1857: Books and folksongs about - Revision history

Jyoti: /* 1857: Books about- I */

2025-04-13T11:45:17Z

‎1857: Books about- I

Jyoti: /* Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence 1857 ‘' */

2025-04-13T11:44:50Z

‎Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence 1857 ‘'

Jyoti: /* Charles Ball/ History of the Indian Mutiny */

2025-04-13T11:44:32Z

‎Charles Ball/ History of the Indian Mutiny

Pdewan: Protected "1857: Books and folksongs about" (‎[edit=sysop] (indefinite) ‎[move=sysop] (indefinite))

2014-02-19T19:40:57Z

Protected "1857: Books and folksongs about" (‎[edit=sysop] (indefinite) ‎[move=sysop] (indefinite))

Pdewan: /* 1857: Books about- II */

2013-10-26T19:39:19Z

‎1857: Books about- II

Pdewan: /* 1857 in Indian cinema */

2013-07-21T13:02:52Z

‎1857 in Indian cinema

Pdewan: /* 1857: Books about II */

2013-07-21T13:01:24Z

‎1857: Books about II

Pdewan: /* 1857: Books about */

2013-07-21T13:01:02Z

‎1857: Books about

Pdewan: /* 1857 in Indian cinema */

2013-07-21T12:59:50Z

‎1857 in Indian cinema

Pdewan: /* 1857: In British literature */

2013-07-21T12:59:23Z

‎1857: In British literature

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:45, 13 April 2025
Line 120:		Line 120:

	We have here also an account of the last years Bahadur Shah Zafar spent in Rangoon.		We have here also an account of the last years Bahadur Shah Zafar spent in Rangoon.
		+
		+	==Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s '' The Indian War of Independence 1857 ‘'==
		+	[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/savarkar-1857-history-national-character-book-9857835/ Arjun Sengupta, Feb 26, 2025: ''The Indian Express'']
		+
		+
		+	''' Inspired by Chiplunkar, Marathi bakhar '''
		+
		+	By the late 19th century, Indians were looking to the near and distant past through a nationalist lens. Savarkar was particularly inspired by the works of V K Chiplunkar, who co-founded the nationalist newspaper Kesari with Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
		+
		+	Chiplunkar’s work involved “the selective appropriation of epic protagonists and pivotal events from the past to inspire rupture with the historicist timetable, and rationalise seemingly impossible political change in the present”. This “appropriation of the past for the present with an eye on the future” would be a hallmark of Savarkar’s own history-writing. (Vikram Visana, ‘Savarkar before Hindutva: Sovereignty, Republicanism, and Populism in India, c.1900–1920’, published in Modern Intellectual History in 2020).
		+
		+	Savarkar was also inspired by bakhar, a form of historical narrative written in Marathi prose. Although occasionally prone to hyperbole, these presented historical events sequentially, not unlike in the positivist tradition of the West. Most importantly, the past was conceptualised such that “the trials of the movers and shakers of history were seen as forming recurring patterns in recognisable contexts during successive epochs” — meaning what happened before could happen again, in the future.
		+
		+	Most bakhar revolve around the history of the Maratha Empire, and more specifically, the exploits of Chhatrapati Shiva ji Maharaj.
		+
		+	''' Borrowing Mazzini’s framing '''
		+
		+	But perhaps the greatest inspiration for Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence was the Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini, the spearhead of the revolutionary movement for the unification of Italy. In fact, at the same time he was writing his work on 1857, Savarkar also authored a Marathi-language biography of Mazzini.
		+
		+	“Savarkar’s discussion of Mazzini in his writings is extensive; it is also unique in his oeuvre. He provides details about the centrality of Mazzini and his ideas for his own conceptualisation of history,” historian Vinayak Chaturvedi wrote in Hindutva and Violence: VD Savarkar and the Politics of Hindu Identity (2022).
		+
		+	To Mazzini, it was crucial that his people embraced a wider national association that was not liable to the chauvinism that often accompanies the politics of interest. “Mazzini reinforced Savarkar’s conviction that nationalism was an initial step in the greater association of mankind,” wrote Visana.
		+
		+	And to do this, Mazzini highlighted the role of history. He “pointed out that reconstructing the present by reaching back to historical roots of the civilization is essential for the project of nationalism,” historian Megha Kumar wrote in ‘History and Gender in Savarkar’s Nationalist Writings’ published in the journal Social Scientist in 2006.
		+
		+	More specifically, Savarkar borrowed Mazzini’s framing of how a history of revolution must be centred around “the principles and motives of the people involved”, Chaturvedi wrote.
		+	When Savarkar extensively studied contemporary writings about 1857, he found an “epistemic refusal to acknowledge that Indian soldiers were “fighting for their religion and country and wanted to overthrow foreign rule”.” This led him to arrive at “an entirely new interpretation of the events of 1857”. (Chaturvedi).
		+
		+	''' 1857, a national uprising '''
		+
		+	“I was convinced that in 1857, Indian soldiers, princes, and the general public of various provinces came together and fought a tenacious, pre-planned war to overthrow the rule of the East India Company. It did not succeed, but gave a big jolt to the British Empire. It did not hinder our progress, but left a guide for similar action in [the] future. That was the outline of my book,” Savarkar wrote in his autobiographical work Inside the Enemy Camp (1965).
		+
		+	His work attempted to find the common thread and higher cause that guided the brutality of the sepoys. “Could that vast tidal wave from Peshawar to Calcutta have risen in flood without a fixed intention of drowning something by means of its force? Could it be possible that the sieges of Delhi, the massacres of Cawnpore, the banner of the Empire, heroes dying for it, could it ever be possible that such noble and inspiring deeds have happened without a noble and inspiring end?” he wrote in his book on 1857.
		+
		+	Notably, Savarkar’s book preached a message of communal amity to build national unity on the face of the challenge from the British. Savarkar famously wrote: “The feeling of hatred against the Mahomedans was just and necessary in the times of Shiva ji but such a feeling would be unjust and foolish if nursed now, simply because it was the dominant feeling of the Hindus then.”
		+
		+	For the time, this was a novel framing of what happened in 1857. The book was seen at the time as inflammatory, and the Marathi edition was banned in India before it was even published.
		+
		+	This was more so because in 1909, just ahead of the book’s publication, Madan Lal Dhingra, a young revolutionary associated with Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat Society (something that was again inspired by Mazzini’s Young Italy society) assassinated British official Curzon Wyllie. The book would remain banned in India till 1947, although copies were smuggled in and became fairly popular in the early 20th century.
		+
		+	[[Category:Bangladesh\|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT
		+	1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
		+	[[Category:History\|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT
		+	1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
		+	[[Category:India\|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT
		+	1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
		+	[[Category:Pakistan\|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT
		+	1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]

