Democracy, dharma and the long struggle
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Talk given in Canberra, Australia, to commemorate 125th birth anniversary of the great Indian reformer Dr Ambedkar. The text is available at http://www.bodhi-australia.com/blog/the-celebration-of-social-justice-and-empowerment-legacy-of-dr-br-ambedkar-parliament-house-canberra-australia-march-26-2016
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Democracy, dharma and the long struggle
- 1. CRICOS #00212K Prof Colin D Butler Parliament House, Canberra Australia March 26, 2016 Democracy, dharma & the long struggle
- 2. CRICOS #00212K Storming of the Bastille, Paris, 1789
- 3. CRICOS #00212K Storming of the Bastille, Paris, 1789 Olympe de Gouges author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791).
- 5. CRICOS #00212K K The Chartists last stand: Kennington Common, London 10th April 1848 http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/chartism
- 6. CRICOS #00212K Indian Revolution (1857) Rani Jhansi (Allahabad museum)
- 7. CRICOS #00212K Part of the long struggle: English suffragettes, c 1910
- 8. CRICOS #00212K Emily Davidson’s sacrifice for female suffrage: 1913 Part of the long struggle: English suffragettes, c 1910
- 10. CRICOS #00212K
- 11. CRICOS #00212K
- 12. CRICOS #00212K
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- Churchill Speaks Quotes Rate this book 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars Churchill Speaks: Collected Speeches in Peace and War, 1897-1963 by Winston S. Churchill21 ratings, 4.38 average rating, 2 reviews Churchill Speaks Quotes (showing 1-2 of 2) “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."(Speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947)” ― Winston S. Churchill, Churchill Speaks: Collected Speeches in Peace and War, 1897-1963 Winston Versus the Women Posted: 30/09/2015 15:29 BST Updated: 30/09/2015 15:59 BST The film Suffragette opening later in October has a Who's Who of a cast list. Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst; Helena Bonham Carter; and Carey Mulligan as the foot soldier at the heart of the story. Buried a long way down the list (above the uncredited Jujitsu Lady and Lower Class Boy, but below Epsom Groundsman and Mrs Pankhurst's bodyguard) comes Ray Burnet as 'Churchill, Cabinet Minister'. Winston Churchill, that would be. Perhaps he should have had a higher place - because although, fifty years after his death, 2015 is as much about Churchill as the suffrage story, few realise how closely the man and the movement were tied. Churchill has gone down as an opponent of suffrage - a convenient weapon for those who see him as a bubble to be burst. As Home Secretary in the years of the suffragettes' greatest struggle he was indeed responsible for putting down their violent protest - yet this was the man who would end his career making a generous gesture towards female equality. Clementine, Churchill's adored wife, believed in the cause - but by the time the couple married in 1908, the Pankhursts had long singled Churchill out as their number one target. In 1903 the Manchester-based Emmeline Pankhurst had formed the WSPU to campaign for women's votes with militant tactics; early the next year Churchill went as Liberal candidate to contest the Parliamentary election in Manchester North West. The first encounter was undramatic. Christabel Pankhurst obtained a ticket to sit on the same platform as Churchill and began to heckle but - uncharacteristically - bowed to the organisers' request that she should behave reasonably. But a year later, disrupting a speech of Churchill's and attacking the policeman who tried to restore order, Christabel chose prison rather than a fine. Churchill's response was to express the hope that quiet and seclusion 'may soothe her fevered brain'. Churchill had said once that 'The only time I have voted in the House of Commons on this question I have voted in favour of women's suffrage, but having regard to the perpetual disturbance at public meetings at this election, I utterly decline to pledge myself . . .' But now he wrote, 'I am certainly not going to be henpecked into a position on which my mind is not fully prepared'. After the suffragettes interrupted another of his election meetings, he declared that 'nothing would induce me to vote for giving votes to women'. Early in their marriage Churchill wrote to Clementine that: 'I hope you will not be very angry with me for having answered the suffragettes sternly. I shall never try to crush your convictions [but] I must claim an equal liberty for myself. I have told them I cannot help them while the present tactics are continued . . . ' But indeed, it was the law-abiding suffragists, rather than the militant suffragettes, with whom she herself sympathised - and when it came to conflict she always put him first. In November 1909, at Bristol Temple Meads station, a suffragette attacked Churchill with a whip, attempting to force him off the platform and into the path of an oncoming train. While the men around him stood frozen in shock, it was Clementine who leaped over a pile of luggage to pull him to safety. Two months later, Churchill was appointed Home Secretary, in direct charge of putting down suffragette activism. November 1910 brought 'Black Friday' when a suffragette demonstration