As the days passed, the once deserted streets slowly came back to life, and when Vivian Majendie passed the bazaar for the last time, he found it thronged with merchants, beggars, chattering children, and the usual sights and sounds that were typical of an Indian bazaar, so far removed from the scenes that had been common-place not so many days before.
Although the Mutiny was approaching its final stages, the prospect of spending further time in India had become less than attractive, even to seasoned campaigners, and many officers sought their release on medical grounds. Mr A.N. Bradshaw, an assistant surgeon, was quite indignant. He wrote:
It is remarkable how greatly love of England became developed in officers during the Campaign. I have learnt that as many as 300 have tried either to resign or get leave to go home on urgent private affairs. But old Colin is inexorable: ‘No private affairs here, if you please gentlemen, rumour says was his dry answer to applications. Were it not for the pay which is a good bait for the higher ranks but a mere pittance for us subalterns, it would be absolutely impossible to keep gentlemen in India; the climate and the natives are barely supportable even in the comfort of cantonments, but on service they are intolerable.
The fall of Delhi had been instrumental to a successful prosecution of the campaign in Oudh and now with the occupation of Lucknow, the cause of the mutineers had been lost, although the rebellion was far from being suppressed. Much of Oudh, Rohilkhand and a vast track of central India had still to be pacified, and it was not to be until 8 July 1859 that Earl Canning would announce that a ‘State of Peace’ now reigned throughout India.
Chapter 14
THE DEMISE OF THE NANA
The rebel leader most wanted by the British, next to the Nana Sahib, was Tatya Tope. In company with Rao Sahib he had fled across the Chambal river into Rajputana with an army of 5,000 and ten guns, using guerrilla tactics to harass the British troops sent in pursuit, for the next seven months.
He was overtaken at Rajgarth by Major General Sir Hugh Rose in September 1858 and forced to give battle, where he was defeated, losing all of his artillery. But he escaped capture and with a number of supporters, joined forces with Rao Sahib again in the following October. At the end of the month, having lost half their men from sickness and desertion, the two rebel leaders decided to march south to Nagpur territory hoping to raise support for their cause. The peasantry there were unsympathetic and, harried by Rose’s column, they recrossed the Nerbudda river before meeting up in January with Firuz Shah, a Moghul prince, at Indragarh, a town in Rajputana.
Hotly pursued by the British, their forces suffered another defeat at Sikar on 21 January and the three rebel leaders decided to part company. Tatya Tope took to the jungle around Paron, whilst Rao Sahib and Firuz Shah successfully evaded the patrols sent to apprehend him, and sought refuge in the jungles of Sironj.
Chasing the remnants of the Gwalior Contingent ‘from the Jumna to the Dekkan and back again, had given the grey beards of our service a lesson in marching which had never entered their philosophy,’ wrote John Henry Silvester, a 27-year-old cavalry surgeon. ‘The energy thrown into the pursuit was immense … Force after force and column after column pulled up dead beaten.’
In April 1859 Tatya Tope was betrayed by Maun Singh, the Rajah of Narwar, acting on the promise that the British would help him regain territory confiscated by the Maharajah Sindhia, a supporter of the Raj. On the pretext of seeking his advice on the possibility of throwing in his lot with Firuz Shah, he requested a meeting, to which Tatya Tope agreed. They did in fact have a long discussion, after which the rebel leader rested. At a signal, sepoys who had lain in ambush closed in and arrested him, Maun Singh himself securing his arms. On the 15th, a court martial convened at Sipree charged Tatya Tope ‘with having been in rebellion and having waged war against the British Government between June 1857 and December 1858 in certain specified instances’.
The rebel leader’s defence rested upon the fact that he was merely obeying his master’s orders, and in referring to the massacre at the Satichaura Ghat, he was careful to absolve both himself and the Nana of any responsibility. ‘I went out and got ready forty boats, and having caused all the gentlemen, ladies and children to get into the boats, I started them off to Allahabad,’ he explained to the Court. He went on to say, ‘I only obeyed, in all things that I did, my master’s orders up to the capture of Kalpi and afterwards, those of Rao Sahib. I have nothing to state except that I have had nothing to do with the murder of any European men, women or children.’
