Story of India

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/story-of-india/

One interesting comment which talks about a tragic event which might have not made public earlier...
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Mark Probett • 2 months ago
Have yet to see the series and will for sure. But I would love to talk with Michael Wood about another side of India and importantly The British Raj, EIC and the events leading up to the Mutiny of 1957. The upheaval and horrors of the period, seem to have been long forgotten by Britain and such can be readily seen in any British cemetery one would visit right across Northern India, where overgrowth and elephant grass stand 2 meters or more covering 1,000's of the most of solemn of graves. There are of course, the usual relics of British colonialism that stand as they were in 1857, like The Residency at Lucknow, frozen in time. But too, there are also hidden things ... thing's so dark and painful, that Britain and India would rather forget and indeed have made great efforts to wipe from the face of the earth. In Kanpur, there is a well, now covered over with brown concrete and is the final resting place of 220 British Women and Children (86 women and 124 children) who had suffered the cruellest abuse for 6 weeks and were hacked to death with meat cleavers and talwar's in a small bungalow, dismembered next morning and cast "the dead with the dieing" into the abyss. This happened in the early evening of July 15th 1857. Type "Bibighar Cawnpore" and search, less they be forgotten. Nearby in what is left of General Wheelers entrenchment, stands an old well with a memorial church in a 5 acre paddock, as a reminder of those who drew water there in June 1857 and who put up an exhaustive defence, while waiting for relief in the form of Major Gen Sir Henry Havelock. Temperatures in the entrenchment topped out at 130 degree F and another well nearby consumed over the 3 week siege, another 250 British men, women and children from the entrenchment, who perished from wounds, dysentery, heat stroke, hunger and whereby children with little or no drinking water were
reduced to sucking leather straps to quench the most appalling thirst. After 3 weeks of this and being shelled and shot at with over 1,200 rifles without letup, the Mutineers offered false terms and a guarantee of repatriation to Allahabad in boats that would be provided. Sadly, the garrison had no choice but to surrender to the Mutineers and on the morning of June 27th 1857, the 700 remaining, who were in an incredibly poor state, suffering from dysentery, hunger, thirst, heat stroke and with many carrying grievous wounds, made the slow, painful walk down to Sati Chaura Massacre Ghart a mile distant, where another 550 were put to the sword on the banks of the Ganges. All very reminicent of the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. These places are still pretty much as they were, although a visitor would never know, because most of the memorials and markers have been removed by common agreement between Britain and India. The story of Lucknow, Agra,
Meeret, Delhi, Allahabad, Benares, Jaipur and dozens of small settlements across northern India, tell a similar story of rape, slaughterer and absolute soul destroying desperation that the British never saw coming, although they should have. The signs were all there of an uprising, but unfortunately the EIC's policy of retaining stupid Generals, who had little or nothing to do with their Sepoy infantries, failed to note the winds of change and the destruction that would follow.
However, with the relief that eventually came, so came the most appalling revenges by the British. Hundreds of Scot's of the 78th,
viewed the carnage in the Bibighar and looked into the well that was choked to the brim with the torso's, limbs, faces and hair of their women folk and children and in the intense heat, they exacted a terrible revenge on any Indian they could lay hands on. Tens of thousands were hanged and in not a few cases, dozens were blown from 9 pound cannons. The events of 1857 in Northern India form the basis of an incredible epic journey that should be retold, less this vital piece of British Anglo Indian history be lost forever

It's covered in detail and very factually in The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple. Our textbooks paint a totally distorted picture of some heroic, patiotic uprising which it was not.

Merlot Daruwala wrote:It's covered in detail and very factually in The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple. Our textbooks paint a totally distorted picture of some heroic, patiotic uprising which it was not.

The British rule in India is / was looked as the foreign rule, while the princes and nawabs who fought the Brits in 1857 etc. to hold on to their own states and principalities are regarded by the locals even now as the fellow Indians and benevolent rulers (in reality, some of them had been extremely corrupt and cruel against the masses).

Merlot Daruwala wrote:It's covered in detail and very factually in The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple. Our textbooks paint a totally distorted picture of some heroic, patiotic uprising which it was not.

Yeah right. LOL!

What's the proof of William Dalrymple narrative being factual?