Lesser known heroes of India’s first war of Independence (1857)

By By K. K. Khullar

An in-depth study of the great rebellion of 1857 will reveal that its known heroes are too well known, its unknown heroes are not known at all while its lesser known heroes are only vaguely remembered as foot-notes of the text-books of history. Now when the nation is celebrating the 150th year of its First War of Independence it is time to remember the un-remembered and pay our homage to all those soldiers, peasants, artisans, landlords and scholars who made a common cause with the rulers and the chiefs to overthrow the foreign rule from the Indian soil. It is the participation of the common man which gives this great upheaval a popular, a patriotic character making it a national upheaval, unique in the annals of world history. More than a lakh of soldiers fell in the various battles and became martyrs.


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The number of civilians who laid down their lives to free their motherland from the British barbarism is not exactly known. Although the rebellion was widespread in regions such as Delhi, Avadh, Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, areas around Allahabad, Agra, Meerut and the whole of western Bihar, it is estimated that in Avadh alone 150,000 people were killed, making it a glorious chapter in the history of Indian people. The revolt produced many legendry heroes such as Mangal Pandey, Rani of Jhansi, Tantia Tope, Nana Sahib, Begum Hazrat Mahal of Lucknow and Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur who have been a source of inspiration to the succeeding generations in their struggle for Independence. At the same time the upheaval produced men and women of rare valour who are not so well known such as Bakht Khan, the Commander-in-chief of rebel armies, Rao Tula Ram of Rewari, Raja of Ballabhgarh, Nawab of Jhajjar, Shahzada Firuz Shah, Abdul Samad of Badli, Saadat Khan of Indore, Virangani Jhalkari of Women’s Regiment of Jhansi, Amar Singh of Jagdishpur, Pir Ali of Patna, Udmi Ram of Libaspur (Delhi) and thousands of Gujjars and Jats and Rangars and Meos of Rohtak, Hissar, Gurgaon and Karnal who joined the rebels of their free will to see their country free from the most inhuman rule of the world history.

Delhi & Its Adjoining Regions

Innumerable legends and patriotic songs have grown around these heroes. Countless people sing these songs doing their daily chores and at special functions such as festivals and marriages. Delhi region was the foremost in shaking off the foreign yoke. The fall of Delhi to the Meerut rebels on 11th May, 1857 was followed by the immediate collapse of Company’s administration in Delhi’s countryside populated mostly by Gujjars and Rangars and Jats and other pastoral tribes. In Rohtak, Hissar, Sirsa, Ballabhgarh, Jhajjar and in Delhi villages such as Kishengarh, Masoodpur and Mahipalpur, Panchayats were set up for administration and collection of revenue. Rao Tula Ram, the Ahir Chief was a terror to the Britishers. He set up an independent government at Rewari and collected revenue in the name of the Mughal Emperor. The new government machinery was based on the age-old village republics of which Delhi region was its home.

Writing on these village republics, C.T. Metcalfe observed:

‘The village communities are little Republics, having nearly everything they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down, revolution succeeds to revolution; Hindu, Pathan, Mughal, Maratha, Sikh, English are masters in turn, but village communities remain the same’.

Although in peace they had lots of differences the communities stood in one line against the British. Old feuds were forgotten and new ‘bhaichara’ (brotherhood) relationships were invoked. At Sirsa the Bhatti Nawab of Rania declared war against the British and local leader Mohammad Azim assumed the leadership of the rebellion. The Meos of Mewat in Gurgoan district asserted independence and gave a tough time to the British. But the main problem was that the rebels failed to establish a liberated area. Rao Tula Ram escaped to Kabul where he died after some time. Raja of Ballabhgarh was hanged. The Nawab of Jhajjar was hanged in front of the Red Fort with the beat of a drum on 23rd December 1857 to create terror in the mind of the civilian population. The whole of Delhi became a graveyard. There was none left even to bury the dead.

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, the famous Urdu poet who is an eye-witness to the rebellion in Delhi and the massacre of Delhi citizenry thereafter writes in diary called ‘Dastabu’:

‘The lapse of time from 11th May to 14th September is actually four months and four days. However since the town fell on Monday and was recaptured on Monday, it is as if the city was lost and re-captured on the same day. The victors killed all whom they found on the streets. The noble men, in order to protect their honour, which was all that remained of them, stayed inside locked houses without food, without lamp, without light, without hope’.