	=1857: Books about- II=		=1857: Books about- II=

@@ Line 202: / Line 202: @@
-''' Inspired by Chiplunkar, Marathi bakhar '''
+[[Category:Bangladesh|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
+[[Category:History|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
-By the late 19th century, Indians were looking to the near and distant past through a nationalist lens. Savarkar was particularly inspired by the works of V K Chiplunkar, who co-founded the nationalist newspaper Kesari with Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
+[[Category:India|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
+[[Category:Pakistan|1857: BOOKS AND FOLKSONGS ABOUT]]
-Chiplunkar’s work involved “the selective appropriation of epic protagonists and pivotal events from the past to inspire rupture with the historicist timetable, and rationalise seemingly impossible political change in the present”. This “appropriation of the past for the present with an eye on the future” would be a hallmark of Savarkar’s own history-writing. (Vikram Visana, ‘Savarkar before Hindutva: Sovereignty, Republicanism, and Populism in India, c.1900–1920’, published in Modern Intellectual History in 2020).
-−
-Savarkar was also inspired by bakhar, a form of historical narrative written in Marathi prose. Although occasionally prone to hyperbole, these presented historical events sequentially, not unlike in the positivist tradition of the West. Most importantly, the past was conceptualised such that “the trials of the movers and shakers of history were seen as forming recurring patterns in recognisable contexts during successive epochs” — meaning what happened before could happen again, in the future.
-−
-Most bakhar revolve around the history of the Maratha Empire, and more specifically, the exploits of Chhatrapati Shiva ji Maharaj.
-−
-''' Borrowing Mazzini’s framing '''
-−
-But perhaps the greatest inspiration for Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence was the Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini, the spearhead of the revolutionary movement for the unification of Italy. In fact, at the same time he was writing his work on 1857, Savarkar also authored a Marathi-language biography of Mazzini.
-−
-“Savarkar’s discussion of Mazzini in his writings is extensive; it is also unique in his oeuvre. He provides details about the centrality of Mazzini and his ideas for his own conceptualisation of history,” historian Vinayak Chaturvedi wrote in Hindutva and Violence: VD Savarkar and the Politics of Hindu Identity (2022).
-−
-To Mazzini, it was crucial that his people embraced a wider national association that was not liable to the chauvinism that often accompanies the politics of interest. “Mazzini reinforced Savarkar’s conviction that nationalism was an initial step in the greater association of mankind,” wrote Visana.
-−
-And to do this, Mazzini highlighted the role of history. He “pointed out that reconstructing the present by reaching back to historical roots of the civilization is essential for the project of nationalism,” historian Megha Kumar wrote in ‘History and Gender in Savarkar’s Nationalist Writings’ published in the journal Social Scientist in 2006.
-−
-More specifically, Savarkar borrowed Mazzini’s framing of how a history of revolution must be centred around “the principles and motives of the people involved”, Chaturvedi wrote.
-When Savarkar extensively studied contemporary writings about 1857, he found an “epistemic refusal to acknowledge that Indian soldiers were “fighting for their religion and country and wanted to overthrow foreign rule”.” This led him to arrive at “an entirely new interpretation of the events of 1857”. (Chaturvedi).
-−
-''' 1857, a national uprising '''
-−
-“I was convinced that in 1857, Indian soldiers, princes, and the general public of various provinces came together and fought a tenacious, pre-planned war to overthrow the rule of the East India Company. It did not succeed, but gave a big jolt to the British Empire. It did not hinder our progress, but left a guide for similar action in [the] future. That was the outline of my book,” Savarkar wrote in his autobiographical work Inside the Enemy Camp (1965).
-−
-His work attempted to find the common thread and higher cause that guided the brutality of the sepoys. “Could that vast tidal wave from Peshawar to Calcutta have risen in flood without a fixed intention of drowning something by means of its force? Could it be possible that the sieges of Delhi, the massacres of Cawnpore, the banner of the Empire, heroes dying for it, could it ever be possible that such noble and inspiring deeds have happened without a noble and inspiring end?” he wrote in his book on 1857.
-−
-Notably, Savarkar’s book preached a message of communal amity to build national unity on the face of the challenge from the British. Savarkar famously wrote: “The feeling of hatred against the Mahomedans was just and necessary in the times of Shiva ji but such a feeling would be unjust and foolish if nursed now, simply because it was the dominant feeling of the Hindus then.”
-−
-For the time, this was a novel framing of what happened in 1857. The book was seen at the time as inflammatory, and the Marathi edition was banned in India before it was even published.
-−
-This was more so because in 1909, just ahead of the book’s publication, Madan Lal Dhingra, a young revolutionary associated with Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat Society (something that was again inspired by Mazzini’s Young Italy society) assassinated British official Curzon Wyllie. The book would remain banned in India till 1947, although copies were smuggled in and became fairly popular in the early 20th century.
-−
 [[Category:Bangladesh]]
 [[Category:History]]
 [[Category:India]]
 [[Category:Pakistan]]
 =1857: In British literature=

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:44, 13 April 2025
Line 200:		Line 200:

	(Price includes both volumes)		(Price includes both volumes)
		+
		+
		+	==Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s '' The Indian War of Independence 1857 ‘'==
		+	[https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/savarkar-1857-history-national-character-book-9857835/ Arjun Sengupta, Feb 26, 2025: ''The Indian Express'']
		+
		+
		+	''' Inspired by Chiplunkar, Marathi bakhar '''
		+
		+	By the late 19th century, Indians were looking to the near and distant past through a nationalist lens. Savarkar was particularly inspired by the works of V K Chiplunkar, who co-founded the nationalist newspaper Kesari with Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
		+
		+	Chiplunkar’s work involved “the selective appropriation of epic protagonists and pivotal events from the past to inspire rupture with the historicist timetable, and rationalise seemingly impossible political change in the present”. This “appropriation of the past for the present with an eye on the future” would be a hallmark of Savarkar’s own history-writing. (Vikram Visana, ‘Savarkar before Hindutva: Sovereignty, Republicanism, and Populism in India, c.1900–1920’, published in Modern Intellectual History in 2020).
		+
		+	Savarkar was also inspired by bakhar, a form of historical narrative written in Marathi prose. Although occasionally prone to hyperbole, these presented historical events sequentially, not unlike in the positivist tradition of the West. Most importantly, the past was conceptualised such that “the trials of the movers and shakers of history were seen as forming recurring patterns in recognisable contexts during successive epochs” — meaning what happened before could happen again, in the future.
		+
		+	Most bakhar revolve around the history of the Maratha Empire, and more specifically, the exploits of Chhatrapati Shiva ji Maharaj.
		+
		+	''' Borrowing Mazzini’s framing '''
		+
		+	But perhaps the greatest inspiration for Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence was the Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini, the spearhead of the revolutionary movement for the unification of Italy. In fact, at the same time he was writing his work on 1857, Savarkar also authored a Marathi-language biography of Mazzini.
		+
		+	“Savarkar’s discussion of Mazzini in his writings is extensive; it is also unique in his oeuvre. He provides details about the centrality of Mazzini and his ideas for his own conceptualisation of history,” historian Vinayak Chaturvedi wrote in Hindutva and Violence: VD Savarkar and the Politics of Hindu Identity (2022).
		+
		+	To Mazzini, it was crucial that his people embraced a wider national association that was not liable to the chauvinism that often accompanies the politics of interest. “Mazzini reinforced Savarkar’s conviction that nationalism was an initial step in the greater association of mankind,” wrote Visana.
		+
		+	And to do this, Mazzini highlighted the role of history. He “pointed out that reconstructing the present by reaching back to historical roots of the civilization is essential for the project of nationalism,” historian Megha Kumar wrote in ‘History and Gender in Savarkar’s Nationalist Writings’ published in the journal Social Scientist in 2006.
		+
		+	More specifically, Savarkar borrowed Mazzini’s framing of how a history of revolution must be centred around “the principles and motives of the people involved”, Chaturvedi wrote.
		+	When Savarkar extensively studied contemporary writings about 1857, he found an “epistemic refusal to acknowledge that Indian soldiers were “fighting for their religion and country and wanted to overthrow foreign rule”.” This led him to arrive at “an entirely new interpretation of the events of 1857”. (Chaturvedi).
		+
		+	''' 1857, a national uprising '''
		+
		+	“I was convinced that in 1857, Indian soldiers, princes, and the general public of various provinces came together and fought a tenacious, pre-planned war to overthrow the rule of the East India Company. It did not succeed, but gave a big jolt to the British Empire. It did not hinder our progress, but left a guide for similar action in [the] future. That was the outline of my book,” Savarkar wrote in his autobiographical work Inside the Enemy Camp (1965).
		+
		+	His work attempted to find the common thread and higher cause that guided the brutality of the sepoys. “Could that vast tidal wave from Peshawar to Calcutta have risen in flood without a fixed intention of drowning something by means of its force? Could it be possible that the sieges of Delhi, the massacres of Cawnpore, the banner of the Empire, heroes dying for it, could it ever be possible that such noble and inspiring deeds have happened without a noble and inspiring end?” he wrote in his book on 1857.
		+
		+	Notably, Savarkar’s book preached a message of communal amity to build national unity on the face of the challenge from the British. Savarkar famously wrote: “The feeling of hatred against the Mahomedans was just and necessary in the times of Shiva ji but such a feeling would be unjust and foolish if nursed now, simply because it was the dominant feeling of the Hindus then.”
		+
		+	For the time, this was a novel framing of what happened in 1857. The book was seen at the time as inflammatory, and the Marathi edition was banned in India before it was even published.
		+
		+	This was more so because in 1909, just ahead of the book’s publication, Madan Lal Dhingra, a young revolutionary associated with Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat Society (something that was again inspired by Mazzini’s Young Italy society) assassinated British official Curzon Wyllie. The book would remain banned in India till 1947, although copies were smuggled in and became fairly popular in the early 20th century.
		+
		+	[[Category:Bangladesh]]
		+	[[Category:History]]
		+	[[Category:India]]
		+	[[Category:Pakistan]]

