The Skull of Alum Bheg

by Kim A. Wagner

  With the disbanded sepoys as the prime movers, networks of resistance to the perceived threat of the greased cartridges were being established and coordinated across the cantonments of northern India. ‘By degrees it became known in native society which regiments were disaffected,’ according to Mainodin, ‘and it began to be inculcated as a creed that every Purbeah must withdraw his friendship from the foreigner; must ignore his authority, and overthrow his rule. Although these sentiments had become national, the methods to be employed in carrying them into action were but indistinctly known…’32 Initially limited to the sepoys stationed in the vicinity of Calcutta, the disaffection had now spread far and wide, from Bengal to Punjab. At Sialkot, the Indian troops were somewhat shielded from the worst of the unrest, since the cantonment was essentially a border-post at the end of a road leading nowhere. There were numbers of sepoys attending the school of musketry, but unlike stations such as Ambala or Meerut, further down-country, there was no constant traffic of sepoys and camp-followers passing through. In March, however, the trouble reached Alum Bheg and the other sepoys at Sialkot in the form of one of the letters from the 34th, which brought home the seriousness of the situation in no uncertain terms. According to a contemporary British account:

  ‘A paper was found in the lines occupied by the sepoys attached to the musketry depôt, calling on them to resist the attempt to break their caste by compelling them to use a bullet greased with cow’s and pig’s fat, so that Mussulman and Hindoo should be alike dishonoured, and telling them to act like their “bhaies” at Barrackpore, and refuse to handle or bite the cartridge. The author of the notice remained undiscovered, and it was unknown whether he belonged to the Depôt or to one of the Regiments in cantonments.’33

  The wording of this letter, invoking the brotherhood between the Purbiya sepoys, was similar to that which reached dozens of other regiments posted elsewhere, and the central message was the same: ‘If you should receive these cartridges, intermarriage, and eating and drinking in common, shall cease between yourselves and us.’34 Matters had by then reached a point that the British had completely suspended the drill at the schools of musketry and the letter thus had no immediate effect at Sialkot. At the depot at Ambala, however, the unrest was keenly felt.

  Captain Edward Martineau, of the 10th BNI at Fatehgarh, was one of the officers attached to the Ambala depot as Instructor of Musketry, and maintained a close relationship with the sepoys. Just as had been the case at Sialkot, rumours about greased cartridges, and news of the later disbandment of the 19th and 34th, had reached Ambala without causing much of a stir. In March, however, one of the sepoys came to Martineau with a letter from his brother, who was stationed at Cawnpore, and asked the officer to explain it to him. The letter consisted of the usual greetings and news of family matters, but ended on a curious note of caution: ‘But oh brother! Have you eaten any of that flour? Some of it has arrived here, & I have not cooked in consequence for two days, look out for it at Umballa.’35 Martineau was as puzzled as the sepoy and asked him to go back to the lines and make enquiries among his comrades about the peculiar warning. A few days later, the sepoy returned and told Martineau of a new rumour current amongst the Indian troops at the depot: ground bones were said to have been mixed in flour and all the flour from the Government depots for the supply of troops on the march was so adulterated.’36 This bizarre story was circulating in other parts of northern India as well, in various versions involving different foodstuffs and pollutants:

  ‘It was said that the officers of the British government, under command from the Company and the Queen, had mixed ground bones with flour and the salt sold in the Bazaars; that they had adulterated all the ghi with animal fat; that bones had been burnt with the common sugar of the country; and that not only bone-dust flour, but the flesh of cows and pigs, had been thrown into the wells to pollute the drinking water of the people. Of this great imaginary scheme of contamination the matter of the greased cartridges was but a part, especially addressed to one part of the community. All classes, it was believed, were to be defiled at the same time; and the story ran that the “bara sahibs,” or great English lords, had commanded all princes, nobles, landholders, merchants, and cultivators of the land, to feed together upon English bread.’37

  Even more puzzling, was the circulation of chapattis, small unleavened bread, which were passed from village to village by local watchmen throughout the Indian countryside. Nobody, apparently, knew where they had come from or what they meant. The chapattis never reached as far north as Ambala, or Sialkot, but they were talked about everywhere and Martineau again turned to the sepoys:

  ‘I asked them what they understood in reference to them, and by whom they supposed that they were circulated; they described them to me as being in size and shape like ship biscuits, and believed them to have been distributed by order of Government through the medium of their servants for the purpose of intimating to the people of Hindoostan that they should all be compelled to eat the same food, and that was considered as a token that they should likewise be compelled to embrace one faith, or, as they termed it, “One food and one faith.”’38

  There was in other words a clear pattern to the rumours and peculiar stories current amongst both sepoys and the local population—all of which shared the common theme of a British conspiracy to deliberately undermine the purity of their religious identities. Martineau suspected that these stories had been deliberately spread to unite both Hindus and Muslims against the British, but was unsure who might be behind them. Shortly afterwards, the arrival at Ambala of the commander-in-chief, Major-General Anson, again brought the cartridge issue to the fore. Anson’s escort was made up of a detachment of the 36th BNI, and two Indian officers from the same regiment, who were at Ambala for instructions at the depot, went down to the camp to greet their comrades on 19 March.39 What should have been a friendly reunion did not turn out as expected. As one British officer described it:

  ‘What was their amazement at finding themselves taunted with having become Christians, and that by a subahdar, a native commissioned officer of their corps! They had looked for the wonted greeting, “Ram! Ram!” after a separation of some weeks, but instead of this were branded as out-castes; the lotah and hookah, the water-vessel and the pipe, those love-tokens of Hindoo brother-hood, were withheld from them; they had touched the greased cartridge, and become impure.’40

  Thus rebuffed by men of their own regiment, the two NCOs went to Martineau and despairingly told him what had just happened. According to Martineau, one of the two ‘blubbered like a child in my room for an hour because his brethren in the corps had refused to eat with him.’41 It is worth bearing in mind that the sepoys at the schools of musketry had not in fact handled greased cartridges at any point, yet undergoing the instruction in and of itself made them outcastes in the eyes of their brothers. During his subsequent enquiries, Martineau made a number of extremely worrying discoveries about the state of the sepoy army. According to Martineau, the sepoys at Ambala generally believed that the cartridges for the Enfield had been smeared with cow’s and pig’s fat to destroy their religion, and that ‘in fact, the weapon itself is nothing more or less than a Government missionary [sic] to convert the whole army to Christianity.’42 Martineau was also told that there were panchayats, or councils, in all the Indian regiments across the subcontinent, which were communicating on the matter of the cartridges. Furthermore, ‘the army at large has come to the determination to regard as outcasts, and to expel from all communication any men who at any of the depots use the cartridges at all.’43 The recent events at Ambala convinced Martineau of its truth and the sepoys with whom he talked certainly believed that all Indian regiments ‘from Calcutta to Peshawar’ were colluding, and the officer noted that the sepoys at the school were no longer in contact with their respective regiments; when they wrote letters, they received no reply.44

  Using Martineau as a mediator, the sepoys undergoing training at the Ambala depot subsequently pet
itioned Major-General Anson to consider the ‘social consequences of military obedience for themselves’.45 In Martineau’s own opinion these men were all loyal but ‘prone to fits of religious panic that no rational explanation or measures could allay. He had been unable to discover what was behind the present unrest, ‘but I am disposed to regard the greased cartridges … more as a medium than the original cause of this widespread feeling of distrust that is spreading dissatisfaction to our rule, and tending to alienate the fidelity of our native army.’46 Martineau proved to be a remarkably astute observer, a rare quality amongst the British at the time, and his assessment was entirely correct. Although the greased cartridges became the trigger for the outbreak in the Bengal Army, the fact was that the sepoys’ fears stemmed from much bigger issues.

  * * *

  Contrary to popular belief, the East India Company did not pursue an official policy of Christian evangelising, even if many officials privately supported such efforts.47 Missionaries were only reluctantly allowed to operate in India after 1813, and foreign churches, such as Andrew Gordon’s American Presbyterians, only after 1833. It was feared, and with some reason, that the activities of missionaries might provoke unrest amongst the local population and increase resentment against the colonial state at a more general level. The British authorities were particularly worried that proselytising might alienate their Indian troops, and a sepoy who converted to Christianity in 1819 was promptly removed from his regiment, while some Company officials actually blamed the mutiny at Barrackpore in 1824 on the presence of missionaries in the area. It also caused some embarrassment to the Army when it emerged in 1857 that the British commander of the 34th BNI had been preaching to the sepoys. When called upon to explain himself, Colonel Wheler stated that for the past twenty years he had ‘been in the habit of speaking to the natives of all classes, sepoys and other, making no distinction, since there is no respect for persons with God, on the subject of our religion, in the highways, cities, bazaars and villages (not in the lines and regimental bazaars).’48 Wheler was subsequently declared unfit to command a regiment.

  While the actual number of Indians converted during the first half of the nineteenth century was negligible, the underhanded methods used by some missionaries, including the conversion of orphans they adopted, led to considerable resentment. Missionary schooling as a deliberate tool for proselytising, such as that undertaken by Thomas Hunter at Sialkot, was also becoming more common, and conversion as a means of upward mobility for lower castes implicitly challenged the existing social order. If the numbers of missionaries were small, considering the size of the subcontinent, they nevertheless made their presence felt. At Sialkot, Gordon described how his small outfit operated in the bazaars, and how their efforts were received by the local population:

  ‘Sometimes we have had very attentive audiences—the people, apparently, at least, listening with much interest. At other time we have met with a great deal of boisterous opposition—the people hooting after us, and manifesting all the contempt they were capable of, even proceeding so far as to inform us that if they had the power they would kill us. The most of this opposition proceeds from Mohammedans. These deluded followers of the false prophet are most malignant in their opposition to the meek and lowly Jesus. The Hindu, with his subtle notions about the transmigration of souls and absorption into the Deity, is equally averse to the gospel in heart, but not by any means so ready to destroy its advocates.’49

