mounted Indian soldier] being on the point of taking pot shots at the heads of the swimmers, were given order not to shoot. The mutineers were remarkably compliant. They were evidently possessed of a sudden and insane idea that they were going to be tried by court-martial after some luxurious refreshment. In consequence, they submitted to being bound by a single man and stocked like slave into the folds of our boats.

“By midnight, as the glorious moon came out through the clouds and reflected herself in myriad pools and streams, we had gathered 282 of the Bengali rebels. In the morning a party of Sikhs arrived with a large supply of rope. But being as the trees were scarce, the rope was not used. A large problem lay in dealing with the royal Mohammedan troopers, who would surely not have stood by in silence as justice was meted out upon their rebellious co-religionists. As fortune would have it, the 1st of Agugust was the anniversary of the great Mohammedan festival of Bukra Eid. A capital excuse was thus afforded to permit the Mohammedan horseman to return to their homes to celebrate, while we Christians, unembarrassed by their presence and aided by the faithful Sikhs, might perform a ceremonial sacrifice of a different nature upon their brethren.

“There remained one last difficulty, which was the sanitary condition. But again as fortune would have it, a deep dry well was discovered o within one hundred yards o the police-station, furnishing a convenient solution as to how to dispose of the dishonoured soldiers.

“At first light, the prisoners were bound together in groups of ten and brought out of their prisons. Believing they were about to be tried and their unwarranted grievances heard, the Sepoys were unusually docile. But then the shots began to ring in the still morning air, and they suddenly discovered the real and awful fate that awaited them, they were filled with astonishment and rage.

“The execution commenced uninterrupted until one of our men swooned away (he was the oldest of our firing-party), and a little respite was allowed. After we had shot some 237 of the Mohammedans, the district officer was informed that the remaining captives were apparently refusing to come out of the bastion, where they had been imprisoned temporarily in expectation of their execution anticipating a rush and resistance, preparations were made against their escape. The bastion was surrounded, the doors opened and behold! Forty-five bodies dead from fright exhaustion, fatigue, heat and partial suffocation, were dragged into the light. These dead, along with their executed comrades were thrown by the village sweepers in to the well. Thus, within forty-eight hours of their escape, the entire 26th regiment was accounted for and disposed of.

“To those of you fond of reading signs, we would point to the solitary golden cross still gleaming aloft on the summit of the Christian church in Delhi, whole and untouched; though the ball on which it rests is riddled with shots deliberately fired by the mutinous infidels of the town. The cross symbolically triumphant over a shattered globe! How the wisdom and heroism of our English soldiers seem like mere dross before the manifest and wondrous interposition of Almighty God in the cause of Christianity!”

Muslims ulema, weavers and peasants were the main suspects in the eyes of the British for the mutiny and they it was who were to pay heavily. Such was the scare that women and children along with men abandoned their hearth and heath in Azamgarh, Maunath Bhanjan, Mau Aima, Mubarakpur, Barabanki, Allahabad, Lucknow Benares, Kanpur, Tanda, Faizabad and Basti and ran for their life. This exodus gave rise to Malegaon, Biwandi,Dule,Jalgaon andBurhanpur. Most of these areas were under the rule of the Holkar dynasty. Queen Ahilyabai Holkar gave refuge to the fleeing Muslims. These were the earliest north Indians to migrate to Maharashtra.