The Court refused to accept his statement and sentenced him to be hung at 4.00 pm on 18 April. His execution at Sipi was witnessed by many hundreds of natives and troops of General Rose’s command. After the execution it was said that ‘a great scramble was made by officers and others to get a lock of his hair’.
Rao Sahib evaded capture until 1862 when he too was betrayed. Rao Sahib was tried before an Indian jury who were unconvinced by the evidence put before them, and only returned a guilty verdict of ‘modified rebellion’. The judge, however, overruled them and sentenced Rao Sahib to death. He was hanged at the Satichaura Ghat on 20 August. As for Firuz Shah, he survived the Mutiny, escaping to Mecca where he died in poverty in 1877.
There remains something of a mystery concerning the fate of the Nana Sahib.
Earlier intelligence of the Nana’s movements was often contradictory and when on 10 February 1858 a rumour had it that he had crossed the river with the intention of entering Bundelkhand, it was greeted with scepticism. Lieutenant Roberts, who at that time was encamped at Unao, certainly gave little credence to the report. ‘Wolf had been cried so often with regard to him,’ he wrote, ‘that but little notice was taken until my faithful spy, Ungud Tewari, brought me intelligence that the miscreant really was hiding in a small fort about 25 miles from our camp.’
This was at Fatehpur Chaurasi, a village on the banks of the Ganges, and Hope Grant was sent to investigate. The General set off with a detachment of cavalry and reached the fort early on the 17th only to discover that the Nana had made a hasty departure only hours before. Subsequent reports proved to be just as frustrating. One sighting had it that he was near the River Dogra with his entourage, and this was followed a few days later by news that he was at Shajahanpur on his way to Bareilly.
Other sightings quickly followed but early in April, confirmation that the Nana Sahib had crossed the Ganges near Bithur with an escort of 500 horsemen in a bid to reach the Jumna was received by General Sir James Hope Grant, who was soon on his track and the Nana was obliged to retire on Rohilkhand. Towards the end of the month he was back in Shajahanpur where he again avoided a party of cavalry which had crossed the Ranganga in pursuit of him.
Capturing the fleeing Nana was now one of the principal British war aims – not only was there a price upon his head of Rs. 100,000, but an unconditional pardon was to be the reward of any mutineer whose information led to the apprehension of ‘the beast of Bithur’. The offer, although leading to nothing of value, did have the effect of producing a letter addressed to Queen Victoria, supposedly from the Nana since it had his seal. Dated 29 April 1859, it read:
I have committed no murders. All I could save by any means I did save, and when they left the entrenchments I provided the boats in which to send them down to Allahabad. Your sepoys attacked them. By means of entreaties I saved the lives of 200 English women and children. I have heard they were killed by your sepoys and budmashes at the time my soldiers fled Cawnpore and my brother was wounded.
John Lang, a barrister who had once acted for the Rani of Jhansi before the uprising, was doubtful whether the Nana could in all fairness be blamed for the massacre at the Ghat. In his book, Wanderings in India, he submits that:
Nana Sahib had seen so much of English gentlemen and ladies, was personally (if not intimately) acquainted with so many of the sufferers, that it is only fair to suppose, when he ordered the boats to be got ready, he was sincere in his desire that the Christians sho
uld find their way to Calcutta, and what ensued was in violation of his orders and the act of those who wished to place for ever between Nana Sahib and the British Govern-ment an impassable barrier, so far as peace and reconciliation were concerned.
With regard to John Lang’s submission, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the massacre resulted from a mass hysteria quite beyond the Nana Sahib’s ability to control, and that the order for the killings at the Bibigarh could in all fairness be attributed to Hussaini Khanum, the Nana’s mistress and Begum of the Bibigarh.
For six months following the suppression of the Mutiny, the pursuit of the Nana and his followers was relentless, with the Nana always one step ahead of his pursuers.
