Road to Rebellion

On the 71st anniversary of our independence, I propose that we also pay homage to a forgotten hero of the War of Independence from 1857. This leader of that great crisis is Azimullah Khan Yusufzai. He is also sometimes called ‘Krantidoot’ – Hindi for ‘ambassador of revolution’.

Great struggles elevate ordinary souls to heroic deeds. The War of Independence of 1857 was a clash of epic proportions. First the sepoys and then other Indians in the northern belt – from Bengal in the east through Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh to Punjab – rose up in revolt against British colonization of India.

Azimullah may have met with such eminent writers as Dickens, Carlyle, Meredith, Tennyson, Browning and Thackeray, who are known to have been frequent visitors to the Duff-Gordon home at the time

The revolt did not occur throughout the Subcontinent and remained restricted in varying degrees to certain areas and sections of society. Some influential local rulers were prudent or constrained enough to side with the British. These included such names as Hayat of Wah, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Abbasi of Bahawalpur, Nawab of Bhopal, Maharaja of Patiala and the Rajputs of Rajputana states. Of the three British East India Company armies in Bombay, Madras and Bengal, only the latter took up arms against their masters. The former two remained loyal to the colonisers.

This article is not about the causes of the War and its failure. It is only about Azimullah who was against the British rule throughout his life and, when the time came, played his role in the War of Independence. Some writers, including Syed Lutfullah in his Azimullah Khan Yusufzai: the man behind the War of Independence, 1857 and V.D. Savarkar in his The Indian war of independence, 1857 have assigned him a significant role for instigating the events of 1857. Others such as Maulana Azad in his lengthy foreword to SN Sen’s book Eighteen Fifteen Seven consider his role as being only peripheral while not denying his participation in that struggle.

Azimullah belonged to the Yusufzai clan that is settled in the Swat valley and the surrounding hills. Many families of this tribe migrated to India during 16th to 18th centuries, seeking a brighter future as soldiers in the local or imperial armies. As with all migrants, some realised their dream and rose in the political and military circles, while others lived a life of scarcity. Azimullah’s family fell in the latter category.

The opium driven economy of British East India Company caused many famines with cruel regularity. The famines were particular severe when the failure of rains compounded the situation. There was a severe famine in 1837-38 when, first, the monsoons failed in the summer of 1837 and then the winter rains also failed in early 1838. The opium producing Ganges-Yamuna riverine area was particularly affected because the drug production left no reserves of grain for lean years. The population between Delhi and Allahabad suffered the brunt of shortages. Nearly 800,000 people and a greater number of livestock died. The East India Company, ever concerned only with its profits, provided little help to the affected population. According to the Imperial Gazetteer of India, relief was limited to the able- bodied persons while charitable relief was left to the private efforts.

Azimullah’s family was not doing well at the time, and were severely affected by the famine. To survive, Azimullah and his mother took shelter in Kanpur with a church-run kitchen. To earn his living, Azimullah had to wait at dining tables. He also worked as a kitchen boy with an Anglo-Indian family while his mother worked as a maid. This period nourished his propensity for anti-British consciousness. Perhaps, his young mind was affected by the haughty behaviour of the usually arrogant British military officers and soldiers.

However, the assiduous Azimullah used his time in the company of the British to learn English and French, not a mean achievement in that era. He then got enrolled in Kapur Free School, where after a decade of studies, he was employed as a teacher. His reputation as a learned scholar spread to the Maratha royal ears at Kanpur. He was appointed as a secretary in the court of Nana Sahib but was subsequently promoted to the highest office of Dewan, literally the Prime Minister.

The once mighty Maratha empire had been reduced to a British vassal after the Third Anglo-Maratha War of 1817-1818. The Peshwa Baji Rao II was exiled to Bithoor, a holy town on the right bank of the Ganges, 24 kilometres from Kanpur. The Peshwa maintained a large establishment paid out of a pension of £80,000 given by the East India Company.

The Company had been following an aggressive policy to enlarge the area under their direct rule. Lord Dalhousie, the British Governor General of India from 1848 to 1856, according to some the prime catalyst for the War of Independence, devised a so called Doctrine of Lapse. The doctrine stipulated that if the ruler of a State under the direct influence of the Company died without a natural heir, the state would be annexed to the Company rule. The British used this doctrine to annex a number of Indian states.

Baji Rao II too was issueless and had adopted Nana Sahib as his son and heir. However, the British, refusing to accept this arrangement, annexed the Maratha territory and stopped paying the pension. While Nana Sahib was wealthy, he felt humiliated by the loss of various titles and grants. He decided to contest his case with the British in England and nominated his trusted Dewan Azimullah to represent him.

Azimullah arrived in London in 1853 and becoming well versed in the local customs was accepted in the high society. Attracted by his pleasant personality and fine speech, several Englishwomen fell in love with this bejewelled Indian raja. Some of these women continued to write affectionate letters to him after he returned to India. When the British army captured Kanpur in 1857, they found several letters addressed to ‘Darling Azimullah’.

