Details at : http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?screen=lotdetails&iSaleItemNo=4705183&iSaleNo=17860&iSaleSectionNo=1

Wow.. This is Real history about just normal people in there day to day lives.

thank you

Interesting - my gg grandfather who was a Corporal in the 1st Madras Fusiliers, died of cholera at Cawnpore July 1857, as did many others

...what a horrific catastrophe the Mutiny was...."Poor Mr Adams was chopped up in his carraige " etc - total anarchy - .... I believe that Anglo-Indian relations would have proceeded on a very different path but for this unhappy event...you had (by and large) the economists and the 'reformers' beforehand - you got the military and jurists afterwards....

I love the letterhead. It is quaint as can be. This was way before the fountain pen was invented. Could quills write so well?

@Julian: We in India do not see 1857 as a 'Mutiny'. It was an uprising and is also known as the First War of Independence. There was an uprising in Vellore, Madras Presidency, earlier which was horribly crushed. The East India Company did not learn any lessons from the Vellore uprising. The manner in which the uprising of 1857 was crushed ensured that the Union Jack flew in India for only 90 more years.

@ Dev: this is a conversation/ debate that has been had here at RBSI on more than one occasion... some degree of terminological inexactitude has frequently made itself present... for my own part, I suggest that the events of 1857 represented a 'mutiny' pure and simple, against the existing government authority of the period ... 'India' did not exist in the form that you are feeling pangs of nationalism towards some 150 years after the fact... all else is 'spin' and revisionism.

Julian - I know you don't care for William Dalrymple but his book The Last Mughal supports calling it a mutiny. The unfortunate citizens of Delhi, while they probably weren't the HEIC's greatest fans, were on the whole against having their city taken over by stroppy sepoys bringing trouble down on their heads - they just wanted to get on with their lives. Unlike the run-up to 1947, I think that most ordinary Indians in 1857 felt the same. In fact most would probably have been blissfully unaware of it all, given that India is a huge country (and was huger, if there is such a word, then), most of the activity was in particular areas and they didn't have the internet. Dev - But you are right, without the reprisals, arguably understandable in some cases, made 1947 inevitable.

...Hello Joss - William Dalrymple? ... "I've got a shiver in my thigh bone, I've got a quiver up my backbone"!!!... No wonder he supports both sides in such an argument - what a political chameleon... but you (and he) are correct to point out that - aside from the blood loss (it was the savagery that was pretty unique) in all other respects for the British it was just a run-of-the-mill 19th century small scale conflict - it was put down in a matter of months... no big deal.... the sacking of Delhi? Now, who was responsible for that? A broader question...

We have all been here before on RBSI pages which are worth a revisit. To the imperialists it was a mutiny of the sepoys; for the Indian people, they stayed largely away from the fight; for the Indian princes it was a revolt against their Empress, their beloved Queen of England; to the present day romantics it was a struggle for independence. To some it was Empire Strikes Back. We cannot forget that the Indian Princes, were mandliks or ankits (subjugated and heeled). It was also intertwined with private tales of revenge, valour, glory, love, hate, grit, cunning on both sides. A certain degree of detachment is in order as we look at history. In later years also India has seen fierce debates about terrorists as freedom fighters, enemy of enemy as friends and what not. Calling it a mutiny does not belittle anyone. Neither does it glorify anyone to call it a first war of independence. What is the difference between a mutiny and an uprising anyway? If Julian steps ot of his nationalist, imperialist suit, he will see what I mean. If my Indian friends discard the blind fury about the wrongs done centuries ago, they too will see what I mean.

...wise words, Shekhar... To attempt to answer your question: an 'uprising' suggests a degree of planning and widespread popular support - this was not the case during the 'mutiny' ....

Ah...Julian, you have finally settled this debate quite inadverdantly ! Parag Tope's - Operation Red Lotus (posted above) provides authentic letters, plans and accounts of this event which clearly validate your definition of an 'Uprising'.... -an 'uprising' suggests a degree of planning and widespread popular support. In fact this WAS the case during the mutiny. As observers of this event after 150 years...looked at unbiasedly without any ideological spin or bias....I beleive it was indeed an Uprising.

