ABSTRACT
The 1857 Rebellion alarmed the British in an unprecedented manner. The colonialist was not able to grasp the nature of anti-colonial anger and woke up to counter what was undoubtedly the most widespread military challenge faced by imperialism in the nineteenth century. As for the permanently settled tracts of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, we are told of ‘disturbances’ in Bihar, but relatively little about neighbouring Orissa – even though the 1857 Rebellion altered the situation there as well. Stung by the 1857 Rebellion, the colonial establishment responded to meet
the challenge in several ways. A major part of this process involved the counter-insurgency operations about which scholars working on the 1857 Rebellion tell us.1 However, what is normally not taken into account is the manner in which these operations incorporated aspects of ideological warfare to counter the Rebellion. These ranged from invoking racist myths to inventing a ‘history’ and ‘geography’ of 1857 that seem to have transcended the barrier of time.2 The ‘mutiny’ theme dominatedwhat accurately can be termed imperialist historiography – a characterisation that is repeated, maybe unconsciously, even today.3 Alongside, the effort was to focus narrowly and exclusively on 1857-58. This meant erasing the ‘pasts’ and the ‘futures’ of this phase. For instance, it meant obliterating the possibilities of seeing 1857 holistically as the culmination point of colonial loot and plunder (over the early part of the nineteenth century). In addition, it also ignored the way in which the Great Rebellion ‘survived’ and influenced anti-colonial protest in the period after this phase. However, can one afford to ignore the connections between 1857 and the
peasant/tribal revolts of the preceding phase? Or those uprisings/rebellions that occurred outside the northern region of India? One can refer here to the rebellions of the Bhills in 1852 (in Khandesh, Dhar and Malwa), the Santals in 1855-56 (in Rajmahal, Bhagalpur and Birbhum), the Mapillas over the 1836-54 period in Malabar, the Kandhas in Ghumsar and Baudh (1855-60), the Savaras of Parliakhemedi (1856-57). Or, for that matter, one can cite the Indigo Revolt in Bengal (which began in 1859 and was directed against white planters)4 – despite being told repeatedly about the role of the Permanent Settlement and the bhadraloks (the English-educated Bengali middle class) who supposedly left Bengal as a ‘zone of peace’ in this phase.
