THE SKULL OF ALUM BHEG
KIM A. WAGNER
The Skull of Alum Bheg
The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857
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Copyright © Kim A. Wagner, 2017
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Kim A. Wagner.
The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857
ISBN: 9780190911744
This book is dedicated to the memory of a certain Merlot-drinking reference-munshi–I will always carry you with me.
CONTENTS
List of Maps and Images
Glossary
A Note on Spelling
Prologue: The Skull in the Pub
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1.The Hot Wind of an Indian May
2.A Religious Question from Which Arose Our Dread
3.Common Fame is but a Lying Strumpet
4.Escape at Once from This Horrible Place
5.Tenants of Pandemonium
6.Their Blood Have They Shed Like Water
7.Gorging Vultures and Howling Jackals
8.Justice so Prompt and Vigorous
9.A Pursuing Destiny
10.Sharp and Short as the Cannons Roar
11.But from the Skulls of the Slain
Epilogue: The Dead Bodies of Thy Servants
Notes
Bibliography
Index
LIST OF MAPS AND IMAGES
Maps
Map 1:India. (‘India—showing the Field of the Church of Scotland in the Panjab’, John F. W. Youngson, Forty Years of the Panjab Mission of the Church of Scotland, 1855–1895, Edinburgh: R. & R. Clark, 1896)
Map 2:Sialkot and the part of Punjab bordering onto Kashmir—the battle of Trimmu Ghat took place where the road crosses the Ravi River, between Shakargarh and Awankha, near 32.18 latitude and 75.33 longitude. (‘India Mission of American Church’, Andrew Gordon, Our India Mission: A Thirty Years’ History of the India Mission of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Philadelphia: Andrew Gordon, 1886)
Map 3:City and cantonment of Sialkot in 1857. (‘Sialkot and vicinity to illustrate the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857’, in Andrew Gordon, Our India Mission: A Thirty Years’ History of the India Mission of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Philadelphia: Andrew Gordon, 1886)
Map 4:Battle of Trimmu Ghat (‘Sketch of Operations at Trimmoo Ghat, 16th July 1857’, G. Bourchier, Eight Month’s Campaign Against the Bengal Sepoy Army, During the Mutiny of 1857, London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1858)
List of Images
Image 1: The skull of Alum Bheg. (Author’s photo)
Image 2: Newspaper report about the discovery of the skull in The Lord Clyde pub in 1963. (Author’s collection)
Image 3: The note found with Alum Bheg’s skull. (Author’s photo)
Image 4: The church and bungalows of a quintessential cantonment station in mid-nineteenth century British India (‘Our Station’, G.F. Atkinson, “Curry and Rice,” on Forty Plates; or, The Ingredients of Social Life at “Our Station” in India, London: Day & Son, 1860)
Image 5: A late nineteenth-century view of Sialkot city taken from the fort. (‘Sialkot city, view from the fort in the city’, Youngson, Forty Years)
Image 6: The artillery barracks in Sialkot cantonment, late nineteenth century (Author’s collection)
Image 7: Sudder Bazaar, Sialkot, late nineteenth century (Author’s collection)
Image 8: Reverend Thomas Hunter (Youngson, Forty Years)
Image 9: Jane Scott Hunter (Youngson, Forty Years)
Image 10: Dr James Graham (Courtesy of National Army Museum, Chelsea, London)
Image 11: Reverend Andrew Gordon (Gordon, Our India Mission)
Image 12: New recruits for a sepoy regiment in the Bengal Army. (Anon., Narrative of the Indian Revolt: From Its Outbreak to the Capture of Lucknow by Sir Colin Campbell, London: George Vickers, 1858)
Image 13: Sepoys practising with the Enfield rifle. (‘Sepoys at rifle practice’, G.F. Atkinson, The Campaign in India, 1857–58: From Drawings Made During the Eventful Period of the Great Mutiny, London: Day & Son, 1859)
Image 14: The khalasi at Dum-Dum telling a high-caste sepoy about the offensive grease on the cartridges. (Author’s collection)
Image 15: The circulation of chapattis before the outbreak in May 1857. (The Leisure Hour, 1858)
Image 16: A proclamation prophesising the imminent end of British rule in India (W.H.G. Kingston, The Young Rajah, London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1876)
Image 17 : A European family butchered by mutineers as imagined by the Swedish artist Egron Lundgren, who accompanied William Howard Russell to India during the uprising. (Karl Asplund, Med Egron Lundgren i Indien, 1858–1859, Stockholm: Bonnier, 1931)
Image 18: European men, women and children being tortured and killed by Indian sepoys. This rare illustration is by the renowned French artist Gustave Doré (Author’s collection).
