Nationalist Discourse in the Colonial World: The Indian Uprising of 1857 Vis-à-Vis the Ambivalent Middle-Class Intelligentsia of Bengal

Abstract

The paper addresses and contributes to one of the core debates concerning the usage of terminologies such as ‘loyalists’ and ‘rebels’, often ascribed to actors involved in the anti-colonial movements across the world. By taking the case of the Indian rebellion of 1857, the paper argues that moments such as this, more often than not, have subtle and nuanced reflections, and the trajectories of responses transcend simplistic categorisations. In the mid-nineteenth century colonial Bengal ‘loyalism’ of the middle-class intelligentsia towards the foreign rule contained internal contradictions, which was far more nuanced than has been portrayed in the last one and half centuries. Based on the contemporary reports, memoirs, and writings, the paper argues that while the nature of opposition and resistance were reflected in a rhetoric that was different, they emanated from similar sets of discontents, and would play a pivotal role in shaping the later-day discourse of nationalism in South Asia.

Keywords:

• Bengal
• middle-class
• colonialism
• nation
• nationalism
• 1857 rebellion
• Hindoo Patriot
• bhadralok

1. Introduction

In the annals of India’s struggle towards independence, there have been a few pivotal moments that transcended the limits of temporal immediacy. The Rebellion of 1857 constitutes one such moment. From its inception to the remaining duration of colonial rule and beyond, the memory of the rebellion was indelibly etched into the collective psyche of both the colonisers and the colonised, albeit for conflicting rationales. For the colonisers, it served as an unforeseen shock that shattered the mid-Victorian complacency surrounding the illusion of permanence. It questioned the legitimacy of the colonial state and compelled a re-evaluation of its priorities. As Asa Briggs aptly suggested, ‘no single event more powerfully affected the mind of that generation than the ‘Indian Mutiny’ in 1857.’¹ For the colonised, the memory evoked notions of patriotism, sacrifice, and an overriding solidarity that transcended traditional societal divides. From V.D. Savarkar to J. Nehru and beyond, the anti-imperialist and nationalist dimensions of the Rebellion were repeatedly emphasised, though opinions differed on whether it was progressive or feudal in nature. In short, there was a contradiction between the imperialist and nationalist perceptions. Admittedly, there were nuances within these broadly generalised versions of the historiography of the Rebellion. However, at a macro level, the distinction remained valid. It was only within the preceding three decades of scholarly investigation that historians have transcended this restrictive analytical paradigm, thereby challenging, disputing, re-envisioning, re-interpreting, and re-constructing virtually every facet of this historical account across temporal and societal dimensions. Presently, it is extensively acknowledged that the rebellion had a multi-faceted nature, rendering it fallacious to ascribe it to a singular, definitive category.

The event continues to be a cause celebre because it acted as a pivotal role in redefining the relations between the people and their past. Setting up a relation with the past provides the central, analytic entry-point for understanding and interpreting an iconic event that has transcended the limits of immediacy. However, as this paper will argue, this relation did not represent a single form of resistance or a single past. The rebellion of 1857 was not a single movement but a complex one. It represented many forms the ideological ramifications of which varied considerably across regions and temporal frames. As the impact of subjugation towards the colonial rule was differential, so the reactions too were varied. But these reactions stemmed from a common set of discontent.

This paper examines the reactions and responses of a class of people – stereotyped as the ‘loyal’ subjects of the British Empire – during the rebellion of 1857. It has often been portrayed that the urban middle class intelligentsia of Bengal, also referred to as the ‘bhadralok’, perceived the colonial establishment as some sort of heavenly intervention to help them move forward towards modernity, progress, and development. When this modernisation agenda was seemingly threatened by the uprising of 1857, this ‘loyalty’ of the Bengali intelligentsia found an unabashed expression, criticising the ‘rebels’ in the most regretful manner. Judith Brown argued that these men had material interests, and often a deep, ideological commitment to new ideas. Hence, they expressed their loyalty and presented addresses of support to the government, instead of aligning with the rural rebels and disgruntled sepoys.² Similarly, Partha Chatterjee, in an attempt to break away from the debilitating paradigm of Benedict Anderson who had earlier argued that the idea of anti-colonial nationalism in the colonies were dependent on European models³, drew a distinction between nationalism as a political movement which challenged the colonial state, and nationalism as a cultural construct that enabled the colonised to posit their autonomy.⁴ While the former was ‘derivative’ the latter drew its energies from the indigenous sources. A new binary was thus introduced, between the ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’ world. While on the ‘spiritual’ domain, the elites/nationalists created an ‘autonomous’ world of their own, on the ‘material’ domain, Chatterjee argued, they were ‘surrendering’ in effect to the West in an effort to eradicate ‘colonial difference’.⁵ By allowing themselves to be taken into the progressive colonial project of building a modern nation state, Indian nationalists fulfilled the colonial ideology.

But was this display of loyalty beyond question? Sumit Sarkar in his sharp rebuttal criticised the logic of this hypothesis, as propounded by Chatterjee. Sarkar argued, ‘Here is a paradox indeed, for all commonsensically promising or effective ways of fighting colonial domination (mass political struggle, for instance, or even economic self-help) have become signs of surrender’.⁶ This ‘commonsensically’ effective means of resistance, as this paper will argue, was far from monochromatic. Rather, it was riddled with problems and regional specificities, as was illustrated during the rebellion of 1857. Benoy Ghosh argued that it was not of course a ‘slavish loyalty’ but a ‘conditional’ support of the British Government.⁷ He tried to explain that the middle class intelligentsia avoided the open confrontation with the Company’s government since ‘to support the rebels and their cause would have amounted at the time to a negation of all principles and ideals for which they had fought for over half a century’.⁸ In one of his later works, C.A. Bayly argued that ‘the boundary between ‘revolt’ and ‘collaboration’ was often very faint … many of those who apparently collaborated, the Calcutta Intelligentsia for instance, regarded the British with contempt at some level’.⁹ Similarly, Mushirul Hasan, while revisiting the works and responses of the Muslim intellectuals in northern India, has persuasively argued that for men of this generation and background, their responses towards the rebellion of 1857 were always going to be far more complex than the mere official narratives of loyalism and anti-imperialism dichotomy.¹⁰

Qualifying from such understanding this paper argues that the logic put forward by Brown or the binary thesis of Chatterjee need to be revisited. From the contemporary writings of the middle-class intelligentsia of Bengal, it is evident that the spirit of resistance and critique towards the colonial rule was not constricted within the ‘spiritual domain’. It also shows that even though the ‘bhadralok’, a term when translated literally means ‘respectable people’, did not appreciate the open outbursts of violence and the bloodshed during the rebellion, they perceived those substantial grievances – ranging from lack of empathy from the military administration to social discrimination and a sense of economic deprivation – motivated this insurrection. This led them to question the viability of the presence of the colonial rule in the subcontinent. The paper argues that the uprising of 1857 had more subtle and nuanced reflections, and the patterns and trajectories of response went beyond the simplistic categorisations as ‘loyal’ or ‘rebel’. As E.I. Brodkin pointed out ‘the simplistic categorisation of the Indian actors … as loyal or rebel serves mainly to confuse’.¹¹ Although Brodkin was not altogether against the idea of customary usage of the terminologies, he however pointed out that it would be improper to designate much of the politically active population of India as either ‘rebel’ or ‘loyal’. In Bengal ‘loyalism’ of the intelligentsia contained internal dilemmas and contradictions, thus opening a space for moving beyond terminologies of ‘loyalist’ or ‘rebel’.