  The anger expressed against Gordon and the others, however, was not simply a reflection of an innate animosity against Christianity, as much as it was a response to what the missionaries were preaching. If Hunter and Gordon’s letters are anything to go by, the content of their sermons was not exactly aimed at engaging their local audience in a respectful manner. Thomas Hunter described his work at Sialkot in stark terms, claiming it was nothing less than a struggle between the forces of good and evil:

  ‘Every day impresses me more deeply with the importance of this undertaking which the Church has put in my hands. At the very outset we are met by difficulties of no mean character. It is not too much to say that our way seems to be hedged up with thorns. There are such obstacles to the preaching and teaching of Christ crucified as the people of Scotland cannot have much idea of. Verily “Satan’s seat” appears to be in this place. Sialkot is a stronghold in which his followers stand garrisoned. Every point is defended—every motion of the Gospel messenger is watched—every effort on his part they try to counteract. Oh! for the wisdom of serpents and the harmlessness of doves.’50

  Gordon was hardly less conciliatory when he described the conditions that prevailed in Punjab: ‘The deepest ignorance, the foulest pollution, the grossest superstition, and the darkest crimes are committed and defended all around us.’51 According to Ahmed Khan, the very approach taken by Christian missionaries was extremely provocative:

  ‘The missionaries moreover introduced a new system of preaching. They took to printing and circulating controversial tracts, in the shape of questions and answers. Men of a different faith were spoken of in a most offensive and irritating way. In Hindustan these things have always been managed very differently. Every man in this country preaches and explains his views in his own Mosque, or his own house. If any one wishes to listen to him, he can go to the Mosque, or house, and hear what he has to say. But the Missionaries’ plan was exactly the opposite. They used to attend the places of public resort, markets for instance, and fairs, where men of different creeds collected together, and used to begin preaching to them. It was only from fear of the authorities that no one bid them be off about their business. In some districts the Missionaries were actually attended by Policemen from the station. And then the Missionaries did not confine themselves to explaining the doctrines of their books. In violent and unmeasured language they attacked the followers and the holy places of other creeds: annoying, and insulting beyond expression, the feelings of those who listened to them. In this way too the seeds of discontent were sown deep in the hearts of the people.’52

  Although the East India Company and its administration had no plans to convert the Indian population, cases such as those of Colonel Wheler made it near impossible for Indians to discern the subtle distinction between personal conviction and official policy. At Sialkot, the distinction would indeed have been hard for Alum Bheg to make: The Holy Trinity Church in the cantonment had been built using the stones of a dismantled local fortress, while the roof was made in part from the metal of the weapons surrendered by the Sikh army in 1849—symbolically suggestive of a strong link between the British conquest of Punjab and the establishment of a Christian community.53 Poorly-translated fire and brimstone sermons, shouted by the likes of Thomas Hunter or Andrew Gordon in the busiest part of the bazaar, might thus only too easily be heard as if they were Government proclamations. According to Hedayut Ali, missionaries would challenge local religious leaders and ask them:

  ‘why they shut up their women, that they ought to let them out like women of other countries, told them that they ought not to circumcise their children or give them the Janeo,54 or marry them until they were 18 years of age, and that none of the above forms should be carried out without the permission of the Magistrate of the District. These questions and remarks caused great fear in the minds of both the Mahomedans and the Hindoos; they said amongst themselves, if the Government insists upon our acting up to these orders, what next shall we not be compelled to do against our customs and religion? […] The Missionaries of the Mofussil also spoke to the same effect to the Villagers, so that all, more or less, became alarmed for their religion, and displeased with the Government, for they thought the Missionaries dare not give such orders without the consent of the Government.’55

  British commentators at the time regarded Indian opposition to social reforms as evidence of the superstition and prejudice of their subjects, which ultimately legitimised colonial rule. Yet people did not simply object to such reforms because they contravened their
religious scriptures and traditions, but rather because they reflected the intrusion into everyday life of a foreign government. The abolition of sati in 1829, for instance, did not directly affect many Indians—it was an extremely rare practice with fewer than a thousand cases being recorded in Bengal between 1815 and 1829.56 With the passing of the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856, the British nevertheless appeared to continue the same policy by allowing Hindu women to remarry after the death of their husbands. Women were also expected to leave purdah to receive treatment at newly established hospitals, while girls were being encouraged to attend school. As Ahmed Khan noted: ‘There was at the same time great deal of talk in Hindustan about female education. Men believed it to be the wish of Government, that girls should attend, and be taught at these Schools, and leave off the habit of sitting veiled. Anything more obnoxious than this to the feelings of the Hindustanees cannot be conceived.’57 British reforms accordingly provoked resentment because they directly interfered with some of the most intimate aspects of social life, touching on the key tenets of marriage and a woman’s role in society. For the ordinary Indian, it was virtually impossible to discern between the civilising and the proselytising zeal of the British, if indeed such a distinction existed. The cumulative effect of social reforms led Indian observers to believe that the British had no compulsions about intervening in people’s lives in profound ways, and would go to any lengths to secure their aims. Amongst the sepoys, and within the Indian population more generally, Ahmed Khan explained, British rule increasingly became synonymous with Christian rule: