There is one letter I came across during my research that expressed the feeling of betrayal the most. It was by a former Delhi college mathematics lecturer and convert called Master Ramachandra who had escaped Delhi on May 11, the same day his fellow convert Dr Chaman Lal was killed on the first morning of the uprising.

Ramachandra had expected to be welcomed home by his fellow Christians, but the British would not help him. He lived in fear of his life just as he had during the uprising. He was not targeted for his faith, but for his skin colour. He was even attacked by British officers despite him telling them he was a Christian and worked for the British. They abused him.

This is part of the letter Ramachandra wrote to the company officials: 'I thought if the Mutineers find and kill me they will do so on account of my having abjured the creed of my forefathers and embarked upon Christianity, and that I will die a witness to the faith of the blessed saviour, like the martyrs of old, the Apostles and early Christians. Herein was a great comfort to me under all my trials and dangers. But there is hardly any comfort remaining, when a native Christian is in danger from Christian officers themselves, merely because he was not born in England and has not a white skin.'

Ramachandra and Lal, prominent Delhi Hindus, were converted publicly and in a festive atmosphere by the Reverend Midgeley John Jennings. His attitude towards the 'heathens' scared many British and much of the British in Delhi called him a 'bigot.'

The Hindus and Muslims disliked him even more. He had been going around telling them that the Company would convert them, by force if necessary.

Jennings, who was killed in the uprising, went to the Kumbh Mela and loudly denounced the 'satanic paganism' of the pilgrims.

Many Company officials had begun endorsing the evangelicals. One Company director even wrote to his colleagues and missionaries that it was difficult to 'conceive any people more completely enchained than they (the Hindus) are by their superstitions.'

Indians were seen by Company directors and missionaries as people who were 'long sunk in darkness, vice and misery.' Wasn’t it ironical that, while all this was happening, the ailing Mughal ruler Zafar espoused religious freedom and appreciated the mysticism in other faiths?

Jennings died a horrifying death, as did his star pupil Chaman Lal, who was attending to his patients when the sarwars were in the streets attacking the British and Christian converts. He had left the clinic to see what was happening. The crowd told the sarwars about him. One soldier immediately pinned him down and, sitting on his chest, asked him about his religion. Chaman Lal said he was Christian. The sarwar shot at point blank range and his clinic was burned.

Image: June 1857, The death of Major Skene and his wife at the massacre of British residents in Jhansi during the Indian Mutiny.
Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Also see: 'Youth unaware of freedom fighters' sacrifices'

Back

|

Next