All the warring soldiers (Book extract)
Amaresh Misra describes the subcontinent’s political landscape in 1857

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The independent Chitpavan refractory role was witnessed in Bundelkhand. Here beyond the Jamuna, present day Uttar Pradesh’s south western tail abutted straight into Central India. Jhansi, Rani Lakshmi Bai’s domain stood 150 miles east of Gwalior and 200 miles from Sagar; dividing North from South India, the Narmada river literally ran parallel to the Bombay-Calcutta Deccan road.

The Gond area extended from Jabalpur south to Chattisgarh. The ‘Sargour and and Nerbudda territories encompassed besides Sagar district, Jabalpur, Nagode, Pamoh and Narsinghpur. West of Sagar lay Indore, the headquarters of governor general’s Central India political agent. Mhow, Dhar, Ujjain and Mandsaur surrounded Indore; these constituted the Malwa region. Nagpur lay southwest while Udaipur and Rajputana, including Erinpura and Mehidpur, the headquarters of the Malwa contignent, lay north and north west to Indore.

Four regiments-52nd, 50th, 42nd and the 31st BNI commanded the Sagar-Narmada region; Avadh, Bhojpur and Bhagalpur-Munger men; constituted the majority; Meerut-Delhi reports reached Bundelkhand, Sagar, Malwa and Nagpur by 20th May. Immediately pro- and anti-British parties started coalescing; Following the fourth Anglo- Maratha war, Bundelkhand had been settled more or less along the Mahalwari system lines. This system also was operational in the Jat areas of upper Doab and Haryana.

Rural Bundelkhand swarmed with pattidar type Bundela Rajputs; some had actually prospered but British revenue system fleeced the majority. Proud Bundelas, flanked, along with Satna-Rewa Baghels and Chandels (who once ruled Bundelkhand and built the famous Khajuraho temples), other Rajput clan groups, bore the brunt of British taxation and Bania rapacity. Several revolts followed; coming close on the Mghan disaster heels, the 1842 one shook British rule in the area. Aided by Chamars, Kurmis and Aheers, the Bundelas liberated town after town successfully before losing out.

In Bundelkhand, auction-purchasers stood on a weak wicket. Like Bais Avadh Rajputs, peasant Bundelas were once traders and entrepreneurs. The black Bundelkhand soil produced excellent cotton and, just before the 1825 depression, the region’s economy witnessed a boom period. Famines followed as peasants were forced to sow grains on cash crop lands. The area never recovered and risings and ‘dacoities’ became endemic. It was considered respectable for a Bundela to shoot the moneylender and take to beautiful ravines and hills as a bandit. Lying between the Jamuna and Chambal, Bundelkhandi landscape mixed blue with grey, black and sandstone red; it afforded space to the fugitive Asiatic individuality.

Complementing the Bundelas, were the Marathas settled in districts as chiefs and petty Rajas, British Bundelkhand authorities had made independent settlements with each one of them. Bundela and Maratha territory often overlapped and there were several conflicts, yet there was an unspoken division with Jhansi, Jalaun and Banda surviving as Maratha city centres and Hamirpur, Lalitpur and Chanderi maintaining Bundela rule.

Jhansi, a Maratha domain, was in dispute. The British had refused to recognise Rani Lakshmi Bai’s adopted son as the legal heir. The Rani, a Nana Saheb-Tantya Tope playmate, was an intriguing character. Daughter of an orthodox Chitpavan Brahmin, she fenced and rode the horse expertly as an adolescent. She had a pact with Nana and Tanyta to ‘fight against the British one day’, but after getting married into another orthodox Chitpavan family, Lakshmi Bai withdrew inside the veil. Giving up the sword and the horse she adopted household manners. She was hardly seen outside the Jhansi fort, except when distributing charity during religious functions, though some versions speak of nocturnal sword practices with or without the husband’s permission.

Following her husband’s death, the Rani did not retire or fade into oblivion. Wearing white, she took over the administration and her husband’s adopted son’s upkeep. Besides renewing her Kanpur contacts, she kept up a brisk correspondence with the British; in fact she was not averse to using her female charms to beguile British observers, exposing her Hindu-Maratha beauty only ‘upto the point’, which enhanced her mystery.

Apart from Banda, other Maratha domains were also belagured by disputes. Kesho Rao, the Gurserai chief had claims over Jalaun, Rani Tara Bai’s abode. Ali Bahadur, the Banda Nawab was a unique Maratha-Musalman; a direct descendant of the Baji Rao-Mastani line, his rule presented a paradox. As a Peshwa love child offshoot, he belonged to the ‘illegitimate’ line; yet the line was a product of the great, Mughal like, Maratha Hindu-Muslim interaction. Orthodox Marathas not only recognised this legacy but respected its legitimacy. Instead of creating problems, Ali Bahadur’s Peshwa association gave him the necessary moral authority to rule.

On the eve of 1857, Bundela Datia, Orcha and Ajaigarh states faced succession issues. Split in anti and pro-British parties, the courts were hotbeds of intrigue. By June, sensing the Raj’s crisis, Bundela villagers started attacking British tehsildars. Despat and Barjore Singh, two names destined to change Bundelkhand’s history, made inspection tours, checking the feasibility of putting an end to the Raj. Despat, in particular, was in severe dispute with several Hamirpur Mahajans and auction purchasers. Apart from personal greviances, he opposed them ideologically “depicting the entire idea of Bania run private property in land, a British invention, standing in contrast to Bundela culture and ethos”.