In December 1859, both he and the Begum of Oudh were reported to be in the town of Bahraich. Sir Colin Campbell, or Lord Clyde as he then was, acted promptly by crossing the River Gogra from Faisabad, to reach the town on the 17th. Again the Nana evaded capture and nine days later Lord Clyde’s troopers entered Buridiah, a fortified village 17 miles from Bahraich where the Nana was said ‘to have stayed for a few days’. Early the next morning the punitive column closed on the fort of Majidiah – ‘a dun coloured parapet of mud with three embras-sured bastions’ was how an observer described the fort before artillery reduced it to so much rubble.
‘I do not think we have the slightest chance of catching him,’ observed an officer engaged in the hunt, ‘as the country is so covered with clumps of trees and high crops that a mounted man can disappear in a few minutes.’
The terrain bordering Nepal as it then was, abounding in rivers and forests, dotted with swamps and completely bereft of roads, was largely unfamiliar to the British military, nevertheless, despite the hard going and the uncertainty of whether Lord Canning would sanction a pursuit across the Nepalese border, Lord Clyde’s column pressed steadily onwards. As William Howard Russell reminded the readers of The Times: ‘The mere chance of capturing the Nana Sahib, killing and dispersing some of the desperadoes around him before the old year closed, seemed to justify an undertaking which was esteemed hopeless by those most conversant with Indian warfare.’
Christmas Day 1859 was spent by Lord Clyde’s forces close to the Terrai and celebrated by the officers and men as if they had been in England. The tables, set up in the brightly lit tents, groaned beneath barons of beef, turkeys, mutton, game, fish, and other ‘other delights not often found even in the best of camps’, explained one delighted officer. Even The Times correspondent, as he looked with satisfaction on ‘beakers of pale ale from distant Trent or Glasgow, Champagne, Moselle, Sherry, curious old Port – rather bothered by travelling 20 miles a day on the back of camels – plum puddings and mince pies’, could not help thinking how different campaigning was in India compared with his experiences in the Crimea.
Later, on New Year’s Day, word reached Lord Clyde that rebel troops were concentrating in the town of Bankee, close to the Nepalese border. The chance of taking them by surprise was slight, and a night march across unfamiliar country was hardly to be desired, nevertheless, despite the difficulties, the troops detailed for the operation set off at 8.30 pm, with just a glimmer of light from a lantern tied to the tail of an elephant to guide their path. Contrary to expectations, the vanguard made such good progress that a halt was made near a tope of trees and, wrapped in their greatcoats against a bitterly cold wind sweeping down from the Himalayas, the Rifle Brigade and a battalion of the 20th of Foot enjoyed the unexpected treat of a few hours of refreshing sleep.
Early the next morning, as the column neared Bankee, 93 miles NE of Lucknow, a strong picket of rebel cavalry were sighted by a patrol of Hussars, who spurred forward to take them completely by surprise. A captured sowar told Russell later that the first indication they had of the proximity of the British ‘was the sound of their carbines opening fire on the rebels’ rearguard’. In spite of the enemy taking up a position between ‘a long deep swamp’ to their front and ‘a dense high wall of jungle’ behind, the outcome was never in doubt. The one disappointment lay in the fact that the Nana Sahib, warned of the approach of the British, had loaded an elephant with treasure and made haste to cross the Raptee.
‘The Nana was in the wood a couple of miles in the rear,’ The Times correspondent reported. ‘He at once gave orders for flight, had his eight elephants loaded, and made straight off to the Raptee, which he crossed, no doubt long before our cavalry reached its banks.’ From his observation post on the high ground overlooking a spreading plain, William Howard Russell saw that the retreating rebel force had split into two groups, one heading towards the river pursued by the Hussars, whilst the other dashed for a belt of jungle growing as a dense wall of foliage as far as the eye could see.
A rebel battery of six cannon had been ranged across the river against the British cavalry, but in an action which Russell described as being ‘one of those wonderful spectacles only to be seen in actual war, and of which peace has no counterpart’, the Hussars stretched their horses into a mad gallop as they ran the gauntlet of shell bursts along the river’s bank, in an attempt to close on the ford. As Russell watched, the mutineers urged their mounts into the water and within minutes the river was awash with struggling men and horses. The fast-moving current was equally treacherous to both sides and several Hussars and sowars were swept away and drowned. Among those unfortunates was the Colonel of the 7th Hussars. When his body was recovered later from a deep recess in the bank, it was seen that he had a firm grip on two of his assailants.
