When dawn broke on the morning of September 21, 148 years ago in 1857, a royal salute told all within hearing distance that the Army of Retribution had retaken Delhi. The frail, old Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had taken refuge in Humayun’s tomb, did not get any help from his deceased ancestor when the ruthless Major William Hodson came to capture him and take him back to Delhi. Though his life was spared, that of his sons and grandson were not, and the once great Mughal dynasty completely disappeared when he died in exile in Rangoon in 1862.
With the fall of Gwalior on June 20, 1858, the British were finally able to completely crush the rebellion and by August that year India came under the rule of the British Crown, which lasted almost 90 years. This First Indian War of Independence, more popularly known as the Mutiny, was a last convulsive movement of protest against the coming of the West on the part of traditional India.
The 1857 revolt was significant due to the fact that it forged a unity among the Muslims and Hindus of India, who united to fight a common enemy. Had there been a strong and central leadership, and had the British not been able to buy the loyalty of weak and ease-loving rulers, India would not have had to spend the next 90 years under foreign domination. Though there was a great sense of aversion to foreign rule, there was not enough sense of nationalism present among the masses to make this war of independence successful.
After the imposition of the Imperial rule, the British zealously embarked upon a policy of ‘divide and rule’, never letting the religious differences between the Muslims and Hindus subside to a level at which they could hold the same opinion on any issue. The Sikhs were never with the Muslims during the Mutiny to really pose any real danger to the colonial masters. The British practised communal politics to fan the flames of religious hatred and were successful in creating an unbridgeable divide between Hindus and Muslims. So successful were they in their attempt that living together even as an independent nation was not acceptable to them. Well, basically the Muslims, because the Hindus, being in majority and having lived for centuries under the Mughals, wanted to be in power this time.
All conquerors throughout history have concentrated on keeping tensions alive within the different groups under their rule so that a unified opposition is not likely. While colonial times may be over, the instinct of more powerful nations to control weaker ones remains unchanged. In the modern scenario, one powerful nation wages a ‘war’ on a poor, but strategically important, nation in order to rid it of a corrupt and unjust leadership and ‘democratically’ impose a new leadership that would take its dictates. Thus the leadership, for its own material gains, supports the presence of foreign military forces on the pretext of enforcement of peace and reconstruction. As for the masses, some are too weakened by the chaotic conditions of everyday life to protest, while others resort to guerrilla warfare and suicide attacks to fight foreign intrusion. The puppet leadership strives to help crush the rebels under the pretext of national interest and security, and the twine never meet to pose any real threat to foreign intervention.
At present, Afghanistan and Iraq are the two countries that the US, the sole superpower, waged a war upon in order to overthrow the regimes that were considered global threats. Mind you, both had been favoured and nurtured once by the US when they were fighting against America’s foes. Their leaders — Mullah Omer and Saddam Hussain — having served their purpose and having become too difficult to control any more, became the world’s greatest terrorists and tyrants. One had human bombers that caused mass destruction while the other was said to have weapons of mass destruction — reasons enough to initiate an allied military invasion that doesn’t seem to be coming to an end.
Like the last Mughal emperor, both these leaders went into hiding when their land was invaded and taken over by a more ‘civilized’ and superior Western power. It took America months to fish out Saddam Hussain from his hiding place while Mullah Omar, along with his financier Osama Bin Laden, has proved to be smarter and the two are still at large. Had Bahadur Shah Zafar cared less for pomp and had he roughed it out on his own in a dingy small place rather than having his entire entourage keeping him company in majestic surroundings, it would have taken the British at least a few more months to bring the centuries old Mughal empire to an end. At least leaders now are more practical and care less for ceremony, not that it really helps them in the long run.
The fate of defeated rulers and their kinsmen has been the same throughout history. The doomed rulers may or may not be killed immediately (depending upon what suits the purpose of the invaders more) but their sons and close male associates always are. Our poet king was served the heads of his sons and grandson on a tray, but Saddam was spared the horror and only the images of the wounded lifeless bodies of his sons were splashed across the media the world over.
America is choosing to put Saddam through a long trial for the sake of appearing to be fair and democratic. When and how his end is to come must already be decided, but we will know it when that happens. The US also probably knows where Mullah Omar and Osama are — how can it not be with all its intelligence, technology and money — but when they plan to catch him and what is to become of them are things that we have to wait and see. It will most probably be something history has witnessed before.
The best thing about history is that it never grows old — all because it repeats itself, only the names and dates change while the acts remain the same.