in Parliament Square, and the inept policing thereof, lead to six hours of street fighting and 200 arrests. Four days later a scuffle on the steps of 10 Downing Street saw Churchill present and himself ordering the ringleader's arrest. A month after Black Friday Churchill was telling a Dundee crowd that he believed 'the sex disqualification was not a true or logical disqualification, and he was therefore in favour of the principle of women being enfranchised . . .' He favoured a referendum on the issue. But many Liberals feared that giving the vote to certain, moneyed, women would increase the Tory vote, and contemplating a Reform Bill which might include female franchise, Churchill warned that the Liberal government might 'perish like Sisera at a woman's hand'. It was possibly a relief when, late in 1911, he was moved from the Home Office to the Admiralty. When the last years before the First World War saw an escalation of suffragette activity, Churchill wrote to Clementine that three 'creatures' - suffragettes - were now in their pens: 'The penal sentence on Mrs P.[ankhurst] will enable the Government to deal with her from time to time as they please.' But on the outbreak of war the Pankhursts declared an end to militant activity and Churchill backed the limited female suffrage granted in 1918. The women of Churchill's family surely influenced his thinking. His American mother Jennie once wrote that the suffragettes 'should be forcibly fed with common sense', but later recanted. Churchill's cousin the Duke of Marlborough married Consuelo Vanderbilt, and Consuelo's mother Alva became a major financial backer and leader of the American suffrage campaign. Clementine's quiet influence over the years was (as Churchill's friend and secretary John Colville put it) 'the drip of water on stone' - but he was in any case a man too honest not to acknowledge, in the end, the importance of women's work in the country he led. In 1960 Churchill College, Cambridge, was founded as Winston's national memorial. Colville recalled Churchill himself telling the trustees that he hoped the college would admit women on equal terms with men. (Complying only in 1972, they were still one of the first Oxbridge college to do so.) Colville asked him afterwards if it had been Clementine's idea: 'Yes', he said, 'and I support it. When I think what women did in the war I feel sure they deserve to be treated equally.' Follow Sarah Gristwood on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahgristwood
- Churchill Speaks Quotes Rate this book 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars Churchill Speaks: Collected Speeches in Peace and War, 1897-1963 by Winston S. Churchill21 ratings, 4.38 average rating, 2 reviews Churchill Speaks Quotes (showing 1-2 of 2) “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."(Speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947)” ― Winston S. Churchill, Churchill Speaks: Collected Speeches in Peace and War, 1897-1963 Winston Versus the Women Posted: 30/09/2015 15:29 BST Updated: 30/09/2015 15:59 BST The film Suffragette opening later in October has a Who's Who of a cast list. Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst; Helena Bonham Carter; and Carey Mulligan as the foot soldier at the heart of the story. Buried a long way down the list (above the uncredited Jujitsu Lady and Lower Class Boy, but below Epsom Groundsman and Mrs Pankhurst's bodyguard) comes Ray Burnet as 'Churchill, Cabinet Minister'. Winston Churchill, that would be. Perhaps he should have had a higher place - because although, fifty years after his death, 2015 is as much about Churchill as the suffrage story, few realise how closely the man and the movement were tied. Churchill has gone down as an opponent of suffrage - a convenient weapon for those who see him as a bubble to be burst. As Home Secretary in the years of the suffragettes' greatest struggle he was indeed responsible for putting down their violent protest - yet this was the man who would end his career making a generous gesture towards female equality. Clementine, Churchill's adored wife, believed in the cause - but by the time the couple married in 1908, the Pankhursts had long singled Churchill out as their number one target. In 1903 the Manchester-based Emmeline Pankhurst had formed the WSPU to campaign for women's votes with militant tactics; early the next year Churchill went as Liberal candidate to contest the Parliamentary election in Manchester North West. The first encounter was undramatic. Christabel Pankhurst obtained a ticket to sit on the same platform as Churchill and began to heckle but - uncharacteristically - bowed to the organisers' request that she should behave reasonably. But a year later, disrupting a speech of Churchill's and attacking the policeman who tried to restore order, Christabel chose prison rather than a fine. Churchill's response was to express the hope that quiet and seclusion 'may soothe her fevered brain'. Churchill had said once that 'The only time I have voted in the House of Commons on this question I have voted in favour of women's suffrage, but having regard to the perpetual disturbance at public meetings at this election, I utterly decline to pledge myself . . .' But now he wrote, 'I am certainly not going to be henpecked into a position on which my mind is not