On the contrary...Operation Red Lotus...is the most credible Indian book on 1857 ever written ! It is a well researched book proving clear evidence for its arguments. I have read it !

'operation red lotus' - how ridiculous - as if the mutineers sat around in a drawing room wearing spectacles and tweed suits while they poured over maps and planned schedule's ???... I shall read this book one day (when hell freezes over !)...

The main point is the definition of 'Uprising'...and this book clearly proves that.

Haha...a new definition for planning !! Reading a book is of course a matter of personal choice.

also try ' the last Moghul' and 'the siege of Krishnapur'

@Julian: Thanks for your thoughts. It is fascinating to read the views of Britishers on this topic which continues to arouse passions. I belong to Kerala which was not affected by the events of 1857 but I have spent most of my life in the small Central Indian town of Mhow where a regiment of the BNI (Bengal Native Infantry) had been stationed. This regiment, like other Bengal Army regiments, had not remained unaffected and the men had killed their CO and two other officers. Mhow could well have been the southernmost town affected by the events of 1857. As I speak Hindi very fluently it is possible for me to see how the locals here (the common man as well as the intelligentsia) see the events of 1857 in this area. Nobody here is a fan of the British. They accept that the ill disciplined Indian troops may have committed atrocities but they also point to the retaliation which was much larger in scale. The British were in this small town from 1818 to 1947 and not a single Britisher is remembered with love and affection. That speaks volumes for what the Raj was all about. My thoughts are that the mishandling which led to the uprising of 1857, the ruthlessness and cruelty with which it was suppressed and later the Jallianwala Bagh massacre conducted by Gen Reginald Dyer were decisive factors in the departure of the Union Jack from India. I have some nuggets written in a notebook. Will post them here when I find them. p.s. Enoch Powell was posted in India and he quite liked it here. No prizes for guessing how many Indian friends he had :-)

...Hello Dev... You are quite correct. Brigadier Powell served with the British Army in India during the Second World War - an experience that seems to have profoundly influenced his life. As a classical scholar he familiarised himself with the many Indian languages and became fluent in Urdu (I think, but I would have to check ) and entertained romantic notions of becoming Viceroy some day...a career path that was to be shortly closed to him ! I have no doubt that you are correct about the actions of Dyer - even though that sad, horrible event at Amritsar is brought up ad infinitum as evidence of the dastardly British and their craven ways and never is presented as the actions of one individual who under pressure and through perhaps his own somewhat perverse thinking and notions of 'keeping order', took matters into his own hands with lasting consequences, which might be nearer the truth... Dyer was roundly condemmed by his superiors, narrowly avoided being court-martialed and was hounded out of the service.... Though interestingly - and this might say a lot about domestic attitudes at the time - upon his retirement to England he became something of a cult figure and was even the benificary of a newspaper support campaign that raised several thousand pounds. Regards etc.

@Dev Kumar Vasudevan: Look forward to reading your nuggets in your notebook.

Any one who is not waiting for hell to freeze over and considering reading Tatya Tope's Operation Red Lotus, might want to visit http://tatyatope.com/book/orlBook.html?page=17">this to view the troop movements from the book Operation Red Lotus. You can view the table of contents http://tatyatope.com/book/orlBook.html?page=7">here. The appendix of the book has a table that shows the movements of all the participating regiments, where they were stationed and where they marched to. Indian troops marched over a million man miles in the early months of the phase one of the war. This was during a time when troop movement was 10-15 miles a day. What did the logistics of the Indian troops look like? More importantly what were the supply lines? In India - you can buy the book from http://www.nbcindia.com/Descriptions.asp?6v6yr_vq=FMFIEJD&Book=TATYA-TOPES-OPERATION-RED-LOTUS">NBC India In the US from http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/812911562X/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1287605023&sr=8-1&condition=new">Amazon

Just found this article while 'googling': http://www.new-diaspora.com/India/History/INDIAN%20MUTINY%201857/3-%20British%20view.htm

And also this: The Atlantic Monthly; December, 1857; The Indian Revolt; Volume 1, No. 2; pages 217-222 http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/1857dec/revolt.htm

i feel the mutiny ,doomed as it was,subscribed to fulfill but one mission..the end of the mughal imperial dynasty.,but left in its wake so much turmoil and tragedy both on innocent "natives" as the indians were known then as well as the ruling british class that one shudders to read the accounts. Yet it has left us with so many accounts personal history and lives of common man whose mind frame we can dig into and see what he felt undergoing the mass killings taking place all around him....most indians were mere spectators as it was the " mujaheedins" who mostly acted the uprising.....not surprizingly the british also showed their darker side by massacreing most populations even if innocent.....THE things POWER makes men do....

therefore in that light..this manuscript is invaluable!