In ‘Dastan-e-Ghadar’ (Story of the Rebellion), Zahir Dehlvi wrote :

‘The English soldiers began to shoot whomsoever they met on the way. Among the men of letters who remained in the city, there were some whose equal has never been born nor shall be born. Mian Muhammad Amin Punjakush, an excellent writer, Moulvi Imam Baksh Sabai and the 1400 persons of Kucha Chhelan were taken to Raj Ghat Gate, shot dead and their bodies thrown into the Jamuna. As for women they came out of their houses and killed themselves with their children by jumping into the wells. All the wells of Kucha Chhelan are filled with dead bodies. My pen dare not write more’.

The citizens of the walled city continue to believe they – the dead of Kuchha Chellan were the real heroes who faced death without fear and voluntarily than prostrate before an unscrupulous victor. Death makes no conquest of them for now they live in the memory of their people. Even Prof. Ramchandra, God-fearing Christian and Pandit Kedar Nath, a God-fearing Hindu known for his charitable activities were not spared.

In the words of Maulana Azad “the most important fact which attracts attention is that India faced the trial of 1857 as a united community. The struggle of 1857 took a national and a racial but never a communal turn. In the fight for freedom Hindus and Muslims stood shoulder to shoulder. Their common effort, as a result of common life of centuries, was to liberate themselves from the foreign yoke�. And that is the message of martyrs of First War of Independence 1857.

If in Delhi the rebellion spread like wild fire, then in other places such as Muzzafarnagar, Saharanpur, Allahabad, Kanpur, Barelli, Banaras, Bihar and Jhansi it irrupted like a volcano. In rural areas, the spread was the fastest and fiercest where the peasantry came out in large numbers against the oppressive revenue system introduced by the Company Lords. Peasants’ rebellion in India has been traditionally tax rebellion. Gujjars were the worst rebels through out the rebellion. Between the rivers Jamuna and Ganga, away from the GT Road, at Dadri, Sarsawa, Deoband, Bijnour, Moradabad and Rohilkhand, Gujjar turbulence was so intense that it seemed the company’s rule has ended. According to one estimate more than a million Gujjars participated in the revolt. A regular system of correspondence existed between the Gujjars living in different parts of the country. The participation of these pastoral and nomadic communities made the rebellion a truly people’s revolt. The Rangars and the Rajput communities were out to prove that the Rajput valour is not a thing of the past. The Britishers forgot rather conveniently that the Kisan (peasant and cultivator) of the peace time in India becomes a Jawan (solider) in war time. Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan had been a traditional Indian slogan.

An extra ordinary fact stands out in the midst of the story of the great rebellions and that is even the main rebel leaders regarded the Mughal Emperor as their Badshah (King). Even those areas where the rebels established their authority they ruled in the name of the Mughal King. Rao Tula Ram of Rewari established his own government but collected the revenue in the name of the Delhi King. Nana Saheb declared himself a Peshwa at Kanpur but under the Mughal authority. The coins were struck in the name of the Emperor and the orders were issued in the name of the Delhi Badshah. The date on the coins were both in Hijri and Samvat as was the custom in the Mughal Court. Nana Saheb was a brave solider but his daughter Maina who was burnt alive at Bithoor was equally brave. People forgot their differences, communities set aside, their traditional rivalries the whole country faced their enemy as a united community.

Udmi Ram of Libaspur, Delhi

Abdul Samad of Badli-ki-Serai

Libaspur is a Delhi village on way to Narela off bypass Karnal. The Britishers had established a camp at Sonepat. Each time they passed they saw the handsome youth, a village Jat named Udmi Ram who had formed a group of strong-bodied Delhi Jats to catch hold of the passing English soldier and to finish him off at an isolated spot where there is a ‘Shani mandir’ today. One day Udmi Ram spotted out a cart carrying an English family. He asked the man to come out, took him to a lonely spot and finished him. As for the English woman he asked a Brahamin lady to look after her in a neighbouring village where she spent some days among Indian women. But when the scales turned around and the British recaptured Delhi they surrounded Libaspur. Udmi Ram collected his men and fought with rural weapons such as spears, choppers and axes but was defeated. Arrested he was brought to British camp at Rai, tied to a peepal tree for 35 days without water or food till he died a martyr. Similarly Seth Ramjidas Gurwala of Chandni Chowk who financed the rebel movement at Delhi and its environ was executed before his own shop where he sold ‘Gur’ (Brown sugar candy). Abdul Samad Khan, father-in-law of the Nawab of Jhajjar fought with the British but lost at Badli-ki-Serai. He met a hero’s death.

