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The Bibighar Massacre: The Darkest Days of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
- morekozhambu 9y agoIs there any list on the lives that were taken by the colonial swords and guns?
- apoorvkumar 9y ago"British Indian history". That pretty much sums it up. No country should ever have the ignominy of appearing second in its own history. Every Indian wishes the 1857 revolt had snowballed to freedom.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoTo be fair, there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together. Unlike China, there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent. It's hard to know how things would have ended up politically if not for British hegemony. Would there be a country like India, or would its various disparate parts have continued as distinct sovereign entities? Part of the miracle of the whole Indian project is that it has remained basically intact since independence. This isn't something one would have taken for granted a few decades ago.
- viyyer 9y agoI am not sure how you separate these two instances. What is considered as China now has been together in history in one or two instances whereas India as a whole has had 5-10 instances where there have being reigns having the whole of India together . Update your knowledge of history before commenting .
- tacomonstrous 9y agoPlease give me one period in Indian history where the full subcontinent was ruled by the same power. Edit: For what it's worth, the contrast with China is probably flawed. I know very little about Chinese history, but I stand by the rest.
- douche 9y agoThe Mongols captured all of modern China, but couldn't master all of the indian subcontinent. Until the EIC, nobody else came closer.
- shivaodin 9y agoUm, wrong. Mauryan Empire was bigger than present-day India. Even Mughal Empire under Akbar was bigger. So, no. Also, the forms of control of British were different than those of previous empires.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- winter_blue 9y agoWell, take a look at the map here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire It's larger in total area under one power (at circa 5 million sq. km vs. 3 million sq km. today), but it doesn't cover some of the southern-most and eastern-most parts.
- winter_blue 9y agoAlso, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires_in_Ind...
- jalayir 9y ago> there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent There were several - indeed, the British had it easier because the Mughals had dissipated within living memory, and all their bureaucracies and systems were still functioning.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoThe Mughals never controlled most of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and big segments of the North East. To claim that India as it exists today was inevitable is a shaky proposition.
- morekozhambu 9y agoThat is the point. I guess in Western ideology definition of CONTROL over a land is through swords, guns and bloodshed. The Mughals never had the south because their culture was alien to most of the uninvaded south of india. But before them the whole of India, Pakisthan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Burma, Indonesia, Tibet, China were all culturally the same. I would even go further to say considerably most of the regions are still culturally the same.
- nyolfen 9y ago> I guess in Western ideology definition of CONTROL over a land is through swords, guns and bloodshed. there is nothing uniquely western about this definition of 'control'. it's the historical norm everywhere.
- morekozhambu 9y agoContrary to your confirmation bias, India has seen cultural movements without swords guns or bloodshed.
- zht 9y agoin what way is the culture of Sri Lanka and China similar?
- shardinator 9y agoIndia was like Greece, China like Rome. China had central control while India had independent states that didn't control each other politically but were unified in terms culture, communication, roads, infrastructure and importantly commerce. Today it wouldn't make sense to say "there really was no 'Greece'". Same for India.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoThe Greeks at least had a common language, from what I understand. That's far from true for India.
- shardinator 9y agoIf you said it's not 'strictly true for India', you'd be correct, but when you say it's 'far from true' then not so much. India has two ancient languages Tamil and Sanskrit and modern languages are derived from these (but I am def not an expert). The modern forms are considered different languages, but they are quite close to each other, easy to learn one from the other e.g.the grammar is the same and words are usually just different pronunciations/intonations of a common root. It's easy to see that in the ancient past they would have had more similarity. The original point was "there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together". If so, then where was Columbus trying to go? Of course there was 'an India', it just wasn't structured like a modern nation state, which is true for every other modern country as well.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoEverything you say applies just as well to all of Western Mediterranean Europe. In fact, even more so, since you're dealing with just one branch of a larger language group (the Latinate/Romance languages) rather than two completely disparate ones (Indo-Aryan and Dravidian). No one now thinks of this area as a nation-state. Western Europe, through the British conquest of the subcontinent, was woefully unaware of the internal differences. That Columbus ill-advisedly thought of India as a monolithic entity is no marker of anything.
- morekozhambu 9y agoTo be even fairer, Could you please enlighten us on for what country or region where the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French were searching for, further to the African tip the 'cape of good Hope' perhaps?
- dkural 9y agoAs the comments in the article point out, it's very convenient that a female prostitute gets blamed for it without firm evidence.
