This is the first full account of the siege and massacre at Cawnpore. In the maelstrom of India's Great Mutiny of 1857, the European garrison at Cawnpore survived starvation and bombardment only to die brutally on the eve of rescue. To avenge their deaths and reassert imperial will, thousands of Indians were hanged along the British line of march or tied to guns and blown to pieces. Courage, folly, rage, fanaticism, horror, fortitude - all can be found here. But this is not just a saga of bloodshed following upon bloodshed; it is a demonstration of an essential rite of imperial progress. The cycle of massacre and retribution at Cawnpore advanced the empire by drowning out its critics in the fire and brimstone of British vengeance.
This history of the Siege of Cawnpore and the massacre of British noncombatants in Colonial India reveals the human side of the struggle. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the strategic garrison at Cawnpore was surprised by an extended siege. Many British noncombatants were holed up in a makeshift entrenchment, suffering from thirst, starvation and disease, all while being bombarded with cannon balls and bullets. After nearly two months, the company surrendered to the rebel leader Nana Sahib in exchange for safe passage out of the city. But when the survivors reached Sati Chaura Ghat, a landing on the River Ganges, they were massacred. Much has been written about the siege of Cawnpore and the political events which caused it, but there less known about the people who suffered the ordeal. In The Devil’s Trap, historian James Bancroft studies official documentation and primary sources from both sides to offer a more human understanding of events and shed light on the lives of the victims.
Winner of the Booker Prize. An insightful and thrilling novel about the British Empire in India during the Great Mutiny of 1857, as seen through the eyes of a young, love-struck idealist. India, 1857—the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years. Farrell's story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion—at once brutal, blundering, and wistful—is soon revealed. The Siege of Krishnapur is a companion to Troubles, about the Easter 1916 rebellion in Ireland, and The Singapore Grip, which takes place just before World War II, as the sun begins to set upon the British Empire. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire.
This book can be downloaded as a PDF file from here. Brutalities inherent in a feudal language social system This is another book that should necessarily be read by the citizens of the new nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. All false and fancy beliefs of a great and noble civilisation in their antiquity will evaporate into thin air. This book contains real incidences that took place during the so-called First War of Independence in India(?), the so-called Sepoy Mutiny. Sepoy Mutiny was just that. Just a mutiny in a small area of the Indian Peninsula and English-ruled India. It was not a national struggle against the English rule. The real reasons for this outbreak against a very noble class of rulers is never mentioned in the modern history books. The real reason was the sociological changes that the presence of the English race was creating in the peninsula. The very seeing of the physical attributes and dignified stances of the English individuals were making the lower class people here aware of the potential and possibilities of human dignity if allowed to improve without fetters. However, this kind of mental improvement in the lower classes can be quite ennerving to the higher feudal classes, who hold their serfs in the non-tangible, yet quite crushing claws of feudal language codes. These codes hold the lower classes in a level of dirt and indignity by a web of pejorative and ennobling words and usages. This makes the higher class conspire to make use of the very liberated classes to pull down their own benefactors. In fact, this is not the first time, the English side was made the butt of similar brutal massacres. In the TRAVANCORE STATE MANUAL written by a native official of the erstwhile Travancore kingdom located at the southern tip of the Indian peninsula another similar incident is mentioned. But the Pillamars and Madampimars (petty chiefs) resented this act of the Rani, and in November 1697 A.D., the factory of Anjengo was violently attacked on the plea that the English were pirates, but without success. Mr. Logan writes: — “It may however be doubted whether this, their ostensible reason, was the true one, for as will presently appear, the presence of the English in Travancore was gradually leading to a revolution in that State”
The Indian Uprising of 1857 had a profound impact on the colonial psyche, and its spectre haunted the British until the very last days of the Raj. For the past 150 years most aspects of the Uprising have been subjected to intense scrutiny by historians, yet the nature of the outbreak itself remains obscure. What was the extent of the conspiracies and plotting? How could rumours of contaminated ammunition spark a mutiny when not a single greased cartridge was ever distributed to the sepoys? Based on a careful, even-handed reassessment of the primary sources, The Great Fear of 1857 explores the existence of conspiracies during the early months of that year and presents a compelling and detailed narrative of the panics and rumours which moved Indians to take up arms. With its fresh and unsentimental approach, this book offers a radically new interpretation of one of the most controversial events in the history of British India.