Punjab-Massacre at Ajnala

Punjab was a problem state. Annexed only in 1849, the Lawrence administration fully exploited the old rivalry between the Punjabi and the Poorbia. Yet there was a rising at Sialkot, at Jhelum, Peshawar, Nowshera and Multan where Ahmed Khan of Khurral tribe revolted. He was joined by other war-like tribes and for several days all ommunications between Multan and Labore were interrupted. They defeated the British in a number of skirmishes, but Lawerence sent a huge force and Ahmed Khan died in the battle, a hero’s death. Another leader Mir Bahawal Fatwana emerged but he too died in the battle. The worst in Punjab took place at Ajnala near Amritsar where the dis-armed army revolted at Mian Mir. The rebellion was crushed with an iron hand. Rope being in short supply there, three hundred in all, were shot dead. Fredrick Cooper who styled himself as ‘Hero of Ajnala’ boasted that his men had not wasted a single bullet, a la Dyer statement at Jallianwala Bagh. The tragedy of Black Hole was re-enacted; the number of mutineers who died of suffocation was not recorded.

Amazons of Lucknow

Under the able leadership of Begum Hazrat Mahal the women of Lucknow played a heroic role. For full eight months the women rebels of Lucknow held the Compnay’s forces to ransom. Sir Gordon Alexander noted that among the slain at Sikandrabad there were a few ‘Amazon Negresses’, who had fought like wild cats. There was a woman who, perched on a large peepal tree shot a number of British soldiers and was shot in return. The names of these brave women will never be known but what they did will never be forgotten. Lucknow was captured but never subdued, broken but it did not bend.

Women’s Regiment at Jhansi

There was also a women’s regiment at Jhansi where Virangani Jhalkari played a role that won her a permanent place in the history of Jhansi.. When the fortunes of Jhansi were at a low ebb and the British soldiers were firing from below the fort, Rani of Jhansi decided to leave the fort, Jhalkari, originally a peasant women but now a soldier offered to disguise herself as the Rani, took a small unit of soldiers and left from the front door while the real Rani left from the rear door. Jhalkari was recognized by a traitor but before dying she had killed a number of British soldiers. Before her martyrdom she shouted: ‘Jai Bhawani’.

Three Lions from Bihar

Kunwar Singh and Amar Singh of Jagdishpur and Pir Ali of Patna are the three lions who taught such a lesson to the British that they were scared of them. In addition the Wahabis were a great threat to the English forces. When the captured Pir Ali was asked by the Commissioner Mr. Taylor whether he had any information to give which might induce the Government to spare his life, ‘with dignified composure such as our own people did not maintain’, writes Taylor, ‘in exciting circumstances, he confronted the questioner and replied: ‘There are some cases in which it is good to save life, others in which it is better to lose’.

The Jagdishpur brothers were of a different mould. They literally fought like lions and called the British regiment a herd of sheep. When the Indian soldiers revolted at Dinapur on 25th July, 1857 Kunwar Singh seized the opportunity and made the whole regiment his prisoner, till 23rd August. In his anti-English expeditions in UP and MP he was accompanied by his brave Muslim wife Dharman Bibi. The British forces chased him perpetually. While crossing the Ganga he was severely injured. He cut off his right arm and offered it as his sacrifice to the Mother Ganga. He was arrested in December 1859 and died in jail in 1860. The King of Avadh honoured him with a Robe of Honour.

After his death the struggle was carried on his brother Amar Singh, his nephew Ritbhanjan Singh, his Tehsildar Harkishen Singh and his friend Nishan Singh. Mention must be made of Dilwar Singh and Srnam Singh. According to Dr. S.C. Sen in his book ‘1857’, the Rajputs of Shahabad were out to prove that the Rajput valour was not a thing of the past’. Individually every rebel was defeated but they were victors at last.

shaheedon ki Chitaon par lage gay har baras meley

watan par mitne walon ka yahi baaqi nishan hoga


India’s First War of Independence threw many times more brave men and women than the combined strength of heroes in the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, tens of thousands of heroes, known and unknown and lesser known, the countless martyrs who did India proud.


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