NEXT year will be the 150th anniversary of the Uprising of 1857, so here are a few glimpses of the events of that tumultuous year. After this challenge to British rule in India had been quelled, the colonists set about exacting their revenge for the losses they had suffered.

Names and descriptions of rebels were circulated to their outposts, rewards announced, and a vast manhunt launched. Here’s one entry in such a list compiled by the home department, and signed by R.W. Chapman, “officiating under Secretary to Government of India, Foreign Department” on March 3, 1858:

Names: Mirza Moghul; Khuzzar Sooltan; Abu Bakur; Mirza Bucktawar Shah; Mirza Mehndee.

Designation: Princes.

Parentage: Sons and grandson of the King of Delhi.

Remarks: Shot.

The reward for the capture of Sreemunt Dhoondoo Punt, the Nana Sahib, was the princely amount of Rs100,000. Here’s another typically terse entry in the list:

Name: The Nawab of Kanoud.

Remarks: Brigadier Showers took possession of the Fort of Kanoud, killing 400 of the Nawab’s people, and securing some money.

While these lists contain many illustrious names, they also identify hundreds of ordinary people who had enlisted in the rebel cause. Thus, Run Bahadoor Singh, Bijyee Bahadoor Singh, and “a few other farmers” of Allahabad have been accused of “assembling a large gang, and plundered some boats on the River Jumna, also some villages”. While their fates have not been recorded, chances are that they were caught later and executed.

This list is just one of many documents relating to 1857 in the Sindh Archives. Indeed, this collection of old manuscripts and documents is a treasure trove of information. The British were meticulous in their record-keeping, and in their preservation of official documents. For instance, the minutes of meetings of the East India Company council in Calcutta in 1757 contain approval to sell several hundred rusting nails at a discounted price. These documents are available to researchers in the reference section of the India Office Collection of the British Library. This attention to detail provided the underpinnings of a vast empire on which the sun famously never set. This meticulous filing is apparent in the Sindh Archives where beautifully handwritten papers chronicling the daily (and often dull) events of administration are carefully archived. But the events of the latter half of 1857 were anything but dull. Here are excerpts from a proclamation made by Lalla Jaysingh and Mehrab Khan, translated into English and circulated by the home department:

“Be it known to all the inhabitants of India that some months ago, the Christians intended to destroy both religions, and contrived to mix the bones of the cow and the hog in flour and other eatable articles in certain districts of Hindoostan, and prepared cartridges with fat... The sepoys were firm in their religion, gave up the cartridges and determined to kill the Europeans. Happy is their faith, strength and bravery, that they did not care for their lives, and killed the Europeans where they found them... Thus they arrived at Shahjehanbad and rendered assistance to the King of Delhi, and left no European alive...”

Alas, this ‘assistance’ proved to be a poisoned chalice. As so brilliantly chronicled by William Dalrymple in The Last Moghul, the British exiled the King and killed his heirs, thus ending the dynasty started by Babar over three centuries ago. To be accurate, the line had been in a state of decline for years, and the Uprising was the last nail in its coffin.

It was Dalrymple’s book that sent me to the Sindh Archives in the first place, for the author had mentioned a number of prisoners who had been exiled from Delhi to Karachi. I wanted to see if there was any record of their fate. And while I did not find any references to those particular individuals, I did come across evidence that many prisoners were transported to the Andaman Islands from Karachi.

Among the documents preserved in the Archives are the gazettes of the Bombay government. These printed collections of important officials decisions and announcements as well as commercial notices and advertisements provide us with invaluable insights into British rule in India. For example, a law was passed by the Legislative Council to deal with cases relating to the confiscation of property of those who were deemed to have mutinied. The preamble, dated October 3, 1857, stated:

“Whereas it is expedient to render Officers and Soldiers in the Native Army, who shall be convicted of mutiny, subject to the forfeiture of all their property, and to provide for the adjudication and recovery of forfeiture in certain cases...”

After the siege of Delhi was over, and the British had routed the rebels, there was a huge sense of relief, followed by self-congratulatory messages. The November 1857 issue of the Bombay Gazette contains this letter from General C. Campbell, commander-in-chief of the British forces to Colonel Birch, secretary to the government, military department: “I have the honour to forward two despatches which have arrived from Major General Wilson, Commanding the Field Force before Delhi... I beg very particularly to call the attention of His Lordship to the matter contained in these two communications, and to give expression to the very cordial feeling I experience towards Major General Wilson and the Force under his command. It is impossible to be too lavish in praise for the untiring energy, invincible fortitude, and splendid gallantry by which this Force has been distinguished from the General in Command to the Private Soldier in the Ranks...”

It would be ungrateful of me not to acknowledge the courtesy I have received from the director of the Archives and his colleagues. I always enjoy meeting people who share my love of history, and to encounter enthusiasm for learning, and a love of books in a government department is rare indeed. But over the last year, the Archives have been in state of creative ferment.

The new director and his team are busy cataloguing the material, as well as digitalising old documents. They are also creating a website that would inform researchers about the material their collection contains. A number of catalogues are under print, and a list of old maps of Karachi and Sindh, some dating back to 1816, is about to be published. The province is indeed fortunate to have such dedicated people preserving its past.