Thanks for your update Parag Tope. I truly wish people interested to know more about the 1857 Uprising...read your well researched book. History is best understood when seen once again from the distance of time and devoid of propaganda...your book essentially does that.

@ Julian Craig You are of course entitled to your opinion on the events of 1857 and you may think of them in any way you like just keeping in mind the fact that the British had absolutely no right to be here in the first place. They were invaders and conquerors on the basis of superior instruments of violence, a desire to exploit and clever use of colluders from within India. However, I would like to comment on your misconception, very common amongst imperialists, that 'India ' did not exist before the Brits. have you any idea at all about the history of this sub continent? Apparently not. Let me enlighten you. You probably have a hazy idea of the Westphalian model of nation states which was promulgated in the mid 17th century but reached its apogee with Bismarck’s formulation during the unification of the Germanic states, a conglomeration of racially, culturally, linguistically similar people confined within a rigidly delineated territorial structure all owing allegiance to the concept of the 'nation state' above all other loyalties. This is where the problem of transplantation of ideas begins. Using a formulation which arose out of specific geographical and political imperatives about 350 years ago to understand a part of the world which has dealt with this question for over 5000 years (starting from the Indus valley Civilisation 2500 BCE) is bound to be limiting and sometimes meaningless. However, the domination of Western European ideas and ideologies for the past 300 years has led to the modern political system being a surface reflection of their institutions over an underlying very different substructure. It would therefore be difficult for you to visualise anything beyond that. However, the Indua Valley civilisation in India dates at the very least to 2500 BCE. The new tribal agglomerations of the agrarian Vedic civilisation then gave way to Janapadas of which there were 16 in the first millennium BCE. It was after the conflict between these that the most powerful Janapada emerged as Magadha first under the Nandas and then of course the Mauryas. The loyalty to a greater concept, in the Westphalian case an abstract state which is all powerful, is mitigated by concentric circles of loyalty in the case of the sub continent. The Mauryan kingdom extended from Swat in Afghanistan to Tamilnadu and from Gujarat to Bengal (especially Chandrapur where exciting new discoveries are being excavated even today). The formulation of 'kingdom in the Indian sub continent was very different from the Westphalian model. Its ideologue was Chanakya and the executor Chandragupta. ( See next comment)

( In an attempt to enlighten Julian Craig about ancient Indian history) The humble citizen first owed loyalty to his village and his local gods before going on to further , larger units of administration and then ultimately the King. The point to note is that the King was not an ever present figure in the daily life of the village. Local institutions took care of this and it was only the most serious issues which needed to go up to the King. Also, there were different local models of administration. The Mauryan kingdom subsumed tribal oligarchies for example whose functioning was allowed by the imperial power. These would not be allowed to exist or recognised in the Westphalian model. Another very important difference is in the conceptualisation of the role of religion. The Westphalian model insisted on division of the church and state since the Treaty of Westphalia had come into being to limit the power of the Catholic Church. Temporal and spiritual power walked more or less hand in hand in India and religion was an moral and ethical force ( Yeah, I know you will have to break loose from today’s leftist and rightist theories and cast your mind back to another age !). Again this was not a monolithic, congregational, messiah based religion but a polyglot of many local practices where the ‘little’ traditions oiled the wheels of the ‘great tradition’ (after Redfield and also M N Srinivas’s Indian exposition). This was the over arching structure and kept the edifice intact and moving (if indeed an edifice can move…forgive the mixed metaphor!). This to my mind is the uniqueness of the Indian model, all differences are allowed to exist and become a harmonious part of a benevolent and inclusive whole. The ‘state’ in Mauryan times did the same things that states today do. There was a common defence system, a huge standing army, a common currency, centrally formulated foreign policy and a bureaucracy which oversaw the functioning of the country. It is an interesting point that the territorially speaking neither the so called golden age of the Guptas nor the Mughals nor the British ever administered such a large area ever again. For good reason is the Mauryan Empire called the ‘First Empire’. What was not there, and is still not there, is the prevalence of one language, one culture or one race of people. The state knew its territorial extent and guarded it very well but without imposing more than necessary uniformity. The principles which were to operate in the entire kingdom were few and strictly enforced. I will refer you to the edicts of the Mauryan King Asoka who used Maagadhi for his official work but also had them translated into the 5 main languages of the Empire and disseminated. (There was an entire department for the copying, transcribing, translation and dissemination of royal commands, edicts, instructions etc.) The story of India after the intrusions from the north is a different one and medieval times did see a splintering up of temporal authority, However, the civilisational and cultural continuity and unity has been provided by not only the great tradition of the 2 main epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata but also the ‘Chaar Dhaam’ at the northern, southern, eastern and western parts of the country established by Adi Shankarachrya in the 11th century CE. I have written all this before but this repetition is an attempt at perhaps stimulating a new understanding among people who may not have a very clear idea of India.