When the British army captured Kanpur in 1857, they found several letters addressed to 'Darling Azimullah'

While in England, Azimullah came under the care of Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon, an intellectual and translator whose husband was a court functionary and a cousin to the British Prime Minister. Azimullah lodged with the Duff-Gordons at Esher. Though there is no recorded evidence, it can be surmised that while living with his hosts, Azimullah may have met with such eminent writers as Dickens, Carlyle, Meredith, Tennyson, Browning and Thackeray, who are known to have been frequent visitors to the Duff-Gordon home at the time.

However, despite developing favourable contacts, Azimullah failed to get Nana Sahib’s pension restored. This failure embittered him because he felt that the British had done an injustice due to pure avarice. It was also a motivating factor for Nana Sahib to align himself with the revolting sepoys.

Azimullah decided to sail back to India via Malta. In London, he had heard about the war in the Crimean peninsula with Russia on one side and the combined forces of Britain, France and Turkey on the other. It was a mammoth struggle with mobilisation of a million and a half troops of whom half would lose their life. Russian Empire ultimately lost the two and a half years long war to her combined foes. During his stopover in Malta, Azimullah heard that an allied attack against Sevastopol in June 1855 was repulsed by Russia, leading to the depression and death of British commander Field Marshal Lord FitzRoy Somerset. He was thrilled and realised that the British were not invincible. He decided to proceed to Constantinople to witness the events at first hand.

Time’s famed correspondent Sir William H. Russell was covering the Crimean War from Turkey. He was later ‘embedded’ with the British forces in the War of Independence. He wrote an eyewitness account of the war in his book titled My diary in India, in the year 1858-9. Russell met Azimullah in Constantinople. He writes that he met with an Indian prince of dark complexion, who spoke English and French and who expressed great joy at the discomfiture of the British. He also noted that the prince wanted to see the city where the British had lost the battle to the Russians. A common friend requested Russell to take Azimullah to the front lines, where the later witnessed the Russian artillery firing. Russell thought that the Indian’s interest in military affairs was very curious. During his travels in India with the British army, Russell was to hear about this Indian again. There are also unconfirmed reports that Azimullah went over to the Russian lines and discussed with some officials the possibility of their help in throwing out the British from India.

Azimullah came back to India with the idea of ousting the British from India and he planted seeds of rebellion in the mind of Nana Sahib. According to Russell, who had access to British intelligence, Azimullah accompanied Nana Sahib to Lucknow where they showed considerably hostility to the Europeans. Later, again according to Russell, the couple - a Muslim and a Hindu - went on a joint pilgrimage along the GT road as far as Ambala to tamper with the minds of the troops. Russell strongly suggests that the mutinous troops at Kanpur were induced by Nana Sahib to attack the local British garrison under the command of Major General Wheeler. The British were besieged. Azimullah held talks with the general and offered him a safe passage to Allahabad via boats through the Ganges River.

On the 23rd of June, the centenary of the Battle of Plassey, the British were brought to the river for evacuation to Allahabad. As the British were loaded in the boats at Satichaura Ghat, Nana’s general Tantia Tope and his Dewan Azimullah were seen on the banks. It is said they were instrumental in ordering the massacre of the British. All male soldiers and civilians were killed on the Ghat. The 120 women and children survivors were locked up in a large house called Bibigarh. Nana Sahib placed the prisoners under the care of courtesan Hussaini Begum, who put the captives on grinding corn for their bread. Later, after a discussion among the court officials including Tantia and Azimullah, and despite opposition from the court ladies, local butchers were employed to kill the prisoners in cold blood. It has been argued that the massacres were revenge for the atrocities perpetrated by the British in an attempt to quell the Indian uprising. Of the 900 British soldiers, civilians, women and children in Kanpur, only five men and two women survived the massacre.

The British forces under Generals Neill and Havelock retook Kanpur and indulged in wanton killing of any Indian that their troops came across. Whole villages were burned and their residents massacred. The British extracted a terrible retribution for the Kanpur massacres.

Nana, Tantia and Azimullah escaped the British forces. Tantia was captured in Madhya Pradesh and executed after a summary trial. Nana and Azimullah, however, took advantage of the continue disturbances in Oudh and escaped to Nepal. Nana’s fate has never been ascertained though conflicting reports suggests that he may have died in a tiger attack in 1859, or may have lived on till 1906.

Azimullah’s final days are equally uncertain. He may have died in Nepals’ Terai jungle due to a fever in 1859. Other reports suggest that he died of small pox while trying to escape to Calcutta. Yet another book by Saul David reports his escape from India and his eventual murder in Constantinople.

Regardless of his final days, we remember this Yusufzai for his love for freedom, his courage and his willingness to sacrifice his life for the cause that was close to his heart. I propose one monument for him in the hills of his ancestral Swat and another in his abode in Kanpur.

Parvez Mahmood retired as a Group Captain from PAF and is now a software engineer. He lives in Islamabad and writes on social and historical issues. He can be reached at parvezmahmood53@gmail.com