Image 19: Sepoys protecting their British officers during the outbreak. (Anon., Narrative of the Indian Revolt)
Image 20: ‘Dr Graham shot in his buggy by the Sealkote Mutineers’, from Charles Ball’s popular history of the uprising, published in 1858. Though perhaps capturing something of the drama of the incident, the image is not entirely accurate: there was no Indian coachman as Graham was himself holding the reins, and he was shot at close range by a pistol rather than the distant rifle-shot depicted. (Charles Ball, The History of the Indian Mutiny, 2 vols, London: London Printing & Publishing Co., 1858, Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 21: Jon Nicholson as a noble Victorian hero of the Empire. (Lord [F.S.] Roberts, Forty-One Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief, London: Macmillan and Co., 1897)
Image 22: The other face of ‘muscular Christianity’—Nicholson in action at Trimmu Ghat. (The Boy’s Own Paper, 1921)
Image 23: ‘Attack on Sealkote mutineers by General Nicholson’s Irregular Cavalry’—a contemporary depiction of the final stage of the battle of Trimmu Ghat (Ball, The History of the Indian Mutiny)
Image 24: The bodies of dead rebels after a battle, by Egron Lundgren. (Asplund, Med Egron Lundgren i Indien)
Image 25: Fleeing sepoys captured by British cavalry (Atkinson, The Campaign in India)
Image 26: Two illustrations illustrating, respectivel
y, Indian treachery and British retribution: ‘The Massacre at Cawnpore’. (Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 27: The companion-piece to the previous image: ‘Hodson refusing supplications of grovelling mutineers’. (Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 28: ‘Outlying Picket of the Highland Brigade at Benares’. The benign title of this illustration from Charles Ball’s book does not quite reflect the indiscriminate violence it captures. (Ball The History of the Indian Mutiny)
Image 29: Photograph by Felice Beato of an execution of two Indian rebels in 1857. Beato himself ran up and grabbed the kicking legs of one of the prisoners, as the movement was ruining the picture. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Indian_Rebellion_Hangings.gif)
Image 30: Another photograph by Beato, showing the aftermath of the assault on Lucknow. Beato had the skulls and skeletons of dead rebels disinterred to provide more drama. The image reveals how easy it would have been to collect human remains during the uprising. (Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 31: ‘Fugitive sepoys’ fleeing into the Himalayas. Contemporary illustration which probably took a pre-existing image of the mountain range and added a more exciting title. (Author’s collection)
Image 32: A captured rebel guarded by Indian policemen. (Author’s collection)
Image 33: Sepoys about to be blown from a cannon. (Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 34: The spectacle of colonial retribution—sepoys being blown from cannon. (Courtesy of Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library)
Image 35: ‘The king’s slaughtering place’ at Kumasi, which Stanley described as ‘the great Golgotha’ during the Ashanti Expedition in 1874. (Illustrated London News, 1874)
Image 36: Trophy-skull from a sepoy executed at Sialkot, which has been turned into a cigar-box, and which was exhibited in 1911 at the Royal United Service Institution museum. (The Sphere, 1911)
Image 37: Photograph of Captain Thomas B. Ray, who served in the volunteer cavalry unit known as the Khakee Ressalah during the Indian Uprising. The skull is probably that of Shah Mall, a local rebel whose head was paraded on a lance. (Courtesy of the National Army Museum, Chelsea, London)
Image 38: The site of the battle of Trimmu Ghat as it appears today, looking from the southern shore of the Ravi River towards the island where the rebel took refuge. (Author’s photo)
Image 39: A piece of a sepoy’s skull with a bullet-hole clearly visible. This was excavated from the well at Ajanala in 2014, along with the remains of 281 other sepoys butchered by Cooper in July 1857. (Author’s photo)
Image 40: Shaloom, my guide in Sialkot, and the old caretaker of the Hunter Memorial Church, April 2017. (Author’s photo)
GLOSSARY
ayah Indian nanny
bania trader or moneylender
barkandaze matchlock man or armed guard
batta extra pay for military service outside British territories
bazaar market
bhang food or drink to which cannabis has been added
Bhumihar agricultural Brahmin, often employed as sepoys
Brahmin high-caste Hindu, often employed as sepoys
Chamar caste of tanners, untouchable
charas hashish
charpoy light Indian bedstead
chauki police post
chaukidar police officer or watchman
chauprassi police officer or messenger
cote bell-of-arms, small structure where muskets were kept
dak official mail
darogha police or prison officer
dhoti cloth worn by sepoys instead of trousers when out of uniform
fakir Muslim ascetic or mendicant
ganja cannabis
ghat landing place
Gujar pastoralist caste, often described as ‘predatory’ during the Indian Uprising
havildar sergeant
jemadar lieutenant
kaffir infidel
khalasi low-caste worker
khansama house-steward or cook
khitmutgar servant
kotwali police station
lathi staff or metal-studded stick
lota brass drinking vessel used by high-caste Hindus
Mehtar caste of sweepers and scavengers
munshi clerk or learned man
naik corporal
nullah ravine or creek
panchayat council or meeting
perwanah official proclamation or letter
Purbiya literally: easterner, refers to sepoys from Awadh and Bihar
Rajput high-status Hindu warrior or cultivator
ryot peasant
salaam formal greeting
sati widow-burning
sepoy private infantry soldier—sometimes spelt sipahi
serai resting place or shelter for travellers
sowar cavalry trooper
subadar captain
syce groom or grass-cutter
‘Thug’ highway robber and bandit-retainer
‘Thuggee’ the phenomenon or practice of ‘Thugs’
tulwar curved Indian sword
yogi Hindu ascetic or mendicant
zamindar landholder or petty ruler
A NOTE ON SPELLING
Colonial spelling was invariably inconsistent and Sialkot, for instance, might thus appear both as Sealkote and Seealkot. While I recognise the colonial connotations of nineteenth-century transliteration, I have retained the original spelling in quotes to avoid confusion and to stay as close to the primary material as possible. Throughout this book I refer to the events of 1857–8 as the Indian Uprising. I use ‘Mutiny’ to refer to the manner in which the British conceived and commemorated these events.