"It was in the eighteenth century that Indian History was invented" ~ WC Sellar & RJ Yeatman '1066 and All That'

Thank you Sumedha Verma for this detailed exposition of how the concept of 'nation' has evolved down the ages in India and elsewhere. It is almost embarrassing now to realize that many of us have been seeing and judging the entire human society and its structure through the narrow lens of a recent western concept which by implication and 'its definition' denies any kind of greatness or existence of a great empire/s earlier. Clearly proves that we have so much more to learn.

...the British ( the English until 1707) did not "invade" India... in fact, they were probably the last of the European powers to appear on the scene... after the Portugese, Spansih, Dutch, French etc...

"...the English did not invade India..." - True ...actually, they started off like other European "vrijbuiters" attacking the merchant ships in the open seas carrying cargo out of India (and other places). However, to resolve internal disputes, these privately funded pirates jointly formed a "company" that got state sanctions around 1600 - with formation of the various EICs, including the Dutch East India Company and of course the "honorable" John or the English East India Company. "History" described these state sanctioned monopolies reselling "free booty" as representatives of "free market" and "trade." Indian ships in the 1600s were large and capaciously built and were easily overrun by these smaller European pirate ships. These "vrijbuiters" found land and this piracy became more amphibian.. the English in Bengal.. the Portuguese in Goa... the French in Puducherry...

Mr Rhinus.... you conveniently neglect to mention that the increasingly "amphibious" nature of the (various) EIC's "free market trading" could not have occured without the co-operation and active participation of intermediaries and partners "on-shore"...

John Steinbeck in Cannery Row : Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches, by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,: and he would have meant the same thing.

Mr. Craig - by the 1700s India had lost control over the supply chain of the products it exported to the european pirate-turned-merchants. These pirates offered to "buy" these products... and yes - there were sellers... and soon a licensing system was in-place that included Indians.... although the relevance of their ethnicity is hardly relevant... just as the ethnicity of the mercanaries hired by the English in 1857 was hardly relevant... be the the Scottish Highlanders or the Irish who participating in the figure-of-eight campaign...

Mr Rhinus... The early commercial success of the British East India Company was not a foregone conclusion. There was no overriding directive in their activities - no grand plan - other than making money ( an outcome that they did not always achieve). It was all about turning a profit for the shareholders back in Leadenhall Street. They had no interest in "invading and conquering" India - this is a myth. Historians, both British and Indian, for differing reasons, have consistently mis-represented this simple fact. I agree with you that 'ethnicity' was scarcely a factor in these proceedings. Interestingly, it is frequently overlooked that most of the EIC soldiers and officials before 1750 were not British at all. Many came from that great melting pot, the East End of London, from where they had only recently arrived as refugees from France and Protestant Europe. Regards etc.