fully prepared'. After the suffragettes interrupted another of his election meetings, he declared that 'nothing would induce me to vote for giving votes to women'. Early in their marriage Churchill wrote to Clementine that: 'I hope you will not be very angry with me for having answered the suffragettes sternly. I shall never try to crush your convictions [but] I must claim an equal liberty for myself. I have told them I cannot help them while the present tactics are continued . . . ' But indeed, it was the law-abiding suffragists, rather than the militant suffragettes, with whom she herself sympathised - and when it came to conflict she always put him first. In November 1909, at Bristol Temple Meads station, a suffragette attacked Churchill with a whip, attempting to force him off the platform and into the path of an oncoming train. While the men around him stood frozen in shock, it was Clementine who leaped over a pile of luggage to pull him to safety. Two months later, Churchill was appointed Home Secretary, in direct charge of putting down suffragette activism. November 1910 brought 'Black Friday' when a suffragette demonstration in Parliament Square, and the inept policing thereof, lead to six hours of street fighting and 200 arrests. Four days later a scuffle on the steps of 10 Downing Street saw Churchill present and himself ordering the ringleader's arrest. A month after Black Friday Churchill was telling a Dundee crowd that he believed 'the sex disqualification was not a true or logical disqualification, and he was therefore in favour of the principle of women being enfranchised . . .' He favoured a referendum on the issue. But many Liberals feared that giving the vote to certain, moneyed, women would increase the Tory vote, and contemplating a Reform Bill which might include female franchise, Churchill warned that the Liberal government might 'perish like Sisera at a woman's hand'. It was possibly a relief when, late in 1911, he was moved from the Home Office to the Admiralty. When the last years before the First World War saw an escalation of suffragette activity, Churchill wrote to Clementine that three 'creatures' - suffragettes - were now in their pens: 'The penal sentence on Mrs P.[ankhurst] will enable the Government to deal with her from time to time as they please.' But on the outbreak of war the Pankhursts declared an end to militant activity and Churchill backed the limited female suffrage granted in 1918. The women of Churchill's family surely influenced his thinking. His American mother Jennie once wrote that the suffragettes 'should be forcibly fed with common sense', but later recanted. Churchill's cousin the Duke of Marlborough married Consuelo Vanderbilt, and Consuelo's mother Alva became a major financial backer and leader of the American suffrage campaign. Clementine's quiet influence over the years was (as Churchill's friend and secretary John Colville put it) 'the drip of water on stone' - but he was in any case a man too honest not to acknowledge, in the end, the importance of women's work in the country he led. In 1960 Churchill College, Cambridge, was founded as Winston's national memorial. Colville recalled Churchill himself telling the trustees that he hoped the college would admit women on equal terms with men. (Complying only in 1972, they were still one of the first Oxbridge college to do so.) Colville asked him afterwards if it had been Clementine's idea: 'Yes', he said, 'and I support it. When I think what women did in the war I feel sure they deserve to be treated equally.' Follow Sarah Gristwood on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahgristwood
- Oh pray sir, don’t kill mammy, she only came to see Mr Hunt” On the 16th of August 1819 the huge open area around what's now St Peters Square, Manchester, played host to an outrage against over 60,000 peaceful pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters; an event which became known as The Peterloo Massacre. An estimated 18 people, including a woman and a child, died from saber cuts and trampling. Over 700 men, women and children received extremely serious injuries. All in the name of liberty and freedom from poverty. The Massacre occurred during a period of immense political tension and mass protests. Fewer than 2% of the population had the vote, and hunger was rife with the disastrous corn laws making bread unaffordable. PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY On the morning of 16th August the crowd began to gather, conducting themselves, according to contemporary accounts, with dignity and discipline, the majority dressed in their Sunday best. The key speaker was to be famed orator Henry Hunt, the platform consisted of a simple cart, located in the front of what's now the Gmex centre, and the space was filled with banners - REFORM, UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE, EQUAL REPRESENTATION and, touchingly, LOVE. Many of the banner poles where topped with the red cap of liberty - a powerful symbol at the time. You can see where all this took place on these two maps of Manchester. Local magistrates watching from a window near the field panicked at the sight of the crowd, and read the riot act, effectively ordering what little of the crowd could hear them to disperse. MASSACRE As 600 Hussars, several hundred infantrymen; an