2. Formation of the colonial middle class

Before delving further, it is important to have a quick overview of the Calcutta intelligentsia vis-à-vis the colonial state and the context within which to understand the ‘ambivalence’ of the intelligentsia at the time of the rebellion.¹² The middle-class, in the context of nineteenth century colonial Bengal, had a fluid identity eluding any particular socio-economic categorisation but is generally recognised as characteristics which serve as the primary markers of middle-class identity namely the western education, a white collar job or ‘chakri’, and participation in a print culture.¹³ Each of these characteristics can be attributed to the establishment of colonial rule in India which serves to highlight that the middle class in nineteenth century India was in essence a product of British colonial rule and its instruments of governance. Formation of the colonial middle class was the product of a historical process growing in response to the changing forms of political, social, cultural, and economic norms introduced by colonial rule.

The Bengali middle-class evolved with the evolution of colonial rule itself. Until the 1830s, the East India Company remained reliant upon the Sanskrit and Persian knowing literati for purposes of administration and commerce. Due to the sustained use of Sanskrit for purposes of the state, Sanskrit scholars were assured of a sound future. However, the position of prestige that Sanskrit enjoyed and the culture of patronage that Sanskrit scholars received were waning by the 1840s. The triumph of Thomas Babington Macaulay and the ‘Anglicist’ over the ‘Orientalists’ in the 1830s marked an increase in the use of English for both education and administrative purposes while it simultaneously minimised the use of Sanskrit and denigrated the accomplishments of Indian civilisation.¹⁴ By emphasising English education, the Anglicists attempted to create a class of native people who, as Macaulay famously put it, were ‘Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect’.¹⁵ Thus, as Gauri Viswanathan argued, the introduction of English became a tool of Empire.¹⁶

With the lack of opportunities in the military services and the decline of indigenous business opportunities, the new form of education, much more formal and dependent on examinations and educational degrees, became the only channel for respectable upward mobility.¹⁷ The introduction of cheap print and colonial grid of educational institutions made education available to all in principle. Printing however, was not limited to the English language. Instead, as Sarkar argued, printing culture was quickly appropriated within the vernacular language, which led to the development of new literary forms and genres in considerable abundance.¹⁸ This new vernacular field, as Manu Goswami argued, was both an expression and a vehicle for the making of an ascendant, if internally differentiated, middle class in colonial India.¹⁹

The colonial middle-class, as it developed during the nineteenth century in Bengal, generally found themselves in a position of ‘in-between-ness’. They were caught in a curious position; while they admiringly faced modernity with all its appeals of liberal reason and progress, they also shared a selective appreciation of their own past – their ancient heritage and culture. The bhadralok occupied a position that was in their view forward looking, in terms of material, and in some cases social and cultural progress but they were also highly aware of their past within which they sought to frame their identity. Not discounting the role of English education, Sanjay Joshi argued that it was the ability of these educated people to configure new social relations that distinguished the middle-class from other social groups in colonial India.²⁰ As Kumkum Chatterjee pointed out, in spite of the ambiguous position that the colonial middle-class shared, the role they played in ‘shaping the dominant discourse about society and politics in the sub-continent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and beyond,’ must be acknowledged.²¹

3. The rebellion and the contemporary response of the intelligentsia

It is against this background that one needs to examine the response of the middle class of Bengal when the rebellion broke out in 1857. However, it needs to be mentioned at the outset that when the rebellion raged in north and central India, the predicament of an Empire in flames and the iron-hand of British repression that followed made it difficult for the Bengal intelligentsia to articulate their voices in overtly antagonistic ways. On 13 June 1857 the Legislative Council of India passed the Act XV of 1857, derisively known as the ‘Gagging Act’, to regulate the contents and the circulation of the newspapers, books and pamphlets.²² Although this act was implemented throughout, it was the Calcutta press that was most severely affected. Consequently, most of the newspapers and periodicals in and around Calcutta were deprived of their voices of free opinion. Those who still did, for instance Samachar Shudhabarshan and the Friend of India newspaper, were castigated by the colonial administration as being sympathetic towards the rebel cause and were appropriately dealt with.²³ Others such as the Hindoo Patriot took recourse to Aesopian languages. To cite one instance, in one of the long editorials written in Hindoo Patriot on the consequences of the rebellion, the editor of the newspaper Hurrish Mukherji commented that the pages of history would evaluate the conflagration of 1857 in a manner wholly different from how contemporaries in 1857–1858 viewed it.²⁴ As Sabyasachi Bhattacharya has rightly reminded us, ‘our view of the stance adopted by the urban middle classes to the uprising of 1857 remains incomplete chiefly because of this law, which effectively stifled their expression of opinion. Often we do not pay attention to this fact when we comment on the attitude of this class’.²⁵ While some of the contemporary newspaper reports and the travel and first-person accounts might appear to be ‘loyalist’ (in the form of condemnation of the sepoys), but a closer re-reading of some of these texts reflected a more nuanced understanding of the situation and the response. In the aftermath of the rebellion, the cumulative effect of the Black Act of 1836, the ‘Gagging Act’ of 1857, the Vernacular Press Act of 1879, and the Ilbert Bill controversy of 1883 underlined the asymmetry between the rulers and the ruled. Towards the end of the nineteenth century one can thus notice that such cautions were openly disregarded and admiration for the rebel leaders were volubly expressed. Calcutta was a city of rebels, loudly questioning the very legitimacy of the British Raj.²⁶

It must be admitted that the initial reactions of the Calcutta intelligentsia towards the rebellion were critical, at least apparently and on paper. This is perhaps best reflected through the editorial reports of the Hindoo Patriot newspaper that used to be published from Calcutta by a group of young English educated men, the most leading of them being Hurrish Mukherji who ran it virtually on his own until his untimely death in 1861. As a direct product of British colonial rule, Hurrish Mukherji was never in open support of the mutiny/uprising, which he often referred to as ‘rebellion’ or ‘insurrection’ in his articles. In fact, Hurrish Mukherji described ‘rebellion’ as a ‘crime’ to which most societies had extended a measure of ‘leniency’. During the outbreak of rebellion in Meerut and Delhi, Hindoo Patriot remarked that the ‘rebels’ were ‘as brutal and unprincipled a body of ruffians as ever disgraced a uniform or stained the bright polish of a soldier’s sword with the blood of murder’.²⁷ Hurrish Mukherji believed that the ‘rebels’ would find ‘no sympathy from the villagers whom they have plundered, or the higher classes whom they have placed in anxiety, or from any class whose feelings are not utterly inhuman’.²⁸ He was thoroughly convinced that the country was pushed back by the rebellion of 1857, and called for ‘signal chastisement’ of the rebels.²⁹ Mukherji believed that the British rule in India was best suited for the intellectual taste of the Bengalis and hoped that when the fitting moment would arrive, this class of people, by lawful and constitutional appeals to the British parliament, would share ‘the honour and responsibility of administering the affairs of the largest and the most well-established empire in Asia’.³⁰