PROLOGUE
THE SKULL IN THE PUB
In 1963, the new owner of The Lord Clyde, a pub in the eastern English coastal town of Walmer in Kent, discovered a human skull stowed away under some disused crates and boxes in a small lumber room in the back of the building. The skull was missing its lower jaw, the few remaining teeth were loose, and it had the deep sepia hue of old age. Inserted in the eye-socket was a neatly folded slip of old paper, a handwritten note that briefly outlined the skull’s history:
‘Skull of Havildar “Alum Bheg,” 46th Regt. Bengal N. Infantry who was blown away from a gun, amongst several others of his Regt. He was a principal leader in the mutiny of 1857 & of a most ruffianly disposition. He took possession (at the head of a small party) of the road leading to the fort, to which place all the Europeans were hurrying for safety. His party surprised and killed Dr. Graham shooting him in his buggy by the side of his daughter. His next victim was the Rev. Mr. Hunter, a missionary, who was flying with his wife and daughters in the same direction. He murdered Mr Hunter, and his wife and daughters after being brutally treated were butchered by the road side.
Alum Bheg was about 32 years of age; 5 feet 7 ½ inches high and by no means an ill looking native.
The skull was brought home by Captain (AR) Costello (late Capt. 7th Drag. Guards), who was on duty when Alum Bheg was executed.’
In the exuberant handwriting typical of the late nineteenth century, the note purposefully seeks to breathe life into the inanimate skull. The sparse text conjures up the image of Alum Bheg, the alleged perpetrator of such horrible deeds, by describing his age, his height, his personality (‘ruffianly disposition’), and his appearance (not ‘ill looking’). Apart from his exotic name, the qualifying descriptor of his being a ‘native’ further emphasises his racial otherness. The text is in many ways closed and self-referential and the reader is presumed to already know and appreciate its context. There is, for instance, no indication as to why Alum Bheg would have murdered these people, apart from his innate ‘ruffianly’ character. Yet the allusions to the ‘Bengal Native Infantry’ and ‘mutiny’, would have rendered a
ny such explanations superfluous within a British Victorian context.
As a ‘principal leader’ of the Indian Uprising of 1857, Alum Bheg is thus immediately identifiable as a deceitful conspirator, in the mould perhaps of well-known Indian rebels like Nana Sahib or the Rani of Jhansi. The description of the ambush and callous murders of innocent Europeans fleeing for their lives corresponds to the dramatic imagery associated with the event that the British referred to simply as the ‘Mutiny’. The allusion to the ‘brutal treatment’ of the women is respectably vague but nevertheless hints at a sexual attack, thus drawing upon one of the most potent tropes of the British colonial imagination. Within the British Empire, rebellion was synonymous with the subversion of racial hierarchies and the inevitable rape and murder of white woman by dark-skinned men. The details of Alum Bheg’s alleged crimes account for much of the brief note but are prefaced by the description of his execution and the brutal technique deployed: being blown from a cannon. The text describes the threat to British rule in India, but the skull itself testifies to the defeat of that threat. It thus establishes the skull as both a relic of Indian savagery and as a trophy of colonial retribution. The skull of Alum Bheg is the ultimate proof of colonial power.
The brief note accompanying the skull was the only clue to its origin, and nobody at the time knew how it ended up in The Lord Clyde to be discovered more than a century after Alum Bheg’s execution. The ‘nerve-shattering discovery’ was duly reported in the local press in 1963, including photographs of the new owners of the pub proudly posing with the grisly trophy. The skull was subsequently put on display at The Lord Clyde as a mascot, and when the owners died it was finally passed on to their relatives, who kept it hidden away in a cupboard.
* * *
In 2014, as I was sitting in my office in Mile End in London, writing about colonial executions, I received an email from the couple who had come into possession of the skull. They did not feel comfortable with the ‘thing’ in their house, and yet did not know what to do with it. Having tried and failed to find anything out about Alum Bheg on the internet, they came upon my name as a historian with an interest in the Indian Uprising. My curiosity was obviously piqued, but I also did not really know what to make of the story. After further correspondence, we agreed that I would come and collect the skull in order to conduct further research, and, if possible, verify its provenance. It was clear from the outset that the skull belonged neither in their attic, nor in my office, and we agreed that the final aim of my research should be to prepare for Alum Bheg to be repatriated to India, if at all possible. And so it was that I found myself standing at a small train-station in Essex, on a wet November day, with a human skull in my bag. Not just any skull, but one directly linked to a part of history that I write about and that I teach my students every year.
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