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The events of 1857-58 in India are seen here through a series of untold stories or little known accounts which show that they were more complex than suggested by the label ‘Indian Mutiny’ applied by British writers (who saw the events as a colonial rebellion) or ‘First War of Independence’ which is used by most Indian writers. Drawing on archival and visual sources in Britain and India, including contemporary East India Company records, together with oral memories from India illustrated with a number of nineteenth century photographs, the author tells of the murder of the British Resident in the princely state of Kotah; of Indians who opposed the Mutiny, and suffered at the hands of the "mutineers"; of a small, but significant, number of Europeans who fought with the Indians against the British; and of the infamous "prize agents" of the East India Company - licensed looters whose rapacity seemed limitless. The aftermath of the revolt and the ways in which it was commemorated are also recorded, and throughout, personal accounts convey the trauma of the dislocated times, the participant’s anxiety and desperation, the grisly bloodshed, the vast devastation- illustrating, as one Indian soldier who served in the East India Company’s army put it, ‘the wind of madness’ that swept the subcontinent.
ISBN 9788130909240
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Pages : 238
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