Hurrish Mukherjee’s perception of the rebellion was also reflected in the writings of Iswarchandra Gupta. Widely acclaimed as the ‘father of modern Bengali poetry,’ Gupta owned and published the Sambad Prabhakar, a Bengali periodical that later became a daily newspaper. The Prabhakar exerted great hold on the bourgeois mind, mirroring and swaying public opinion through its editorials, many of which were penned by Gupta himself. After the outbreak of the rebellion at Meerut on 10 May 1857 Gupta launched a virulent campaign against the mutineers through his poems and editorials. In one of his editorials published in the Prabhakar in April 1858, the rebel sepoys were criticised as an ungrateful and ill-advised lot who had been fighting a hopeless battle against the mighty British. Gupta’s poems in particular lash out at the rebel leaders. He openly condemned their acts, which disgraced Bharat/India and made her lost her former glories, and asked them to surrender and seek forgiveness from the world-conquering British.³¹ Sekhar Bandyopadhyay has pointed out that ‘the cacophony of condemnation of the rebels often crossed the limits of civility, as the sepoys were described as dwarfs trying to reach the moon, or as foxes fighting the mighty lion … or as ants who had developed wings to face an imminent death’.³² Calling them misdirected bigots and pretentious usurpers, Iswarchandra Gupta ‘prayed’ for their quick death at the hands of the British forces. Both Nana Sahib and Lakshmi Bai were picked out as special subjects by Gupta for his most scathing critiques and caustic satires. In his poem ‘Kanpur Bijoy’ (The Conquest of Kanpur), Gupta even made stark insinuations about Nana and Lakshmi Bai’s relationship.³³

This kind of criticism towards the ‘rebels’ on the one hand and the apparent show of allegiance towards the colonial government on the other were also reflected in varying ways during the rebellion. In May 1857, in a meeting convened at the Hindu Metropolitan College, attended by Radhakanta Deb³⁴ and many other notables, expressed their disgust and horror at the mutiny and recorded the sense of relief for the fact that no sympathy was shown by any ‘reputable or influential classes’ towards the outbreak. In fact, when in December 1857 the colonial army won a signal success against the rebels, Radhakanta Deb along with 2500 others congratulated the Governor-General and organised a grand banquet in 1858 to celebrate the victory.³⁵ Mention may be made in this context of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay who was then a student of Law in Calcutta.³⁶ He expressed his feelings before his barrister Professor Montriou that if for a day even the end of the British rule had appeared possible, he would have returned to his native place after throwing away his law books in the Ganges.³⁷ Also, as Sumanta Banerjee had pointed out, the popular songs in Calcutta too appeared to be favourably disposed towards the Scottish Highlander troops who arrived in Calcutta on their way to suppress the rebellion.³⁸

4. The other side of the coin

Despite the fact that the Calcutta intelligentsia were filling up their columns condemning the atrocities of the rebels and displaying their apparent faithfulness towards the colonial government during the rebellion, this was not without dilemma, as behind this display of loyalism there was also a growing ignominy involved in their state of subordination. Although critical of the rebellion Hurrish Mukherji in one of the editorials pointed out the reasons behind this bloody insurrection. He believed that it was ‘neither the fat of oxen nor the fear of proselytism, but a deep-rooted cause of estrangement’ that led to these mutinous outbreaks.³⁹ In fact he was convinced that the composition and character of the Indian army had a discipline peculiarly of its own. Unlike Europe, where ‘the very dregs of the population only are enlisted into the ranks’, the men who constituted the armed strength of the British Indian empire, sprung from a race that was ‘endowed with a traditional repute of chivalry’.⁴⁰ The strictest rules were enforced to prevent the admission of recruits from inferior castes. To Hurrish Mukherji nothing short of grievous oppression or ‘the most flagrant disrespect of substantial prejudices’ could have driven the native soldiery to conduct an act that was foreign to their obligations and their duty: ‘Without the utmost provocations to insubordination the sepoy scarcely ever raises his hand against his superior. It is not in his constitution to do so. The precepts of his religion forbid his perpetrating such a deed’.⁴¹

While analysing the causes of disaffection among the army, Hindoo Patriot, Hurrish Mukherji doubted that the sepoys were the only ones to be adversely affected by the establishment of colonial rule in India. He averred that it would be very difficult to find out one single individual among the countrymen who did not hate Englishmen at least inwardly and the ‘same set of causes disaffected both sepoys and civil population’.⁴² He lamented the fact that Britain’s dominion over India was upheld by the sword and was supported by the majority of the British politicians.⁴³ In the editorial he criticised the foreign domination while glorifying the rebels at the same time in an unequivocal language:

How slight is the hold the British Government has acquired upon the affections of its Indian subjects has been made painfully evident by the events of the last few weeks … It is no longer a mutiny, but a rebellion. Perhaps, it will be said that all mutinies, when they attain a certain measure of success, rise to the dignity of a rebellion. But the recent mutinies of the Bengal army have one peculiar feature – they have from the very beginning drawn the sympathy of the country … [The sepoys] have rebelled against the authority which they have sworn to obey … They have hazarded all their most valuable interest; and their countrymen view them as martyrs to a holy cause and a great national cause … The mutineers have been joined and aided by the civil population … there is not a single native of India who does not feel the full weight of the grievances imposed upon him by the very existence of the British rule in India … grievances inseparable from subjection to a foreign rule. There is not one among the educated classes who does not feel his prospects circumscribed and his ambition restricted by the supremacy of that power.⁴⁴

To Hurrish Mukherji, the mutiny of the Bengal army, from the very beginning, drew upon the sympathy of the civil population, and thus it was, to him, no longer a mutiny, but a rebellion. As he wrote, ‘there is not a single native of India who does not feel the full weight of the grievances imposed upon him by the very existence of the British rule in India, grievances inseparable from subjection to foreign rule’.⁴⁵ The euphemism Hurrish Mukherji used, as Nariaki Nakazato noted, barely served as a cover for his sympathy with the sepoys.⁴⁶ He considered the Mutiny legitimate in that it had the Mughal emperor’s approval as well as popular support – thus a ‘rebellion’. However, towards the conclusion of the same editorial, Hurrish Mukherji took a more cautious approach. He stressed that the disaffection he had noted did not ‘neutralise the mass of the Indian population the feeling of loyalty’ who were benefitted by the establishment of the colonial rule in India.⁴⁷ To him, the assertion of his verdict on colonial rule was by no means negative, despite its clear limitations, since the Government of British India ruled over a people who have ‘found the first elements of civil order under its auspices. It has strength in the strength of civilisation, in the loftiness of its purposes … which will carry it through many such dangers as that now threatening it’.⁴⁸ Hurrish believed that any great disaster ‘befalling the British rule would be a disastrous check to national prosperity’, and that ‘the sympathy which the mutineers have found from the people extends no further than to a wish to see the British government humiliated to a certain extent’.⁴⁹

In such a mix of sentiments, Hurrish Mukherji thus represented the ambivalence of the Calcutta intelligentsia. While he clearly pointed out that the grievances of the sepoys were shared by the civil population of the country, he equally stressed that the population in general was motivated by a desire to ‘humiliate’ rather than to overthrow the colonial government altogether. He perceived and argued that the insurrection required changes and alterations within the colonial administrative policies and structures. He underlined aspects of loyalism that clearly indicated that he was not alone in his interpretation. His final verdict was clear and forthright even if it was expressed within a framework that had not been innocent of criticism.