The 12th BNI was posted in Jhansi and Nowgong. By May end native officers had started receiving intimations from Delhi as to why they were not “murdering their officers and coming to Delhi”. Confident of their ‘loyalty’, the British authorities suspected more the Rani. Mama Saheb, her father and other Chitpavan courtiers were thought to be in league with Azimullah Khan and N ana Saheb.

The 12th BNI problems rested in its isolation from local surroundings. Bunde/as traditionally were averse to BEIC employment. The 12th BNI men were from East Punjab, Haryana, Avadh and Bihar and as a result, the initial 1857 Bundela line moved in two separate directions; while the army plotted ways to announce its intentions, Bundela and Maratha sardars held their independent councils.

Personal troops of Rani Jhansi and other sardars added to the confusion. Drawn mostly from freebooting Muslim families with a Pindari past or a Tonk connection, or from within the select Maratha soldiery and only on few occasions from the Bundela mass, the ‘bodyguards’ constituted a numerically substantial force.

Pathan and Arab Muslims in the Rani’s pay had been ‘contaminated’ in some form or the other by the Walliullah impulse. Their urge to march to Delhi was immediate and pressing, yet surrounded by alien environs and unsure of the Bundelas and British sepoys they were hesitant. The 12th revolutionary party on approaching a Rani Rissladar was told first to engineer a rising “in his own house before fishing around for trouble elsewhere”. This is precisely what that group did. On 5th June egged on by Devi Singh of Lucknow, Naurang Singh of Baiswara, Jai Singh of Bhojpur and Jaideen Singh of Mungher, fifty 12th BNI sepoys created a ruckus that a Bundela bandit gang was going to attack the magazine and treasury. As a ‘show of loyalty’ they marched inside the Star fort without any orders from their superiors. Confusion prevailed in the 12th British officers harangued against the ringleaders, saying the fort’s seizure amounted to mutiny but the sepoys remained unconvinced.

With one political masterstroke, the 12th BNI ‘group of four’ distUrbed all existing equations. Connected to each other by peasant and regional sentiment, even uncommitted sepoys knew that if their comrades had ‘mutinied’ they could not stand and watch them being arrested and humiliated. The very regimental honour and regionalism which the British used to raise the Bengal army, and keep it occupied on front after front, now turned against it. The BNI men would not listen to their officers and there came a time when on 5th June only fourteen sepoys were left near the magazine. The moment was critical as the British had the power to turn the tide; but the masters were baffled. They stood paralysed; what is more, the regiment would not allow them to act.

At the same time the Rani’s guard, seeing the British weakness, became bold. Then the Bundelas heard that a ‘mutiny’ had taken place in their name. Unsure and twitchy, they hurried in huge bodies towards the city; there the city population thought the Bundelas were coming to take part in an anti British rising. By 6th June, emotions were running high. The Rani was sitting coolly watching the situation. Her rissaldars and subedars had gone to see the 12th morning parade. Here the mutiny became official; most of the 12th men rose as a body and shot their officers. British authorities retreated into the Jhansi Fort and the Rani’s guards joined the 12th in a fierce fort attack.

Lakshmi Bai received desperate British pleas for help with a ‘helpless’ attitude. She said she was in the soldiery’s grip; she had been threatened with dire consequences and she could not take any action. The British then turned to the Bundelas. Suspecting treachery and believing the rumour that the British had enacted “the whole drama with the view of drawing the Bundelas in and then massacaring them”, Bundela landlords and peasants, repulsed offers to side with the British. Acting in concert with the revolutionary party, Rani’s guards kept the Muslim population excited and the Bundelas bewildered. Finally the small Indian force which accompanied the British inside the fort began deserting. Soon a scuffle led to firing between British and Indian occupants; insiders opened three gates, through which the 12th poured such a deadly fire that the British decided to surrender.

After the Jhokun Bagh massacre, Jhansi was liberated. The Rani was given a choice to lead the area or follow the sepoys to Delhi and Kanpur.

Lakshi Bai, till now, had remained perfectly in the shadows, exhibiting not one gesture that would implicate her. Choosing the option to stay at Jhansi, she began preparing for a regular administrative establishment.
Proclaiming her son as the ruler, she began work as his regent. Her first task was to enrol Bundelas as new Jhansi troops. Soon the Rani had thousands of troopers and a working staff led by her father.

The Jhansi outbreak made Gwalior, Indore and Nagpur shaky, followed by Nowgong. There the 12th detachment had taken an oath not to ‘mutiny’. The Nowgong detachment was considered special because of the presence of a large number of Sikh. Unlike the Ferozpur and Ludhiana Sikhs, they came from Multan, Sialkot and Jullunder, traditional Khalsa army areas.

Unknown to the officers, accompanied by Bahadur Shah’s emissaries, Mohar Singh’s men, had come and ‘tampered’ the Sikhs. On 10th June, Basawa Singh, a Sikh sepoy came forward and seized a gun. Ahmen Singh, a Poorabia sepoy tried stopping him. Mehtab Singh, another Sikh, however, shot the Poorabia. On this other, Poorabias, instead of berating the Khalsas, literally announced their pro-Delhi inclinations. The officers were allowed to leave largely unmolested for Chattarpur while the sepoys marched towards Jhansi.
Nowgong broke stereotypes. Here a small Sikh party constituted the revolutionary element.