The distant past does effect politics today.
Soldiers' visit to Indian Mutiny sites causes row
By Peter Foster
Last Updated: 2:30am BST 24/09/2007
British historians and retired soldiers have provoked a political row in India by visiting sites where the Army helped to crush the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
India's main opposition party, the Hindu-nationalist BJP, vowed to stop the tourists entering the city of Lucknow, the scene of two pivotal clashes between the rebels and British forces.
"At no cost will our party allow the group into the city. They are not normal tourists but family members of the killers of our freedom-fighters," said Lalji Tandon, a senior BJP leader.
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"It is shameful how the government granted them permission to enter [India], and that too in a year when our country is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the uprising," he added.
Roy Trustram-Eve, the leader of the group linked to the British regiment The Rifles and which includes descendants of some of the soldiers who took part, said that there was no question of "celebrating" an event when massacres of women and children were committed by both sides.
"We are here to commemorate, and not to celebrate, the events of 1857," he said after a service of remembrance in St James Church, New Delhi, on Saturday, "Many people died. There was bravery shown by both sides."
Sensibilities over the Indian Mutiny – or the First War of Independence as Indian schoolchildren know it – remain raw in India, with emphasis placed on the murderous reprisals exacted by victorious British forces after the fall of Delhi.
This was demonstrated last week when Mr Trustram-Eve's group unwittingly offended local sensitivities on a visit to the town of Meerut where the first Indian soldiers, or sepoys, rebelled.
Attempts to erect a plaque to commemorate the "bravery and distinguished service" of members of the 60th Queen's Royal Rifles — now amalgamated into The Rifles — were rebuffed by the local bishop.
The story made front page news, further stoking resentment against the British tourists.
"The 60th QRR was one of the regiments that led the massacre of native soldiers," a local historian, KD Sharma, told The Hindustan Times. "Trying to put up this plaque was an insult to Indians."
The Times of India, which covered a small demonstration in the city of Agra last Friday, has taken a more moderate approach, describing objectors to the British visitors – most of whom are aged in their 70s – as "fringe groups". |