artillery unit with two six-pounder guns, 400 men of the Cheshire cavalry and 400 special constables waited in reserve, the local Yeomanry were given the task of arresting the speakers. The Yeomanry, led by Captain Hugh Birley and Major Thomas Trafford, were essentially a paramilitary force drawn from the ranks of the local mill and shop owners. On horseback, armed with cutlasses and clubs, many were familiar with, and had old scores to settle with, the leading protesters. (In one instance, spotting a reporter from the radical Manchester Observer, a Yeomanry officer called out "There's Saxton, damn him, run him through.") Heading for the hustings, they charged when the crowd linked arms to try and stop the arrests, and proceeded to strike down banners and people with their swords. Rumours from the period have persistently stated the Yeomanry were drunk. The panic was interpreted as the crowd attacking the yeomanry, and the Hussars (Led by Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange) were ordered in. As with the Tiananmen Square Massacre, there were unlikely heroes among the military. An unnamed cavalry officer attempted to strike up the swords of the Yeomanry, crying - "For shame, gentlemen: what are you about? The people cannot get away!" But the majority joined in with the attack. The term 'Peterloo', was intended to mock the soldiers who attacked unarmed civilians by echoing the term 'Waterloo' - the soldiers from that battle being seen by many as genuine heroes. AFTERMATH By 2pm the carnage was over, and the field left full of abandoned banners and dead bodies. Journalists present at the event were arrested, others who went on to report the event were subsequently jailed. The businessman John Edwards Taylor went on to help set up the Guardian newspaper as a reaction to what he'd seen. The speakers and organizers were put on trial, at first under the charge of High treason - a charge that was reluctantly dropped by the presecution. The Hussars and Magistrates received a message of congratulations from the Prince Regent, and were cleared of any wrong-doing by the official inquiry. LEGACY Historians acknowledge that Peterloo was hugely influential in ordinary people winning the right the vote, led to the rise of the Chartist Movement from which grew the Trade Unions, and also resulted in the establishment of the Manchester Guardian newspaper. According to Nick Mansfield, director of the People’s History Museum in Salford, "Peterloo is a critical event not only because of the number of people killed and injured, but because ultimately it changed public opinion to influence the extension of the right to vote and give us the democracy we enjoy today. It was critical to our freedoms." Eyewitness Account of the MassacreShelley's Poem 'The Masque of Anarchy' The peterloo memorial campaign has been set up to lobby for a PROMINENT, EXPLANATORY and RESPECTFUL monument to this profound event. Peterloo was a critical event not only because of the number of people killed and injured, but because ultimately it changed public opinion to influence the extension of the right to vote and give us the democracy we enjoy today. We've discovered that we are part of a long tradition, people have been demanding a fitting memorial for well over a hundred years! Let's make it happen. Currently the only public memorial is a commemorative plaque on the side of the Radisson Hotel, formerly the Free Trade Hall. We have successfuly campaigned to have the old plaque replaced with on ethat is accurate and infromative. An 1842 obelisk-style monument to the event in Ancoats once existed, but deteriorated so badly it was demolished by 1888. A 1951 mural in the former Free Trade Hall (sold to the Radisson Hotel chain, who have converted the building into a luxury hotel) still exists in an upstairs corridor, but it, sadly, is as strikingly 'airbrushed' as the plaque, showing washed out, blank banners, protesters apparently viciously fighting amongst themselves, and the cavalry coming to the rescue. We want to see a permanent statue in a prominent position within St Peter's Fields. Such as the proposed design from 1819 of a yeoman on horseback trampling peaceful protestors. The call for an appropriate public remembrance isn't without precedent. It's been going on since the 1830's! In a 2006 Guardian newspaper poll 269 voted for a greater memorial to this battlefield of democratic martyrdom second only to The Putney Debates. (The Guardian was formed as a direct result of the massacre, and ran a piece 'Battle for the memory of Peterloo' on our campaign). If Manchester continues to ignore this profound event from it's own history, it's hard not to wonder what would the people who lost their lives on the day make of our collective desire to forget them? Manchester City Council have now committed to a new memorial to Peterloo. We continue to lobby for a memorial that isn't of a meaningless or abstract nature. The commissioning process for a memorial began in 2012, and the plan was to allow just 3 councillors to make the decision in private. Our demand is that a range of designs are shortlisted and subjected to an indicative public vote. We have held a number of campaign events to keep up the pressure for a fitting memorial, get people involved and to mark each anniversay - see more about Campaign Events.
- This is a daguerreotype (an early form of photograph) of the Chartist meeting held at Kennington Common on 10th April 1848. It was the last time the Chartists attempted to present a petition to Parliament. Fearing an attempted revolution, the Government prepared immensely for the meeting and filled London with 85,000 special constables, as well as putting 8,000 soldiers on alert. Although there were probably upwards of 20,000 (perhaps as many as 50,000) people present, the meeting was a peaceful one. As the crowd dispersed Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist Executive delivered the petition to Parliament in a series of coaches. O’Connor claimed the petition had 5,700,000 signatures, but when the clerks in the House of Commons examined it, they found it to feature less than two million names. These included a number of falsely-signed names, such as those of Queen Victoria, Sir Robert Peel and The Duke of Wellington, which only served to discredit the petition further. Despite the huge amount of legitimate signatures, Parliament did not take the petition seriously and it was rejected. - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/chartism#sthash.J9xI1D8x.dpuf Chartism & The Chartists Musings, information & illustrations about the Chartists from Stephen Roberts This website is devoted to Chartism and the Chartists. The People’s Charter was the most famous and important radical manifesto published in nineteenth century Britain. This document called for manhood suffrage, secret voting, the discontinuation of property qualifications for MPs, salaries for MPs, equal electoral districts and annual elections. Let's begin with a song ... 'The Chartist Mother's Song' appeared in the Northern Liberator on 29 February 1840 and was written by George Binns. Binns' words were sung to the tune of the well-known folk song 'The Rose of Allendale'. The song is not as rousing as most Chartist songs and somewhat atypical of the genre. George Binns (1815-47) was a Chartist lecturer and preacher who was active in Sunderland and the Durham coalfield. He wrote numerous songs and poems, including the first long Chartist poem The Doom of Toil (1840). For more information on Binns see S. Roberts Radical Politicians and Poets in Early Victorian Britain (1993), pp. 39-57. This version of 'The Chartist Mother's Song' is sung by Gemma Bagnall, accompanied by Fred Mallinson and Chris Handley. Chartism in a nutshell ... During the years 1838 – 48 this campaign for a say in law making was supported by considerable numbers of working people. Although there was one attempt at armed rebellion in 1839 and strikes and clashes with soldiers in the manufacturing districts in 1842, the main weapon of the Chartists was the display of numbers in demonstrations and signatures to the petitions of 1839, 1842 and 1848. The driving force behind Chartism was Feargus O’Connor. A superb orator and the owner of the famous Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, O’Connor provoked strong loyalties amongst working people. His newspaper held the Chartist movement together, and he was responsible for setting up the National Charter Association in 1840 and the Land Company in 1845. When he died in 1855, 40,000 people attended his funeral. You can read an essay about Chartism by Stephen Roberts on the BBC History website http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform/chartist_01.shtml And now for some pictures ... This is my favourite contemporary illustration of the Chartists. It depicts a sit-in in a church. These Chartists are demonstrating their defiance by wearing hats, sleeping, smoking and reading as the parson delivers his sermon. The statue of Feargus O'Connor in Nottingham. O'Connor was the only Chartist to be elected an MP, representing Nottingham from 1847 until 1852. Whenever I am in Nottingham, I always spend fifteen minutes in the Arboretum with Feargus. Thomas Cooper is my favourite Chartist. We see him here in the dock, a scapegoat for the authorities after the outbreak in the Potteries in 1842. Buried in Lincoln, his headstone records his authorship of a 944-stanza 'prison-rhyme' entitled the Purgatory of Suicides. I place flowers on his grave whenever I visit the city. I bought this original print of the Newport Rising for a mere £15 at an auction in Wooton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire in 1994. It now hangs on the wall of my study. We cannot be sure how many Chartists were killed or wounded in this confrontation with soldiers on the night of 3-4 November 1839 - but fatalities alone certainly exceeded 20. The trial of John Frost and the other Newport leaders at Monmouth in winter 1839-40 was a national talking point. The court room where these men were sentenced to transportation to the colonies can still be inspected, & is well worth a visit. This engraving is one of a number depicting Frost during the proceedings. This bust of Samuel Holberry is more than a little weather-worn. Holberry died in prison in June 1842, a martyr to the Chartist cause. His grave in Sheffield has been well-maintained. Visit him and remember him. During the strikes of summer 1842, more force was thrown against the authorities than any other year in the nineteenth century. In Preston soldiers opened fire on working people. Sometimes you strike gold. Towards the end of a long morning scouring Victorian periodicals, I found this cartoon of Tory politicians trembling before the Chartists & liked it immediately. For the male journalists of the London press, nothing was more amusing than poking fun at female Chartists - as this cartoon demonstrates. William Cuffay is one of the best-remembered of the Chartists. The only black man to play a significant part in the movement, he became an advocate of insurrection in 1848 and was, seemingly, quite skilled in the use of the pike. He was 60 years old when he was transported to Van D
- This painting in the Allahabad museum depicts the Rani Jhansi riding into battle against the British forces, her bay perched behind the saddle. The Rani gained legendary fame when she led her men personally after deciding to throw in her lot with the sepoys. She has become Indian's Joan of Arc. Films have been made of her life. Heroic paintings and statues have been executed in her honour. http://www.msn.com/en-in/news/photos/57-stunning-images-from-the-sepoy-mutiny-of-1857/ss-BBltFqw#image=12 http://www.historynet.com/lakshmi-bai-rani-of-jhansi.htm Lakshmi Bai: Rani of Jhansi 9/5/2006 • Joan of Arc, Military History In the almost 150 years since she belatedly committed herself to the revolt known as the Indian Mutiny, Lakshmi Bai, the rani of Jhansi, has been the only leader to be described in positive terms by her adversaries. True, some reviled her as a villainess, but others admired her as a warrior queen. Indian nationalists of the early 20th century were less divided in venerating her as an early symbol of resistance to British rule. The future rani was born to a prominent Brahmin family in Benares (now Varanisi) in northern India on November 19, 1827. Formally named Manikarnika, she was called ‘Manu’ by her parents. Her mother, Bhagirathi, died when she was 4. Under the care of her father, Moropant Tambe, her education included horsemanship, fencing and shooting. In 1842 she became the second wife of Gangadhar Rao Niwalkar, the childless raja of Jhansi, a principality in Bundelkhand. Renamed Lakshmi Bai, the young rani bore one son in 1851, but he died four months later. In 1853, following a serious illness, Gangadhar Rao adopted a distant cousin named Damodar Rao as his son — similarly, Gangadhar and the brother who had preceded him on the throne were adopted heirs. The adoption papers and a will naming the 5-year-old boy as Rao’s heir and the rani as regent were presented to a Major Ellis, who was serving as an assistant political agent at Jhansi on November 20, 1853. Gangadhar Rao died the following day. Ellis forwarded the information to his superior, Major John Malcolm. Ellis was sympathetic to the rani’s claims, and even Malcolm, who did not support her regency, described the young widow in a letter to Governor-General James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie, as ‘a woman highly respected and esteemed, and I believe fully capable of doing justice to such a charge.’ Under Lord Dalhousie, the British government had adopted an aggressive policy of annexing Indian states. Charges of mismanagement often offered an excuse. Another justification, applied with increasing frequency after 1848, was the Doctrine of Lapse. The British already exercised the right to recognize the succession in Indian states that were dependent upon them. As a corollary, Dalhousie claimed that if the adoption of an heir to the throne was not ratified by the government, the state would pass by ‘lapse’ to the British. In spite of the rani’s arguments for the legality of the adoption and Ellis’ statements on her behalf, Dalhousie refused to acknowledge Damodar Rao as Gangadhar Rao’s heir. The new British superintendent, Captain Alexander Skene, took control of Jhansi under the Doctrine of Lapse without opposition. The rani was allowed to keep the town palace as a personal residence and received an annual pension of 5,000 rupees, from which she was expected to pay her husband’s debts. Damodar Rao inherited the raja’s personal estate, but neither his kingdom nor his title. On December 3, Lakshmi Bai submitted a letter contesting the Doctrine of Lapse with Ellis’ approval, but Malcolm did not forward it. She submitted a second on February 16, 1854. After a consultation with British counsel John Lang, during which she declared ‘Mera Jhansi nahim dengee‘ (‘I will not give up my Jhansi’), she submitted yet another petition on April 22, and she continued to resubmit petitions until early 1856. All her appeals were rejected. Meanwhile, discontent had been building among the sepoys in the British East India Company’s army. The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required all recruits to go overseas if ordered, an act that would cause a Hindu to lose caste. Rumors spread that the cartridges for the newly issued Enfield rifles were greased with either cow or pig fat, regarded as abominations by the Hindu or Muslim sepoys who would tear them open with their teeth. Assurances that the cartridges were in fact greased with beeswax and vegetable oil were not as effective as rumors of a systematic British effort to undermine the sepoys’ faith and make it easier to convert them to Christianity. In Meerut on May 9, 1857, 85 sepoys who refused to use the Enfield cartridges were tried and put in irons. The next day three regiments stormed the jail, killed the officers and their families and marched on Delhi, 50 miles away. Thousands of Indians outside the army had grievances of their own against British rule. Reforms against the practice of suttee and child marriage, permitting widows to remarry and allowing converts from Hinduism to inherit family property were seen as attacks on Hindu religious law. Land reform in Bengal had displaced many landholders. Violence spread through north and central India as leaders whose power had been threatened by the British took charge and transformed the mutiny into organized resistance. On June 6, troops at Jhansi mutinied, shot their commanding officers and occupied the Star Fort, where the garrison’s treasury and magazine were stored. The city’s European populace took refuge in the fort under the direction of Captain Skene. The fort was well designed to withstand a siege: It included an internal water supply, but food was limited, and about half of the 66 Europeans were women and children. On June 8, Skene led the British out of the fort, but they were massacred. On June 12, the mutineers left Jhansi for Delhi. Given Lakshmi Bai’s longstanding grievances against the government, the British were quick to blame the rising in Jhansi on her, but evidence of her involvement was thin. Skene’s deputies and personal servants reported that when the British asked the rani for assistance, she refused to have anything to do with the ‘British swine.’ A Eurasian clerk’s wife who claimed to have escaped from the fort with her children reported that the rani had promised the British safe conduct. Her testimony has since been thoroughly debunked by S.N. Sen in his thoughtful study titled 1857, but the idea that she had betrayed the community inflamed British imaginations. Lakshmi Bai herself sent an account of the massacre to Major Walter Erskine, the commissioner at Sagar and Narbudda, on June 12: The Govt. forces, stationed at Jhansie, thro’ their faithless, cruelty, and violence, killed all the European Civil and Military officers, the clerks and all their families and the Ranee not being able to assist them for want of Guns, and solders as she had only 100 or 50 people engaged in guarding her house she could render them no aid, which she very much regrets. That they, the mutineers, afterwards behaved with much violence against herself and her servants, and extorted a great deal of money from her….That her dependence was entirely on the British authorities who met with such a misfortune the Sepoys knowing her to be quite helpless sent me messages […]to the effect that if she, at all hesitated to comply with their requests, they would blow up her palace with guns. Taking into consideration her position she was obliged to consent to all the requests made and put up with a great deal of annoyance, and had to pay large sums in property as well as cash to save her life and honour. Knowing that no British officers had been spared in the whole District, she was, in