The other major reason behind the rebellion, as conveyed by the writings in Hindoo Patriot, was the systematic exclusion of Indians from official employment of a superior character. The periodical drew attention to the invidious distinction created by the colonial government between the two nations, one of whom monopolised all the honours and emoluments because they belonged to the race of conquerors while the other were debarred from even sharing in those since they were the conquered lot.⁵⁰ Hurrish Mukherji was amongst those who regarded the exclusion of Indians from all the places of trust and distinction which they previously held to be another reason behind this insurrection.⁵¹ However, to Hurrish Mukherji, the feeling of a deep discontent generated by the tempering with the landed rights in northern India was singlehandedly responsible in transforming the mutiny of sepoys to an ‘Indian rebellion’. He wrote, ‘if there be any one sentiment powerful in the Indian mind over all others, it is the sentiment of affection with which the native views the soil he inherits, the homestead he dwells in, the relation which subsist between him and his landlord or his tenant. A rude shock was given to this sentiment’.⁵² As a result, the ‘cause of order’ received a fatal blow in the land relation of the North-Western Provinces of India. The most ‘warlike portion’ of the population, the most influential leaders, were injured in their most sensitive parts. The sepoys, Hurrish Mukherji wrote, thus began to fear not only for their caste and their pay, but likewise, their lands. And when the mutiny made a certain measure of progress, the deposed aristocracy put themselves at the head of the movement, which turned the sepoy outbursts into a full scale ‘rebellion’.⁵³ It is important to note in this context that Hurrish Mukherji, writing at the time of the uprising, was well acquainted with the real grievances that led to the conflagration, long anticipating the historiographical intervention of Eric Stokes and others made in the late 1970s.⁵⁴

There cannot be a more accurate description of the agony and despair of the colonised. The middle-class literati of Calcutta, represented here by Hurrish Mukherji, possibly did not wish the rebels any success in reverting the country back to the days of mis-governance of the late Mughal Empire. For these literati, the forces united in this apparent anti-colonial struggle were not the harbinger of a new era, but were prompted by their narrow territorial interests and the unity amongst them were too fragile to be trusted. However, at the same time, he was critical enough of colonial rule in India. To him, the relationship between the colonisers and the colonised was not that of a master and a slave but a relationship based on ‘reciprocal obligation’. He pointed out that ‘between the Government and the people … the bond is one of reciprocal obligation. You rescued us from an odious tyranny. We assisted you in the gaining of a kingdom with our means. We owe you a cheerful allegiance. You owe us all that a good Government ought to do for its subjects.’⁵⁵

The Calcutta intelligentsia was desperately trying to develop a responsible political agency for initiating a culture of sustainable resistance that would not be contained or suppressed by the coercive power of the colonial government. The rebellion of 1857 provided them with a context and an opportunity to vent out their critical stance towards colonial rule. Hurrish Mukherji believed that ‘the recent evils of the country were brought on by the systematic ignoring by Indian officials of the civilisation of the people.’⁵⁶ To him, European scholars had long acknowledged and lauded the ‘high refinement of the Hindoo mind’ and the colonial government should be cautious of the fact that ‘in their future intercourse with the legislation for the Natives, they may never forget that they have a civilised people to deal with.’⁵⁷

As the rebellion gradually came to an end, the sense of disillusionment with foreign rule among the Calcutta intelligentsia intensified further. Sekhar Bandopadhyay has pointed out that ‘this growing alienation was largely due to the unabashed display of racism that reflected the classical colonial dilemma of the colonisers professing certain principles which they themselves were unable to practice in order to maintain their monopoly of power.’⁵⁸ As a response therefore in different literary works such as novels, newspapers, travelogues, a redefinition of identity began to be reflected through expressions of discontent, dissatisfaction, veiled criticisms of alien rule, dreams about progress and the gradual unfolding of the idea of India as a nation.

In one of the lead articles, while trying to find an answer to the key question of why the British Empire that ‘has been plying her mission apparently with every success for a century’ had to face such a catastrophe in the form of the uprising of 1857, Hurrish Mukherji sarcastically remarked that ‘there must have been something rotten at [its] core’.⁵⁹ To people like him, the English East India Company’s rule over India, in spite of its many shortcomings, was by far ‘the best intentioned and most beneficent government’ in the recent past. Under their patronage railway transportation was made possible across the vast and hitherto impassable lands and forests of India. The electric telegraph and better-quality roads were traversed through the length and breadth of the land. In other words, as Hurrish Mukherji puts it, ‘all the material paraphernalia of European civilisation have been transported to India in the whole masses’.⁶⁰ If these were true, then why and how did this ‘phenomenon’ happen? In Hurrish Mukherji’s opinion, India possessed an ancient tradition, idealism, laws and social organisations which preceded even the Greeks, and at a time when ‘Great Britain was the mere den of painted savages’.⁶¹ British rule in India assumed almost from the very beginning that theirs was a civilisation better than the one they had come in contact with; and they proceeded on the maxim that ‘the better civilisation must swallow up the worse one’.⁶² As a consequence, therefore, they not only began to ‘experimentalise upon organisms millenniums old’ but also repudiated the opinion of the Indians and sought to promote only their own interests. ‘A nation with such a long and glorious past as the people of India would not brook such ignoring of their antecedents … and the result came to be felt.’⁶³ Hurrish Mukherji in this way also justified the resentment as was expressed through the rebellion of 1857: ‘was it possible that the humiliation and the injury could not be felt, and when felt in their fullness, resented? The people of India refused their sanction to obedience to theories.’⁶⁴

The rebellion of 1857 also ushered in a growing sense of awareness amongst the Calcutta intelligentsia regarding the question of Indian self-determination. At the time of the transfer of power from the Company rule to the Crown, Hurrish Mukherji wrote,

Can a revolution in the Indian Government be authorised by Parliament without consulting the wishes of the vast millions of men for whose benefit it is imposed to be made? The reply must be in negative … The time is nearly come when all Indian questions must be solved by Indians. The mutinies have made patent to the English public what must be the effects of politics in which the Native is allowed no voice.⁶⁵

He further articulated, ‘so long as the English rule means civil and political degradation, as it undoubtedly doth now the proclamations professing the extermination of all the tribes of English Kaffirs, would be framed and promulgated by the Hindoos and Rajput.’⁶⁶ English statesmanship might have secured the property, increased the accumulation of wealth, multiplied their comforts, but to Hurrish Mukherji, ‘a man doth not live by bread alone’.⁶⁷ He categorically stated that ‘cordiality in the true sense of the word cannot subsist between a conquering and conquered race so long as the former by their narrow minded actions keep fast the recollection of national degradation in the minds of the latter’.⁶⁸ Similar voices of concerns were also raised by other contemporary newspapers such as the Hindoo Intelligencer, edited by Kasi Prasad Ghosh, as a result of which the newspaper was temporarily suspended under the Act XV of 1857. In one editorial dated 6 April 1857, Hindoo Intelligencer in a scathing criticism put forward a series of questions to the British citizens and their representatives in the House of Commons regarding the responsibility of the colonial government towards India:

Are not those who are compelled to raise so large a portion of revenues of this country, and upon whom the burden often falls with a weight too heavy to be borne, entitled to the protection of the Government to which that revenue goes? Does not the obligation to pay a tax on the one side involve the duty of extending protection on the other? Is not the protection of the people, and equal and impartial administration of the law, among the primary purposes for which taxes are ostensibly levied? May not the people say that in spending money for our protection, and the due administration of Justice, you do but give us back a small share of that which is our own? Why then deny to us that which is so dear to you – protection in our homes, the enjoyment of the pittance our industry commands, and deliverance from the illegal insults, extortions and brutalities to which we are now subjected.⁶⁹

The editorial eventually concluded that if, in the future, the authorities did not address the grievances, the only logical course would be to take up arms as the sepoys had done.

