Memory, amnesia & history, 'A Begum and a Rani'

Salil Misra

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Rudrangshu Mukherjee has perfected the art of combining different windows to historical knowledge, micro with macro, local with national, and individual with the larger social. In one of his books, he told the story of the Rebellion of 1857 by focusing on the life of an individual soldier, Mangal Pandey. In another book, he highlighted the political relationship between Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose and, in the process, narrated the story of India’s freedom struggle. He has done something similar in the book under review. Through the individual life stories of Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh and Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Mukherjee has illuminated many important facets of the Rebellion. This simultaneous zooming in and zooming out has imparted a great richness to his historical writings.

The two principal characters of the book — Lakshmibai and Hazrat Mahal — were very different in temperament and background, yet were destined to play very similar roles in the Rebellion of 1857. Left to themselves, none of them would have chosen the role of rebel and fighter against the British Raj. However, in the crucial juncture of 1857, they both found themselves caught in the whirlwind of momentous events, in whose making they had no role to play. Both had reconciled to their status as disinherited and disprivileged entities. However, the common people, rebellious soldiers and the general anti-British climate forcefully imposed on the two women the role of being the leaders of the Rebellion. However, once their destinies propelled them in the direction of struggle, the two took up the challenge with exemplary courage and determination. Whereas Hazrat Mahal displayed her skills in war strategy and administrative organisation, Lakshmibai actually entered the battlefield and fought the British, riding a horse with a sword in her hand. In the end, Lakshmibai died on the battlefield a martyr, whereas Hazrat Mahal escaped to Nepal, where she too died a few years later.

These different endings of their individual stories were largely responsible for the manner in which the two queens were remembered by history. Lakshmibai became a legend. Savarkar sang praises of her bravery on the battlefield, in his path-breaking account of 1857, published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of 1857. Subhadra Kumari Chauhan wrote the iconic ‘Khoob lari mardani’ in the 1920s that made her immortal. Leading Hindi novelist Vrindavan Lal Verma wrote a novel ‘Jhansi ki Rani’ in 1946 which was not fictionalised history, but rather historical fiction. And so did Mahasweta Devi in 1956. Nehru and Bose, too, contributed to the creation of an image of Jhansi ki Rani — atop a horse and fighting the enemy wielding a sword on the battlefield — that has remained etched in the hearts of people. Begum Hazrat Mahal, by comparison, has been largely forgotten. History is not exactly a story of what actually happened, but rather of how what happened has been subsequently remembered, or forgotten. Memory and amnesia have played hide-and-seek with each other in popular historical imagination.

Jawaharlal Nehru is reported to have said around 1948 on the role of political leaders during the freedom struggle: “We were essentially small people carrying on a great task. But because the task was so great, some of its greatness fell on us, and we too became great!” This would be an apt summing up of the roles and involvement of the two women during the events of 1857. Their lives were not exceptional or extraordinary. But the historical conjuncture of 1857 elevated their lives from routine and mundane, to exceptional and extraordinary.

Zooming out of the lives of the two leaders, the book makes an extremely important point about the struggle. The general historical accounts have underestimated revolutionary potentials of the Rebellion because of their Delhi-centric view. Delhi was obviously re-captured by the British soon after outbreak of the Rebellion. The fulcrum of the Rebellion, however, was not Delhi but the Gangetic valley in the Doab region. In Lucknow, the rebel army was one lakh strong. The region also had a functioning politico-administrative apparatus. Had the rebels succeeded in expelling the British, there would have been no vacuum. A proper indigenous alternative would have replaced the British. This view of the Rebellion from the Gangetic valley obviously looks very different from the Delhi view.

This is Mukherjee’s sixth book on 1857. It is a nice love affair between Mukherjee and 1857 in which the two keep chasing each other. The result has been a great illumination and lifting of many clouds from the elusive phenomenon of 1857. May the love affair continue, in the interests of important historical knowledge!