	=1857: In British literature=		=1857: In British literature=

@@ Line 133: / Line 133: @@
 ________________________________________
-An interesting piece in this section is P.C. Joshi’s recollection of the folk songs of 1857, which in a larger publication in Urdu was perhaps his most valuable contribution to the literature on 1857.
+An interesting piece in this section is P.C. Joshi’s recollection of the '''folk songs''' of 1857, which in a larger publication in Urdu was perhaps his most valuable contribution to the literature on 1857.
 ________________________________________
@@ Line 140: / Line 140: @@
 P.C. Gupta’s short note ‘1857 and Hindi literature’ and Professor Ehtesham Hussain’s equally brief essay ‘Urdu Literature and the Revolt’ look like hurriedly executed commissions and leave the reader thirsting for more detailed accounts. K. M. Ashraf discusses Ghalib’s account of 1857, mainly as it appears in the poet’s Dastambu, and Gopal Haldar quickly runs through Bengali literature written before and after 1857, that is, between 1856 and 1885.
-An interesting piece in this section is P.C. Joshi’s recollection of the folk songs of 1857, which in a larger publication in Urdu was perhaps his most valuable contribution to the literature on 1857.
+An interesting piece in this section is P.C. Joshi’s recollection of the '''folk songs''' of 1857, which in a larger publication in Urdu was perhaps his most valuable contribution to the literature on 1857.
 Finally, we are offered some idea of how 1857 was treated by the British, French, Italian, Russian and Chinese journals. These pieces are sheer information. They also reflect on some key weaknesses of 19th-century Indian society, especially its failure to match the West in intellectual pursuits and the development of political theories. In a sense the reader gets a fair assessment of the cost paid in 1857 for wallowing in feudalism for an inordinately long time. It is a pity that the lesson remains unlearnt; which makes the book relevant to Pakistanis today and that is why one should be grateful to Ushba Publishing International for issuing this reprint. It should find a prominent place in any collection of history books on the subcontinent.

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:02, 21 July 2013
Line 247:		Line 247:

	avijit.ghosh@timesgroup.com		avijit.ghosh@timesgroup.com
		+	=See also=
		+	[[1857: The events]]
		+
		+	[[1857: The causes]]
		+
		+	[[1857: A jihadi revolt?]]
		+
		+	[[1857: The geographical spread]]
		+
		+	[[1857: Heroes and heroines]]
		+
		+	[[1857: The aftermath]]
		+
		+	[[1857: Contemporary reportage]]
		+
		+	[[1857: Books and folksongs about]]
		+
		+	[[1857: Little known but important facts]]