Mr. Craig "...early commercial success not being a foregone conclusion..." Agreed. English imperialists and Indian liberals/marxists/self-flagellators - all exaggerate early English "success." In fact - England began to view India with strategic intent primarily when they had to make of choice between north-America and India during the 1780s (American Revolutionary war and the First Anglo-Maratha war). Once the decision was made to let go of the America's, India became critically important. Like Islamic rulers, the English unleashed Christianity with vigor and the early and mid 1800s were all about Christian missionaries celebrating their successes. They thought they had stopped the "Hindu juggernaut" when they stopped the Jagannath Yatra at Puri. Early 1850s was all about "ringing the knell of Hindooism" and "raising the European element" in India. 1857 changed all that!

The concept of Nation is not absolute in terms of time. Societies have integrated and disintegrated umpteen number of times in history - sometimes as a consequence of external causes such as "invasions" or due to internal causes. Domination by the rulers - be they "own" people or "invaders" - over the population at large has taken various forms, including (in recent times) physical domination by imperial powers over the colonised nations or economic / political domination subsequently. The changes in form are dictated, among other things, by developments in science and technology which have brought more prosperity - or possibility of prosperity to large section of populations and forced rulers to share power even if reluctantly, with increasingly larger sections of population. Tomorrow's imperial powers will in all probably be the entities that control information rather than commanding armies or nukes. 1984 is yet to happen and it could very well be an entity like Google which may effectively rule the world. More optimistically, technology may prevent absolute domination by any entity and instead permit evolution of more equitable, secular and just order.

...Mr Rhinus... You are quite correct to suggest that 'India' (really only Bengal) began to assume a greater 'strategic' (really only economic) importance to the British after the loss of the American colonies in the 1780s - but you should also bare in mind that French influence in 'India' had been largely subverted and checked by this period. It was also from this period that the British government itself, rather than just its EIC intermediary, began to take a more active role in administering 'Indian' affairs. As to your further point - I have always questioned the impact of Christian missionary efforts in 'India' during the early 19th century - though undoubtedly there was a more concerted effort on behalf of the Britrish to encourage their activities. In this light it is quite easy to see the 'mutiny' as really a very conservative back-lash rather than a radical revolution... (though whether it was either remains a moot point). Regards etc.

Mr. Craig.... True... In terms of "success" of the missionaries - the impact was little... but it was the reaction to the overt attempts to convert India which is relevant here. Not unlike the history of early English "successes," history of 1857 has also been packaged with an agenda, first by the contemporary English narrators and Victorian historians and later by Indian loyalists, then Marxists and self-flagellators. Each of them - for their own reasons - preferred to present the English rule of India as "secular." Again consider 1857. Indian leaders of 1857 presented a five point proclamation that indicted the English rule. Something largely ignored by all historians - because it contradicts their respective narratives. (Ainslee Embree of Columbia University was the first to present its importance in 1964.) Three of the five points covered economic issues (monopoly in trade, licensing in industry, excessive taxation) - but the fifth point was what resonated the most with the people. It was about Christian missionaries being unleashed on Hindus and Muslims alike. (See this link - http://tatyatope.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/understanding-freedom-and-1857/ ) English rule was indeed forced to become more "secular" only after November 1, 1858.

...I am endeavouring to practise patience (not always successfully) at the RBSI, Mr Rhinus - so I shall not enter into a protracted debate about the 'Anglo-Indian War ' (the latest alternative name for the 'mutiny' ?) of 1857, if it's all the same to you... I would point out, however, that regarding the increasing "secularisation" of the British administration in India, that this had as much, if not more, to do with prevailing attitudes in Victorian Britain - rather than the impact of events in India itself (though, of course, this had not been negligible)... Regards etc.

Your resistance to new semantics understandable... however, 1857 is as much a war of semantics as it was between two nations... The same historians who viciously refute the existence of the Indian identify never ask a simple question: why was the EEIC was not not called as "The English, South Asian Peninsular Collection of Multiple and Disparate Kingdoms, Company" at its inception? Regardless - leaving semantics aside - you have to realize that "contemporary victorian society" was indeed influenced by India... The events in India - did play a huge role in the print media as well as in social circles... and the psyche of the British people... the "Cawnpore" propaganda put fear in the hearts of British women to make India as their home... Additonally, once the proclamation was made on November 1858, and India came under the Englsih throne, English missionaries were forced to back off from India... there was a ripple effect within England...