- webbrahmin 9y agoJallianwala Bagh Massacre British troops opened fire on unarmed protestors and pilgrims. 400 to 1000 men women and children were murdered by British soldiers who were under the command of Colonel Dyer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
- sandGorgon 9y agoIn India, we never refer to this as the "sepoy mutiny" or any crap like that. It is always called the First War of Indian Independence. It would take us another hundred years and Gandhi and the nonviolent freedom struggle to be finally rid of the British. But the greatest irony comes from this : that was undivided India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). We went from that to the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world today.
- finolex1 9y agoFor those interested in this topic, I can't recommend "The Last Mughal" by William Dalrymple enough. It chronicles the crumbling Mughal Empire in Delhi, the slow shift in the Indian-British relationship from one of equals to a colonizer-colonized relationship, how perilously close the British came to losing India in 1857, and lots of painstakingly well-researched interesting anecdotes about life in that era. Here's what he writes about the last of the Mughals: “As the political sky darkened, the court was lost in a last idyll of pleasure gardens, courtesans and mushairas, or poetic symposia, Sufi devotions and visits to pirs, as literary and religious ambition replaced the political variety.” And about the East India Company in the 1850s: “So removed had the British now become from their Indian subjects, and so dismissive were they of Indian opinion, that they had lost all ability to read the omens around them or to analyse their own position with any degree of accuracy. Arrogance and imperial self-confidence had diminished the desire to seek accurate information or gain any real knowledge of the state of the country.”
- throwaway37392 9y agoThe last sentence is as true today as it was then. India memory and its strength however have faded to the point where even its vestiges appear intangible.
- 31416 9y agoWhat a strange coincident. Was discussing about EIC this morning. It is sad that critical exploration of its operation is not encouraged. For most Indians, it is the company that came to trade and end up ruling them. Yet how did it operate, monopolized trade, grow and maintain it's sepoy armies ? It took them more than a hundred years to establish control and another century passed till we had 1857 and almost another to gain independence. It's been 70 years since that, where are we on the continuum. Can we recognize another EIC (internal/external) or are we condemned to repeat it. If one understands this and can draw parallels with the way modern corporates function, people hopefully will be able to see past their doublethink. India gained independence from the British, but the structures that held the populace in thrall weren't torn down. They still exist. The government and the corporates are it's inheritors.
- mirimir 9y agoIt's hard to work up much sympathy for invaders.
- throwaway37392 9y agoOh no, not invaders. Nah mate. They brought civilization, education, technology and everything of value in India. /s (For the record this is what is taught in most Anglophone nations; also true shamefully within India itself.)
- mirimir 9y agoNot at UNIS :)
- peteretep 9y agoA fictionalized but highly readable account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman_in_the_Great_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman_in_the_Great_Game
- kranner 9y agoI love Flashman but the prose is not something I would call everyone's cup of tea. Great writing, but not "readable" as in "easy to read".
- kumarski 9y agoAm I suddenly supposed to feel sad for the British? How's about we get more stories about the Bengal famine of 1943? 3M indians died b/c Churchill took their rice. Or the 5k-10k indians that die each day b/c westerners don't let us have access to viable uranium powered energy? Where are those stories?
- LostWanderer 9y agoOr the 5k-10k indians that die each day b/c westerners don't let us have access to viable uranium powered energy? --------- Slightly off topic but there seems to be a historical love for past events and catastrophes,But the present is hidden from the limelight http://www.dianuke.org/whats-killing-the-children-in-jadugoda-india-uranium-mines/ http://www.dianuke.org/whats-killing-the-children-in-jadugod... This nuclear issue is like a trickling bomb for the past 40 years.
- abhinai 9y agoI am actually surprised this article made it to the front page on hacker news. It presents a very narrow view of a much larger war. It almost looks like it came straight from the British propaganda machine.
- sriku 9y agoThe tone of the discourse here irks me. A small story about my late grandmother that continues to inspire me - My grandmother had gone through the pain of seeing my grandfather all bruised up from non-violent protests against the British. When my father studied ethnomusicology in the US, he used to have many of his musician friends, some of whom were his students, over at home during his visits. Initially, to my grandmother, they were "white people" and she'd give them the cold treatment. Over time, she warmed up to them and even made good friends of many of them, despite hardly knowing any English. She would make yummies for them to express her affection. That someone who's seen her husband come back home bruised can rise to forgiveness and move to love and friendship is something that will stay with me forever. That is the only force that can heal the world. Not retaliation. Not counter hatred. Not "proper historical perspective". Not any analysis of which violence is worse, or who started it.