	A still from The Rising		A still from The Rising

@@ Line 121: / Line 121: @@
 We have here also an account of the last years Bahadur Shah Zafar spent in Rangoon.
-=1857: Books about II=
+=1857: Books about- II=
 [http://dawn.com/ Dawn] March 2, 2008

@@ Line 77: / Line 77: @@
 smp@sang-e-meel.com
-=1857: Books about =
+=1857: Books about- I=
 Remembering the great rebellion of 1857

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:59, 21 July 2013
Line 200:		Line 200:

	(Price includes both volumes)		(Price includes both volumes)
		+
		+	=1857: In British literature=
		+	Some fact & plenty of fiction
		+
		+
		+	[HTTP://TIMESOFINDIA.INDIATIMES.COM/ARCHIVE.CMS THE TIMES OF INDIA]
		+
		+	Though the British officially declared the uprising as over in mid-1859, its impact on the British psyche lingered on for several years. In the aftermath of 1857, there was a veritable explosion of writing on the subject. Indeed, no other event under colonial rule can match the literary output on 1857. Much of it was memoirs, diaries and letters by East India Company officials and civilians who witnessed and survived the uprising. There were also several histories, including J W Kaye’s magisterial ‘History of the Sepoy War’, and London Times correspondent William Howard Russell’s reports. Some of the best known poets of the times such as Alfred Tennyson, too, penned stirring lines on the events of 1857.
		+
		+	However, it’s the 70-odd novels spawned by the uprising that are remarkable. First off the blocks was none other than Charles Dickens who co-authored a short novel, ‘Perils of Certain English Prisoners’, which appeared in the Christmas issue of Household Words in 1857. Though the story was set in Central America, it was clearly based on the rebellion in India. The first full-length novel on the uprising was Edward Money’s ‘The Wife and the Ward’ in 1859. It ended on a bleak note with the massacre of Kanpur and all the protagonists getting killed.
		+
		+	The high point of Mutiny novels was in the 1890s when 19 novels were published. These included the highly popular ‘On the Face of the Waters’ by Flora Annie Steel and G A Henty’s ‘In Times of Peril’. Henty — described as the James Hadley Chase of the time — churned out nearly a 100 novels with a boy-hero as a protagonist in different imperial settings. According to Gautam Chakravarty, who has authored ‘The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination’, it was no coincidence that Mutiny novels peaked during that period. ‘‘The period between 1890 and 1910 was symbolic of a high imperial culture. Unlike the earlier novels, the rebellion was turned into a site of high imperial adventure. It was seen as an event to inspire the working classes to become the shock troops of imperialism,” he says.
		+
		+	From the 20th century, there is a sharp drop in Mutiny novels. In the year of Indian independence, C L Reid’s ‘Masque of the Mutiny’ was published. In an interesting departure, Reid has a Gandhi-like Mahatma as the leader of the rebellion. Post-1947, novels based on the uprising are few and far between. The most prominent ones are ‘The Nightrunners of Bengal’ by John Masters and J G Farrell’s ‘The Siege of Krishnapur’. The latter — based on the siege of Lucknow — won the Booker. The most recent Mutiny novel was Andrew Ward’s ‘The Blood Seed’, taking off on the events in Kanpur.
		+
		+	For the 150th year of the uprising there is little by way of fiction from Britain. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, who has written extensively on Lucknow and whose book on 1857 will be published later this year, says, ‘‘There is really no interest at all in Britain about the events of 1857.’’ The reason is not hard to find. The triumphalist narratives of the Raj possibly have little resonance in a Britain which sees itself under threat from a resurgent India. — RS
		+
		+
		+	A view from Humayun’s Tomb where Bahadur Shah Zafar sought refuge in 1857, after fleeing from the Red Fort. (Right) Lucknow’s Residency Complex was besieged by rebels for over six months (June 1857-March 1858) during the uprising

	=1857 in Indian cinema=		=1857 in Indian cinema=

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 [[Category:India|1]]
 [[Category:Pakistan|1]]
 =1857: Three Urdu books about the Rising=