The next day a number of rebel leaders rode into the British camp at Bankee to surrender their arms, but neither the Nana nor any of his relatives were among those seeking an amnesty. His brother, Bala Rao, had escaped to seek refuge in a partially ruined fort 12 miles from Bankee, to be joined soon after by a local rebel leader by the name of Muhammad Hussain. Their combined strength, however, failed to check an attack mounted by General Hope Grant and the rebel band was forced to flee eastward towards Kandakot, a half-ruined fort on the edge of the jungle close to where two streams converged to form the Rapti.
On 4 January 1860, following up their recent engagement, Hope Grant’s cavalry had no trouble in driving out those who remained, for, as reported by the General: ‘All the courage had been driven out of the faint hearted wretches, they would not stand for a moment, running away like wild fire and leaving their 15 guns in our possession.’
With the defeat of the Nana and his brother Rao, the sepoy uprising was virtually at an end. Lord Clyde returned to Lucknow leaving his army to keep a careful watch on the passes, and with the exception of one incident in April when a group of mutineers crossed into Oudh and caused a disturbance near the town of Sikrova, the province was left in peace.
Shortly after Sir James Hope Grant’s confrontation with the rebels at Kandakot, a native brought him a message allegedly from the Nana. In it he bitterly condemned British rule, ending his protest with the words: ‘What right have you to occupy India and declare me an outlaw? Who gave you the right to rule over India? What! You, Firangis, are kings and we thieves in this our country?’
If the message was indeed genuine, then it was probably one of the last the Nana wrote, for on 13 May, the Commissioner for the North-West Provinces was notified that as ‘the Nana had failed to avail himself of the terms of the Royal Proclamation, those terms would no longer be extended to him. If he did approach the authorities with an offer to surrender, he must be told that he would be granted “a fair trial and nothing more”.’ Faced with this uncompromising situation, the Nana had little choice but to take flight for the foothills of the Himalayas.
In his escape from Bithur the Nana had carried away much of his jewellery and family treasure, a provision no doubt appreciated by Jung Bahadur, the less than sympathetic Prime Minister of Nepal, who, whilst not actually offering the Nana sanctuary, nevertheless agreed to aid his progress towards Tibet. The most valuable piece in the Nana’s collection was a long necklace of high-quality pearls, diamonds and em
eralds. As a condition of his agreement of support, Jung Bahadur offered to purchase the necklace at a fraction of its true worth. Nana Sahib was hardly in a position to bargain, and given an assurance that he could rely upon the protection of the Prime Minister, he accepted the offer before resuming his flight westward towards the district of Butwal. Five months later, in October 1860, the British Resident at Katmundu was informed by Jung Bahadur that the Nana had died on 24 September from fever contracted in the Dang district of the Nepal Terrai. Major Ramsay, who telegraphed the news to the Governor General, was inclined to believe it, reckoning that the rainy season, together with the unhealthy reputation of the Terrai, had also taken its toll of the Nana’s supporters. However, he added a note of caution: ‘It is not unlikely that the Nepalese Government may have connived at his escape into the mountains, but I have no grounds for asserting that they have done so.’
Further reports seemed to confirm the truth of Jung Bahadur’s message and by the end of the year it was widely assumed that the Nana had indeed died in the jungles of Nepal. One person who did have doubts was the Secretary of State, Charles Wood, who wrote to Lord Canning early in 1861 that Ramsay’s report on the death of the Nana was ‘not decisive’, and that he believed it was ‘very desirable that further efforts should be made to place the matter beyond reasonable doubt’. Colonel Ramsay, as he now was, was unable to provide firm evidence that the Nana still lived, and on 22 July 1861 wrote:
I have exhausted all the means of enquiry that I possessed but without being able to obtain any intelligence calculated to throw additional light upon the matter … if the Nana be still alive the secret is buried in the breast of the Maharajah Jung Bahadur, known only to himself and to the very few confidential agents here and in the district to whom he may have chosen to entrust it.
Cawnpore & Lucknow Page 24