5. The intelligentsia and the economic critique of the colonial rule

As the idea of an Empire based on the virtues of eighteenth-century rationalism and nineteenth century liberalism and inter-racial collaboration, visualised by Dwarkanath Tagore⁷⁰ and his generation, slowly began to fade out amongst the Calcutta intelligentsia, the reality of an exploitative character of the colonial economy unfolded itself. This growing awareness of the economic ruin as a result of the colonial rule was reflected even in the 1840s, and by contrast the preceding Muslim rule, which was otherwise had been a subject of general condemnation, began to receive admiration. The assessment of the economic impact of colonial rule in fact has a longer genealogy that predates twentieth century professional historiography. The subject of the adverse economic effects of colonial rule on India was an important issue with the early Indian nationalists associated with the Indian National Congress and with M.K. Gandhi’s critique of British rule over India as well. The first generation of Indian nationalists such as Dadabhai Naoroji developed a comprehensive critique of British economic policies in India and suggested that colonial economic exploitation had produced a massive drain of wealth from the sub-continent.⁷¹ Romesh Chunder Dutt’s works on the same subject carried forward the critiques formulated by Naoroji and others.⁷²

This critique of the economic impact of the colonial rule, as this section will argue, was anticipated, and touched upon by a large section of the middle-class intelligentsia in Bengal from the 1840s onwards. In a way, as Tithi Bhattacharya has noted, their critique of the political economy of colonialism was not only exhaustive but genuinely revolutionary in its anti-imperialist content.⁷³ Mention may be made of the Bengali-English language daily Jnanannesan which wrote that ‘previously under the Muslim rule the people of this country had the freedom to engage in any business or to do anything they liked for a living. But now, having lost this freedom of choice, they had been reduced to a group of clerks and agents’.⁷⁴ In one of the articles published on 15 October 1842, the Bengal Spectator, a monthly journal edited by Peary Chand Mitra, pointed out that the amount of revenue assessed under the decennial settlement had been four times greater than that which prevailed under Muslim rule, the Permanent settlement being even more oppressive.⁷⁵ Voices of dissent were also being raised by other newspapers of the time, most notably, Tattvabodhini Patrika, which stated that the ‘outward glitter of the development that dazzled the eyes of many in British Bengal only concealed the boundless sufferings of the people’.⁷⁶ It also pointed out that when every family in every village had been in distress, and the cause of the distress was evidently because of the continuous exploitation of the foreigners, under such condition, ‘only a deaf and blind person could call Bengal fully developed!’ However, perhaps in a more self-rebuking tone the journal admitted the fact that, ‘We are under foreign rule, we are being educated in a foreign language and we are tolerating a foreign tyranny’.⁷⁷ Likewise, Hindoo Patriot also touched upon the issue of the increasing burden of income tax on the subjects of British India. The rebellion provided this realisation with a new impetus. Hurrish Mukherji raised the issue of the burden of tax to be one of the primary reasons behind the rebellion. He wrote:

The tempering with landed rights universally over the face of Northern India had generated a feeling of deep discontent. If there be any one sentiment powerful in the Indian mind over all others, it is the sentiment of affection with which the native views the soil he inherits, the homestead he dwells in, the relations which subsist between him and his landlord or his tenant.⁷⁸

According to Hurrish Mukherji, throughout the northern India the land settlement pattern of the colonial government had systematically dispossessed the landed aristocracies while the nature of land revenue collection made the condition of the peasants agonising. As a result, during the rebellion the sepoys and aristocracies were bound together by a common fear of the loss of land.⁷⁹

A detailed analysis of the economic consequences of colonial rule and the discontents it generated received a detailed and thorough treatment in Travels of a Hindoo to various parts of Bengal and Upper India written by Bholanauth Chunder.⁸⁰ Chunder's travelogue, written around the time of the uprising of 1857 and subsequently published in 1869, presents his observations from multiple journeys undertaken between 1845 and 1866 from Calcutta to various regions of North India, including Delhi, traversing through the Gangetic Northern India. Contemporary scholarship places significant emphasis on the observations and perceptions of European travellers to India during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, as well as during the colonial rule over India. Memoirs, reminiscences, and diaries of British individuals who were directly or indirectly associated with the colonial regime have garnered significant attention in academic discourse.⁸¹ However, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding travel narratives of Indians about India during the period when the colonial government had implemented substantial changes in the country's society, economy, and culture. The emergence of the Indian middle class during the nineteenth century – represented here by Bholanauth Chunder, the author of this travel account – can be attributed to a significant extent to the colonial period in Indian history. Therefore, a travel narrative that presents an Indian's perspective on India holds significant value in its own right.

The narrative provides a detailed discussion on the economic system instituted by the colonial rulers and how it shaped not only the colonial subjects’ economic position but also their views towards the foreign rule. It is important to note that the economic criticism towards the colonial establishment in Chunder’s travelogue predated the more established works of Dadabhai Naoroji and Romesh Chunder Dutt towards the turn of the century.⁸² It therefore allows a glimpse into the economic views of a socially and politically conscious, ‘modern’, Indian/Bengali literati of the 1857 era and perhaps permits a longer term view of criticisms which were articulated later under the aegis of the Indian National Congress. Chunder’s attention to the economic dimension of colonialism also assumes reinforced weight in light of the recent trend in South Asian historiography of highlighting the cultural complexities of the colonial encounter. It reminds us of the significance and urgency of economic issues in the perception of an intelligent, ‘nationalist’ minded protagonist such as Chunder and also throws some light on what was perhaps an incipient stage in the emergence of mainstream, colonial Indian middle class perceptions of India and Indian-ness. Throughout his writing, Chunder touched upon India’s need to have strong domestic industries with an eye for equally strong export economy. He even demanded to have a protective tariff to build up a strong domestic economy, failing which India should force stop the colonial imports by boycotting them in its entirety, thereby foreseeing the principal tenets of the Swadeshi movements in the early twentieth century.⁸³

Similar to the view of Hurrish Mukherji, Chunder believed that the economic drain and rising rate of taxation under the colonial rule was the main reason behind the rebellion of 1857. To him, under the colonial rule, the conditions of the Indian peasantry had gone worse as a consequence of the coerced exportation of the raw produce at a cheap price, while at the same time the rapid decline of the artisan and other domestic manufacturing industries.⁸⁴ However, even though the Calcutta intelligentsia, represented by Hurrish or Bholanauth Chunder, remained highly critical of the economic policies of the colonial rule, this was paired with their admiration for the British, at a certain level, for having introduced English education and science and technology, which he viewed as something necessary to ‘modernise’ India. It was from this viewpoint that Bholanauth expressed genuine concern for his nation’s progress during the uprising of 1857. For middle-class literati such as Chunder, the lawless, misrule, and anarchy of the bygone years, which had perpetrated every sphere of the land, had mostly been undone by the establishment of the English rule. Under the aegis of colonial establishment, the process of regeneration of the nation was starting to take place. The ‘mutiny’ in this context was thus ‘a fatal error’, as it once more ‘plunged the country into the misrule of past ages’.⁸⁵ To Chunder ‘it jeopardised the vital interests of India and was to have proved suicidal of her fate’.⁸⁶ He saw the rebellion as ‘a struggle between overwhelming hordes and a heroic few, between mind and material, between civilisation and barbarism.’⁸⁷ Instead, Chunder believed that western education would eventually allow India to assert its independence. He believed that India could not attain independence through the use of force, but instead ‘the fight of mind against mind has to decide the fate of a battle.’⁸⁸ According to Chunder, superior knowledge was the best weapon against colonialism but until then, he believed that Indian society should remain under ‘the yoke of the English’ as it is through colonialism that ‘the disjointed masses of India’ were brought together ‘into the mould of one compact nation’.⁸⁹ The regeneration of one’s country should be the priority of every enlightened person, according to Chunder, and to do so, they must accept the superiority of enlightened legislation, of the science and civilisation of the nineteenth century, of intelligence and genius, and of knowledge itself, represented here by the preordained nature of the English rule.⁹⁰

6. Invoking the past: situating the rebellion in history

The colonial education system, apart from emphasising the importance of English education, also attempted to transform the importance of history and the need for historical representation. History, as used by the colonial authorities, became a tool to accentuate the difference between the superior West and the backward Orient and it therefore served to bolster the ‘British self-confidence [while] reminding the Indians of their lowly place in the world’s scheme of things’.⁹¹ As history became an integral part of colonial discourse and seemed to serve as the legitimate medium to justify colonial dominance, the growing colonial middle class began to probe into history to both search for past glories that would displace the colonial representation of Indian society as backward as well as seek answers to the current subjugation by the British. History therefore attained significance among the western educated Indian middle-class and it became the primary method for them to talk about a collective self.⁹²

To the middle-class literati, under the influence of this education system, it was increasingly becoming apparent that they were denied the status of citizen-subjects.⁹³ In order to successfully claim such status, they realised the need to be a member of a nation-state, which according to the colonial discourse was the privilege of advanced civilisations claiming heritage to classical antiquity. As the paper will argue in this section, the intelligentsia took recourse to the same tool and made use of history to rediscover their ‘nationalist’ past. Making history became coterminous with establishing a national space, that is, a historically continuous national territory.⁹⁴ History became a tool for generating an awareness of a common past that provided the Calcutta intelligentsia with a sense of common belonging. Sudipta Kaviraj has argued that the forging of a national consciousness required overcoming earlier ‘fragmented identities’ to unite against the forces of colonialism.⁹⁵ These fragmented identities were stitched together by the awareness towards history. While doing so, as the paper argues, the Calcutta intelligentsia were guided and motivated by the events concerning the rebellion of 1857.

The importance of ‘invoking’ history was recognised by Hurrish Mukherji and other like-minded literati of his times, by highlighting the ‘glories’ of India’s past. This became all the more imperative during the rebellion of 1857. The fear of the rebellion, and the panic it ensued, led the government to introduce the Press Act (Act XV of 1857), derisively described as the ‘Gagging Act’ that effectively stifled any critical voice towards the colonial government.⁹⁶ As a consequence of the Press Act, many of the newspapers and periodicals, including The Bengal Hurkaru, The Friend of India, The Dacca News, were either temporarily suspended or were under the heavy governmental scrutiny. Those who still managed to write, did so in an Aesopian language. This is evident from one of Hurrish Mukherji’s editorials written towards the closing years of the rebellion. In the editorial, Hurrish Mukherji brought out in great details the adverse effects of the rebellion towards the advancement of the country, while praising the efforts of the colonial government in suppressing the insurrection. However, the editorial ended with a sarcastic and dismal commentary from Hurrish Mukherji in which he hoped that ‘history would see and evaluate the great Indian Revolt in a manner wholly different from how contemporaries in 1857–1858 viewed it.’⁹⁷ Others, such as Bholanauth Chunder and Jadunath Sarbadhikary, through their narratives and travel writings, highlighted the history and progress of India, thereby challenging the ‘civilising mission’ of the colonial rule. But once again, while doing so, as Manu Goswami noted, these works were not uniformly oppositional in relation to the colonial state, nor were they necessarily anticolonial in the narrow political sense of demanding sovereign statehood.⁹⁸ The significance of these works not just lies in the fact that they prefigure later nationalist historiography, but also because they initiated, in all senses of the word, a conception of Bharat/India as a real, enduring, spatially bounded national entity. In the works of the Bengal literati, such as Chunder’s narrative, we find recurring references of historical places such as Murshidabad, gaur, Munger, Patna, Benares, Allahabad, Mathura, Brindavan, Delhi, and Agra among others, to better understand the past and present of the Indian nation.

The Calcutta literati writing during the time of the rebellion of 1857 situated themselves in a historical grid with the places of the rebellion. In other words, the rebellion became crucial in historicising the places. Places of historical importance – such as Delhi, Awadh, Kanpur – were tied to the imagination of India as a nation. The annexation of Awadh, for instance, was perceived by Kashi Prasad Ghosh, editor of Hindoo Intelligencer newspaper, to be a loss of country’s independence and sovereignty.⁹⁹ Similar to Hurrish Mukherji, Chunder’s narrative also drew parallel between Indian cities, representing ancient civilisation, to that of Athens, Babylon, and Persepolis of the West. To Chunder, Benares – the holy city and one of the most important pilgrimage sites for millions of Hindus – was ‘the oldest, postdiluvian city on the globe’, which compared to some other contemporaries, such as Babylon that lay in desolation, still basks in its glory, and the only city in the world that still connects the prehistoric past to the present.¹⁰⁰ Chunder’s claim that Allahabad had once been a Republican State in the heart of ancient India reveals yet another example of the superiority of ancient Indian civilisation. This is particularly significant as colonial discourse characterised India’s weakness as deriving in part from its political tradition of Oriental despotism. Against this backdrop the Bengal literati, as represented in this context by Bholanauth Chunder, pointed to examples of republican state in ancient India. By doing so, they tried to show that India also had democratic/ republican states in the past.

This is also reflected in the writing of Jadunath Sarbadhikary who had toured India from 1853 to 1857 and had given us a picture of the rebellion in a historical perspective.¹⁰¹ Sarbadhikary was a devout Hindu and his travel from place to place was essentially a pilgrimage from one centre of Hindu religion to the other. Sarbadhikary’s diary provided us with an eye-witness account of the rebellion that reported the uprisings of the 10th, 20th, 38th, 54th and 74th Native Infantry in and around Meerut, Delhi, Kanpur and other nearby places of the Gangetic heartland.¹⁰² It is indeed interesting to note that in the writings of these literati the places and sites of the rebellion of 1857 were connected with the past instances of valour, courage and glory. Like Chunder, Sarbadhikary also connected the city of Delhi to its past and glorified it as the seat of the Emperor and memorialised the place as a site of glory as exemplified in the valour and prowess of King Prithviraj Chauhan who ruled the kingdom of Ajmer and Delhi during the twelfth century. While mentioning about Kanpur, Sarbadhikary recollected how the place once was the forest abode of sage Valmiki. Sarbadhikary even went ahead and drew a direct connection between the historical past of Kanpur, and its present significance in the context of the rebellion:

Here stands the house of Baji Rao of Pune and Satara. Some soldiers occupy the place and it is the home of Nana Saheb, Baji Rao’s descendent … The land of the Marathas had long symbolised independence, courage and strength. Shivaji had shown immortal valour in battle … This inspired Nana Saheb to great acts of courage, and he carried on the legacy of his lineage. To bow down before oppressors is not the mark of a courageous man. Nana Saheb did not … The valour of nana Saheb will always be lauded by history.¹⁰³

As the immediate flares of the rebellion gradually mellowed down these kinds of appropriation of history within the context of the rebellion of 1857 found unabashed expressions in the works of the later day intellectuals towards the closing years of the nineteenth century.

7. Conclusion

One may safely draw a few inferences from the above discussion. It becomes evident that the contemporary reactions of the Bengal intelligentsia, being a product and the beneficiary of the colonial rule, vis-à-vis the rebellion had indeed taken a stance that was different from that of the rebel sepoys and leaders of 1857 in the Gangetic heartland of India. The appreciation towards colonial rule by the Calcutta intelligentsia was much more complex and nuanced. At least on paper, the Calcutta literati never approved of the open outbursts of the rebellion and were critical towards the atrocities committed by the rebel sepoys and the ‘disgruntled section of the population’. But they were also highly aware of the real causes of the disaffection among the population in general. Writing at the time of the rebellion, the Calcutta intelligentsia wished for the speedy end to this crisis, but at the same time recognised the ill-effects of the colonial rule that led this crisis. In spite of severe restrictions that were imposed upon the newspapers and periodicals, these intellectuals continued to write articles critiquing colonial policies in India, and at times even questioning the legitimacy of colonial rule. The rebellion of 1857 played a significant role in this regard. Sibnath Shastri – contemporary social reformer, noted writer, and a prominent member of the Brahmo Samaj – later remarked that the essence of the rebellion of 1857 benefitted the Indian nation to a great extent; a new society was born, and a new desire was generated in national life.¹⁰⁴ This new desire which Shastri spoke of, found candid expression in Rangalal Bandyopadhyay’s ‘Padmini Upakhyan’ (The Tale of Padmini) written in 1858: ‘Who wants to live without freedom? Who wants to wear on his feet the chains of slavery?’.¹⁰⁵ As Dušan Zbavitel remarked, Rangalal’s book echoed ‘the newly awakened spirit of patriotism and pride in the past glory of India that was soon to take a deep root in Bengali literatures’.¹⁰⁶ Rangalal’s expression finds parallel in the biographical work of Debendranath Tagore.¹⁰⁷ At the time of the rebellion, Debendranath Tagore – philosopher, religious reformer, prominent member of the Brahmo Samaj, son of Dwarkanath Tagore, and father of Rabindranath Tagore – was on his way back from the Himalayas. Tagore observed that even though the rebellion had come to an end, the spirit of the rebellion ushered the beginning of a new phase in the political movement of the nation.¹⁰⁸ It was this new spirit, emanating from the rebellion of 1857, which was responsible for the gradual development of an ideological critique of colonialism and the assertion of the rights of citizenship by the turn of the century.

Funding details

The author is indebted for the financial, research, and institutional assistance received from the UK Felix doctoral scholarship, Central Research Fund scholarship, University of London, and the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo.

Declaration of interest statement

There are no competing interests to declare.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Crispin Bates, Tapti Roy, C.A. Bayly, Rajat Kanta Ray, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Arild Engelsen Ruud, and Eleonor Marcussen for their comments and suggestions provided in the earlier versions of this paper. I am also grateful to the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo, for providing the necessary research and institutional assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Felix Scholarship: Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo: Central Research Fund, University of London.

Notes on contributors

Niladri Chatterjee

Niladri Chatterjee is a Historian and currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo. Having received his PhD in History from SOAS, University of London, Chatterjee was employed as Assistant Professor in History at North South University in Bangladesh between 2015 and 2019; and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Linnaeus University, Sweden (2018–2019). Chatterjee regularly publishes research articles and opinions in various international peer-reviewed academic journals, newspapers and podcasts. His research interests include global health histories, colonial and postcolonial studies, historical disasters, and South Asian studies.

Notes

1 Asa Briggs, Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851–1867 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 5.

2 Judith M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 85.

3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).

4 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed for the United Nations University, 1986).

5 Sumit Sarkar, Writing Social History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 96.

6 Ibid.

7 Benoy Ghosh, ‘The Bengali Intelligentsia and the Revolt’, in P.C. Joshi (ed.), Rebellion: 1857. A Symposium (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1957), p. 103.

8 Sisir Kumar Das, A History of Indian Literature: 1800–1910, Western Impact Indian Response (Calcutta: Sahitya Akademi, 1991), p. 125.

9 C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 170.

10 Mushirul Hasan, ‘The Legacies of 1857 among the Muslim Intelligentsia of North India’ in Crispin Bates (ed.) Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857, Volume 5: Muslim Dalit and Subaltern Narratives, (London: Sage Publications, 2014), pp. 103–116.

11 E.I. Brodkin, ‘The Struggle for Succession: Rebels and Loyalists in the Indian Mutiny of 1857,’ Modern Asian Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, (1972), p. 277.

12 For a detailed debate on the middle class of Bengal, see for instance John McGuire, The Making of a Colonial Mind: A Quantitative Study of the Bhadralok in Calcutta, 1857–1885, Australian National University Monographs on South Asia, Canberra: ANU, 1983; Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse; Sarkar, Writing Social History; Sanjay Joshi, Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001; Tithi Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (1848–1885), New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005; Sanjay Joshi, ed. The Middle Class in Colonial India, Oxford in India Readings, New Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

13 Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 232. According to John H. Broomfield the main criterion that distinguished between the ‘Bhadra’ and the ‘abhadra’, meaning the respectable and the others, was the Bhadralok’s abstention from manual labour and the stigma attached to any sort of physical labour. See John Hindle Broomfield, Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth-Century Bengal: Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, p. 6.

14 Sarkar, Writing Social History, pp. 226–227; Thomas R. Trautmann, Aryans and British India (Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 109–117.

15 Thomas Babington Macaulay, ‘Minute on Indian Education’ in Trautmann, Aryans and British India, p. 111.

16 Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 20.

17 Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 257; Also see: Bruce Tiebout Maccully, English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940); Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: p. 63.

18 Sarkar, Writing Social History, pp. 174–175.

19 Manu Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2004), p. 168.

20 Sanjay Joshi, Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 8.

21 Kumkum Chatterjee, ‘Discovering India: Travel, History and Identity in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century India,’ in Daud Ali (ed.), Invoking the Past: The Uses of History in South Asia (New Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 192.

22 ‘Act Number XV of 1857’, The Calcutta Gazette, Legislative Council (13 June 1857).

23 Home Department Proceedings Number: 1202, 29 June 1857, Government of Bengal, National Archives of India (henceforth NAI).

24 ‘The Atrocities and Retribution’, Hindoo Patriot (6 May 1858).

25 Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, ed. Rethinking 1857 (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2007), p. xxxii.

26 Sekhar Bandopadhyay, ‘From Subjects to Citizens: Reactions to Colonial Rule and the Changing Political Culture of Calcutta in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, in Mabel Lee and Michael Wilding (ed.), History, Literature and Society: Essays in Honour of S.N. Mukherjee, Sydney Studies (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997), p. 13.

27 ‘The Sepoy Mutiny and its Action upon the People of Bengal’, Hindoo Patriot (4 June 1857).

28 ‘The Mutinies,’ Hindoo Patriot (28 May 1857).

29 ‘The Sepoy Mutiny and its Action upon the People of Bengal’, Hindoo Patriot (4 June 1857).

30 ‘The Government and the Educated Natives’, Hindoo Patriot (11 June 1857).

31 Indira Chowdhury, The Frail Hero and Virile History: Gender and the Politics of Culture in Colonial Bengal (Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 23.

32 Bandopadhyay, ‘From Subjects to Citizens,’ p. 21.

33 Sukumar Mitra, 1857 O Bangladesh (1857 and Bengal) (Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1960), pp. 2–4.

34 Radhakanta Deb (1783-1867) was an orthodox Hindu socio-religious leader of the early nineteenth century Bengal who belonged to the royal family of Sova Bazar in Calcutta. Having received his early education from Calcutta Academy, Deb was actively associated with many socio-cultural organizations and educational institutions. For further details, see: Amaresh Datta, Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Calcutta: Sahitya Akademi, 1987, p. 916.

35 For further details see Sambhu Chandra Mukherjee, The Mutinies and the People or Statements of Native Fidelity Exhibited During the Outbreak of 1857–1858 (Calcutta: Stanhope Press, 1859), pp. 125-133.

36 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay/Chatterjee (1838–1894) was a major Bengali novelist and thinker, who, in many ways, determined the intellectual and cultural content of modern Indian nationalism, and modern Hinduism. He contributed to the critical self-reflection of the English-educated Indian middle classes in response to the moral and intellectual challenges posed by the West. In doing so, Bankim Chandra shaped the nascent movement for Indian nationhood. Amiya P. Sen, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: An Intellectual Biography (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008).

37 Quoted in Asoka Kumar Sen, The Popular Uprising and the Intelligentsia: Bengal between 1855–1873 (Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1992), p. 34.

38 Sumanta Banerjee, The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1989), p. 145. Banerjee interestingly pointed to the fact that the Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, among other popular leaders of the rebellion, was a common figure with the Kalighat pat painters during that time. In several pictures she appeared as a courageous woman on horseback.

39 ‘The Mutinies’, Hindoo Patriot, (2 April 1857).

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 ‘Army Reform’, Hindoo Patriot, (30 April 1857).

43 ‘The Country and the Government’, Hindoo Patriot, (28 May 1857).

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Nariaki Nakazato, ‘Harish Chandra Mukherjee: Profile of a ‘Patriotic’ Journalist in an Age of Social Transition,’ South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 31, no. 2, (2008), p. 259.

47 ‘The Country and the Government,’ Hindoo Patriot (28 May 1857).

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 ‘Army Reform,’ Hindoo Patriot (30 April 1857).

51 ‘The Mission of the Mutinies,’ Hindoo Patriot (18 November 1858).

52 ‘The Causes of the Mutinies,’ Hindoo Patriot (27 May 1858).

53 Ibid.

54 See Eric Stokes, The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Eric Stokes and C. A. Bayly, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

55 ‘The Ingratitude of the Natives of India’, Hindoo Patriot (9 December 1858).

56 ‘The Mission of the Mutinies’, Hindoo Patriot (18 November 1857).

57 Ibid.

58 Bandopadhyay, ‘From Subjects to Citizens,’ p. 25.

59 ‘The Mission of the Mutinies,’ Hindoo Patriot (18 November 1858).

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 ‘Government by Native Opinion,’ Hindoo Patriot (6 January 1859).

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid.

65 Quoted from Nemai Sadhan Bose, Indian Awakening and Bengal, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1976, pp. 164–165.

66 Gouranga Gopal Sengupta, Hurishchandra Mukhopadhyay O Hindoo Patriot (Hurishchandra Mukhopadhyay and Hindoo Patriot), Calcutta: Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi, 2003, pp. 36–38.

67 Sen, The Popular Uprising and the Intelligentsia: Bengal between 1855–1873: p. 48.

68 Ibid.

69 ‘The Condition of Bengal,’ Hindu Intelligencer (6 April 1857).

70 Dwarkanath Tagore (1794–1846), founder of Bengal’s most illustrious family, was the leading entrepreneur of eastern India in the first half of the nineteenth century. He and his British partners dominated the business world of Calcutta in the 1830s and 1840s. For further details see Blair B. Kling, Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

71 Dadabhai Naoroji, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1st Indian ed. (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1962 [1901]).

72 Romesh Chunder Dutt, The Economic History of India under Early British Rule, from the Rise of the British Power in 1757 to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837, 7th ed. (Trubner's Oriental Series, London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1950).

73 Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: p. 225.

74 Bandopadhyay, ‘From Subjects to Citizens’, p. 24.

75 Narahari Kaviraj, ‘Bengal Spectator O Adhunik Chinta (Bengal Spectator and Modern Thought)’, in Narahari Kaviraj (ed.), Unish Sataker Banglar Jagaran: Tarka O Bitarka (the Awakening in Nineteenth Century Bengal: The Debates) (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1984), pp. 41–42.

76 Narahari Kaviraj, ‘Tattabodhini Patrikar Bhumika (the Role of Tattvabodhini Patrika)’, in Ibid., p. 61.

77 Ibid.

78 ‘The Causes of the Mutinies,’ Hindoo Patriot (27 May 1858).

79 Ibid.

80 Bholanauth Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo to Various Parts of Bengal and Upper India. Volume One, (London: N. Trubner, 1869).

81 For further details see: Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2nd ed. ed., London: Routledge, 2008; Kate Teltscher, India Inscribed: European and British Writing on India, 1600–1800, Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995; Ketaki Kushari Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765–1856, Reprint ed., New Delhi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. In recent years however, there has been a growing trend towards writing the history of travel accounts by the Indians in Europe and elsewhere. See Michael H. Fisher, Counterflows of Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain: 1600–1857, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004; Simonti Sen, Travels to Europe: Self and Other in Bengali Travel Narratives, 1870–1910, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005; Antoinette Burton, At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

82 Dadabhai Naoroji, Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1901); Romesh Chunder Dutt, Economic History of India in the Victorian Age (London : K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1906).

83 Sumit Sarkar, Critique of Colonial India (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1985), p. 45.

84 Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo, Vol. One: pp. 168–169.

85 Ibid., pp. 373–374.

86 Ibid.

87 Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo, Vol. One: p. 342.

88 Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo, Vol. One: p. 392.

89 Bholanauth Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo to Various Parts of Bengal and Upper India. Volume Two, London: N. Trubner, 1869, p. 125.

90 Ibid., p. 374.

91 Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 12.

92 Ibid., pp. 12–13.

93 Subho Basu, ‘The Dialectics of Resistance: Colonial Geography, Bengali Literati and the Racial Mapping of Indian Identity’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 44, special issue no. 1 (January 2010), p. 61.

94 Goswami, Producing India, p. 167.

95 Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘The Imaginary Institution of India,’ in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (ed.), Subaltern Studies VII: Writings on South Asian History and Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 13.

96 The Calcutta Gazette, The Gagging Act, Legislative Council, 13 June 1857. Also see: Bengal Hurkaru and India Gazette (13 June 1857).

97 ‘The Atrocities and Retribution’, Hindoo Patriot (6 May 1858).

98 Goswami, Producing India, p. 166.

99 Kashi Prasad Ghosh, Mukherjee’s Magazine, Vol. 1 (1872).

100 Chunder, The Travels of a Hindoo, Vol. One, pp. 240–241.

101 Jadunath Sarbadhikary, Tirthabhraman (the Journey of a Pilgrim) 1853–1857, Nagendranath Basu (ed.) (Calcutta: Ram Kamal Singha, 1915), p. 292.

102 For details see: ‘Sipahi Bidroher Biboron/An Account of the Sepoy Mutiny’, in Ibid., pp. 460–512.

103 For further details see: Sarbadhikary, Tirthabhraman (the Journey of a Pilgrim) 1853–1857: pp. 49–79.

104 Shibnath Shastri, Ramtanu Lahiri o Tatkaalin BangaSamaj (Ramtanu lahiri and the Contemporary Bengali Society) (Calcutta: S.K.Lahiri and Co., 1909), pp. 217–218.

105 Bandopadhyay, ‘From Subjects to Citizens’, p. 26.

106 Dušan Zbavitel, A History of Indian Literature (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976), p. 231.

107 Ajit Kumar Chakraborty, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, 2 volumes (Allahabad: Indian Press, 1916).

108 Ibid., p. 270.