War of Civilisations: 1857 AD

Financial Express 28th January 2008 As the massively underplayed, almost invisible 150th anniversary celebrations of 1857 wind down, one may well wonder why a movement that gave India’s erstwhile colonial masters their biggest scare ever, defined almost all their following policies, had such a long memory in oral history been so downplayed? Irrespective of the search for nomenclature defining its nature — mutiny/ revolt/ uprising/ petty bourgeois/ jacquerie — similar movements in other nations have had state-driven, passionate searches to unearth the smallest detail. What was its exact extent — geographically and in its scope? What were its socio-economic underpinnings? Who participated, who reaped the benefits by siding with the British? How many people died in the events of 1857? Why have we as a nation so bought into the British opinion that it was a mutiny? Fortunately most recent studies have debunked that it was just a soldiers’ revolt, but the knowledge has largely been confined...

HISTORY: What Every "Ugly American" Must Know about the "Civilized British" Aug. 24, 2007 (LPAC) One of the tragedies of English-speaking British colonies is that their history under the British rule was written by the British historians, or by those natives who were trained by the British historians. However, it seems the time has come to record history in its true light-- at least so in India. Amaresh Misra, writing about India's first war of independence in 1857, in his recently published book, In War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, said that there was an "untold holocaust" that caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years, beginning in 1857. British-fed historians, claims Misra, have counted only 100,000 Indian soldiers who were slaughtered in savage reprisals, but none have tallied the number of rebels and civilians killed by British forces desperate to impose order. "It was a holocaust, one where millions disappeared. It was ...

The Gujarati elite comprising ruling class, Mahajans were pro-British Saurav KumarPosted , January 08, 2008 at 03:17:23 Ahmedabad, January 7 When the country was up in arms against the British in the First War of Independence in 1857, Gujarat, then the land of many princely states, was the only place in the country where a true-blue anti-colonial, anti-feudal peoples movement powered by an alliance of Kolis, Bhils, and Muslims, with helping hands from Khastriyas and Patels, was taking shape. “Driven by the British polices and the angst of the peasantry with the rulers, it was perhaps the earliest example of social engineering in modern India. It was against the British rule and also against the local rulers and is the one aspect that has largely been ignored in the accounts of 1857. It was an historical alliance that predated the Congress’ much-touted KHAM alliance of the 1980s by more than a century and the real Gujarati Gaurav,” says Amaresh Misra, author of the just-released “War of...

‘The elite today are the ones who supported the British in 1857’ Amaresh Misra’s book on 1857 offers startling hypotheses. LAKSHMI INDRASIMAN talks to him about his findings Your book is massive. What new information have you unearthed? An all-India picture of 1857, the first war of Independence, I will not call it the mutiny. Its pan-India scale has not been examined in any book so far, everything that happened from north to south and west to east. I wanted to cover the entire nation in one work, including small incidents that happened in Manipur and Nagaland. What is each volume about? The two volumes have a timeline. The first three chapters give a background of what was happening in India and in England. The first chapter, ‘A Pathan in London’, speaks about Azimullah Khan going to London to lobby for -- pension. He emerges as a major 1857 leader later. He’s interacting with the top personalities of his age. So I’ve drawn a portrait of Victorian London in 1854 -- Victorian morality,...

1857 mutiny revisited India's secret history: 'A holocaust, one where millions disappeared...' Author says British reprisals involved the killing of 10m, spread over 10 years Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi Friday August 24, 2007 Guardian A controversial new history of the Indian Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions of people who dared rise up against them. In War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, Amaresh Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an "untold holocaust" which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years beginning in 1857. Britain was then the world's superpower but, says Misra, came perilously close to losing its most prized possession: India. Conventional histories have counted only 100,000 Indian soldiers who were slaughtere...

Hey guys Pick up your copy from the nearest Book Shop- "War of Civilizations: 1857 A.D" by Amaresh Misra 1857 was an epic confrontation of race and politics between the colonial new-Western secular-positivism now in alliance with Western Christianity and the indigenous new, the forces of peasant-aristocratic Asian capitalism and modernity. Till today it remains the only event, which gives a glimpse of lost possibilities of a non-western, free, unfettered Asiatic personality and development. It outlines in detail the machinations and mindset of Imperial-liberal fundamentalism, its promise of liberty turning into a nightmare of oppression and cruelty. Amaresh Misra is a specialist in modern Indian history, written from a new, indigenous Asiatic perspective. Within Indian history, Misra is considered an expert on 1857, the first war of Indian Independence, also called the 'Indian Mutiny', by British historians. It is in 2 volumes-- an amazing sight! Happy reading!