SOROOR AHMED deplores the blackout by media of contribution of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal King and Begum Hazrat Mahal of Oudh to the First War of Independence 1857.
This is the irony of history of highest magnitude. The 150th anniversary of 1857 came and went, but the Indian media – no not the Press or scholars of Britain or other countries – gave the least possible space to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and the great heroine of Lucknow, Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. While Bahadur Shah Zafar died in Myanmar – where he had been exiled – five years after the revolt, Begum Hazrat Mahal fled to Nepal where she died in 1879.
Had William Dalrymple not come up with his book The Last Mughal on the eve of 150th year of the First War of Independence, the Indian media would not have given even a little space to Begum Hazrat Mahal. The tragedy is that the private channels and print media are guilty of underplaying the contribution of Muslim rulers, even Ulema, be it of Gwalior, Patna, Bareilly, Kanpur or anywhere else. The Doordarshan, at least, on May 11 carried a programme in which the contribution of Zafar and his sons was highlighted. The private media concentrated more on the contribution of other rulers.
Whatever be the weakness of the 82-year-old Mughal emperor there is no denying the fact that the whole struggle was carried under his leadership. Though he was indecisive in the beginning, it was the Hindu dominated Sepoys who rebelled in Meerut on May 10 evening and reached Delhi the next morning and declared him as their leader.
Bahadur Shah Zafar had a role in history. True, he lost the great battle after a heroic resistance by the mutinous army comprising both Hindus and Muslims. It needs to be mentioned that apart from Sepoys, the downtrodden sections of Muslims, especially the weavers, artisans and craftsmen played a key role in opposing the British. That is one reason why Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, a British loyalist, had been so much critical of Ansaris.
But Zafar was not the only loser. All those who fought and are being eulogised today were decisively suppressed by the British who once again employed all the imperialist tricks. The issue is not to praise or criticise any ruler who lost, but to at least bring into discussion their role. What is happening today is that there is an attempt to black out or grossly underplay the resistance in Delhi and overplay that of other places.
As if that much was not enough. Akali Dal leader and Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, on the eve of the 150th anniversary launched a fantastic allegation that the contributions of Sikhs were being ignored. He said that the Anglo-Sikh Wars of 1840s were the first real struggle against the British. Nothing can be as absurd as this assertion.
Other leaders went on to say that Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Bhagat Singh etc. too are being ignored. The Akalis must know that the first to resist the British was Sirajuddaullah in 1757, that is, exactly a hundred years before 1857. After that Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan put up valiant resistance against them in the late 18th century.
The most ridiculous aspect of the whole story is the charge by the Akali leader that Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, etc. have been ignored by the government in this celebration. They failed to understand as to how these people are related to 1857.
If anyone who should have complained, it should be the Muslims as both the government and media, underplayed their contributions. Bahadur Shah Zafar might have been a fun-loving weak monarch of Delhi having a lot of wives and concubines but he still has a role in history. Many of the kings, maharajas and other personalities who rose against the British had the same ‘quality’ yet we shower praise on them because they stood up against the imperialist forces at the right time. There are folk-lore, stories and films on them. It is not that they should be ignored, but the contributions of others should also get equal recognition.
The truth is that not only the Muslim rulers are being ignored, but the heroic struggle of the common men and women is also overlooked. Whatever be the view of Akalis there is no denying the fact that the British used the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, people from the hills and even some Pathans to crush the First War of Independence. Muslims like Sir Syed provided the intellectual support for the British. Jama Masjid was most brazenly misused as the camp for Sikh military personnel for about five years. Almost similar treatment was meted out to Fatehpuri Mosque and Zeenat Mahal Masjid.
Since nobody is blaming any community as such for joining hands with the British, there is no scope here to praise and eulogise a particular community for a particular battle they fought against the British. Anyone who opposed the British fought as an Indian. The Akalis should know that in the centenary year Bhagat Singh was remembered by a large number of people, most of them Leftists. Perhaps they remembered Bhagat Singh more than the Akalis.