consideration of the welfare and protection of the people, and the District, induced to address Perwannahs to all the Govt. subordinate Agency in the shape of Police, etc. to remain at their posts and perform their duties as usual, she is in continual dread of her life and that of the inhabitants. It was proper that the report of all this should have been made immediately, but the disaffected allowed her no opportunity for so doing. As they have this day proceeded towards Delhi, she loses no time in writing. In a subsequent letter the rani reported there was anarchy and asked for orders from the British. Erskine forwarded both letters to Calcutta with a note saying her account agreed with what he knew from other sources. He authorized the rani to manage the district until he could send soldiers to restore order. faced with attacks by both neighboring principalities and a distant claimant to the throne of Jhansi, Lakshmi Bai recruited an army, strengthened the city’s defenses and formed alliances with the rebel rajas of Banpur and Shargarh. Her new recruits included mutineers from the Jhansi garrison. The positive assessment of local British officials was not enough to overcome the British belief in Calcutta that Lakshmi Bai was responsible for the mutiny and the massacre. Her subsequent efforts to defend Jhansi confirmed their beliefs. In January 1858, Maj. Gen. Sir Hugh Rose marched toward the city. As late as February, the rani told her advisers that she would return the district to the British when they arrived. On March 25, Rose laid siege to Jhansi. Threatened with execution if captured by the British, Lakshmi Bai resisted. In spite of a vigorous defense, by March 30, most of the rani’s guns had been disabled and the fort’s walls breached. On April 3, the British broke into the city, took the palace and stormed the fort. The night before the final assault, Lakshmi Bai lashed her 10-year-old adopted son to her back and, with four followers, escaped from the fortress. Her father was less fortunate. He was captured and summarily hanged by the British, who sacked Jhansi for the next three days. After riding some 93 miles in 24 hours, Lakshmi Bai and her small retinue reached the fortress of Kalpi, where they joined three resistance leaders who had become infamous in British eyes for the atrocity at Cawnpore: Nana Sahib, Rao Sahib and Tatia Tope. The rebel army met the British at Koonch on May 6 but was forced to retreat to Kalpi, where it was defeated again on May 22-23. On May 30, the retreating rebels reached Gwalior, which controlled both the Grand Trunk Road and the telegraph lines between Agra and Bombay. Jayaji Rao Scindhia, the maharaja of Gwalior, who had remained loyal to the British, tried to stop the insurgents, but his troops went over to their side on June 1, forcing him to flee to Agra. On June 16, Rose’s forces closed in on Gwalior. At the request of the other rebel leaders, Lakshmi Bai led what remained of her Jhansi contingent out to stop them. On the second day of the fighting at Kotah-ki-Serai, the rani, dressed in male attire, was shot from her horse and killed. Gwalior fell soon after, and organized resistance collapsed. Rao Sahib and Tatia Tope continued to lead guerrilla attacks against the British until they were captured and executed. Nana Sahib disappeared and became a source of legend. British newspapers proclaimed Lakshmi Bai the ‘Jezebel of India,’ but Sir Hugh Rose compared his fallen adversary to Joan of Arc. Reporting her death to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, he said: ‘The Rani is remarkable for her bravery, cleverness, and perseverance; her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities, combined with her rank, rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders.’ In modern India, Lakshmi Bai is regarded as a national heroine. Statues of her stand guard over Jhansi and Gwalior. Her story has been told in ballads, novels, movies and the Indian equivalent of Classics Illustrated comics. Prime Minister Indira Ghandi appeared as Lakshmi Bai in a political commercial in the 1980s. ‘Although she was a lady,’ Rose wrote,’she was the bravest and best military leader of the rebels. A man among the mutineers.’ His praise is echoed in the most popular of the folk songs about her: ‘How well like a man fought the Rani of Jhansi! How valiantly and well!’ This article was written by Pamela D. Toler and originally published in the September 2006 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!
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