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A terrible happening had taken place near Ajnala in Amritsar
district on 31st July-1st August 1857, as part of India’s
first war of independence. The incident had remained
engraved on the memory of the people and pricking their
conscience for long and an historic event is again taking
place at that very place where this terrifying event took
place 157 years ago. 282 sepoys of Indian army, who rebelled
against British colonial occupation of India in May 1857,
were massacred here and dumped into a dry well 100 yard away
from Ajnala police station. The remains of those martyred in
brutish manner on 1st August 1857, the day of
Bakrid(Id-ul-Fitr), were dug out recently by the town people
themselves, without any governmental help and are now being
cremated with full religious rituals on same day-1st
August-157 years later! In spite of that, Government has
until date not even allotted them the cremation place, which
has to be turned into martyr memorial monument in due time!
This was not the only brutal event in those days. For almost
a year or more hundreds of terrible events had taken place
all over India-from Calcutta to North India, but excluding
South and North East India. Cruelties were part of this war
on both sides, innocent women and children had also been
victims of this terrifying war, but the rebellious and
loosing side’s cruelties were nowhere even close to
occupying winner colonial side-British cruelties, that too
in the name of ‘justice’!. Rebellious Indian sepoy’s
cruelties were result of being pushed to the wall in
compelling circumstances, whereas British colonial cruelties
and brutalities were committed massively with vengeance and
with a victor’s arrogance of teaching a lesson and to instil
terror among its colonised subjects.
About this particular incident near Ajnala, two versions are
available-colonial version of Deputy Commissioner of
Amritsar district of those days- Frederic Cooper, whose
book-‘The Crisis in Punjab’-from 10th May to the fall of
Delhi- was published in 1858 itself from London. The
nationalist version is of Giani Hira Singh Dard, a respected
Punjabi writer and historian, editor of Punjabi magazine
‘Fulwari’ from Amritsar in 1920’s. His version was carried
with photographs in November 1928 ‘Fansi ank’(Execution
issue) from Allahabad, later included in nationalist
historian and editor Pt. Sunder Lal’s proscribed
book-‘Bharat Men Angrezi Raj’(British Rule in India). Giani
Hira Singh Dard had recorded even the eyewitness account of
Baba Jagat Singh, who was nearly 95 years of age in 1928 and
was of about 20-25 years in 1857, at the time of the
terrible happening! The common factor between both accounts
is the facts of the event; however, the same facts have
naturally been interpreted from different
angles/perspectives!
As per Cooper’s account of whole Punjab in 9 chapters of his
book, many thousand ‘Poorbeah’ among different units of
Bengal Native Infantry took part in rebellion, who were
disarmed in May 1857 in Meean Meer Cant of Lahore, after
rebellion broke out in Meerut on 10th May, 21 days in
advance of the decided date of 31stMay. Rebellion spread in
different regions of Punjab such as Lahore, Umritsur,
Phillour, Jhelum, Sealkote, Jullundur, Ferozepore, Sirsa,
Hote Mardan, Peshawur, Loodhianah(as spelled by Cooper),
etc. British Govt. with support from feudal chieftains of
Patiala, Jind, Kapurthla and Kashmir, hundreds of mutineers
were ‘slaughtered’ in the term used by Cooper himself in
different areas of Punjab. Cooper proudly and teasingly
counts the killings of mutineers in August 1857 in Peshawar
area to 659- “Some idea may be gathered of the terrific and
swift destruction, when it is remembered that the strength
of the regiment before the mutiny amounted to 871. The
Punjab Infantry shot and killed 125; Captain James's party
killed 40; Lieutenant Gosling's party killed 15. The
Peshawur Light Horse, the villagers, and H. M.'s 27th and
70th killed 36. By sentence of drum-head court-martial, on
the same day, there were executed by H. M.'s 87th, 187; and
by a similar summary tribunal, on the 29th of August, 167;
also on the same date, 84; one thanahdar killed five: total,
within about 30 hours after the mutiny, no less than
659!(The Crisis in Punjab, Frederic Cooper, Page 177, Elder
and Son, Smith, London, 1858) !
In this particular incident occurred near Ajnala, nearly
five hundred disarmed sepoys of 26th regiment of Bengal
Native Infantry, as mentioned by Cooper, rebelled on 30th
July and one Prakash Singh alias Prakash Pandey killed Major
Spencer with Major’s own sword and they all fled toward
south, only to be trapped near Ajnala, by Tehseeldar Dewan
Pran Nath’s agents, who alerted district administration and
which sent armed force, which started shooting them, nearly
150 fell to bullets in river near village Daddian, nearly
fifty jumped in river to be drowned. Others were[c21] taken
to Ajnala police station, which could accommodate 237 only,
nearly 66 were confined in newly come up Tehseil building in
a dungeon. Deputy Commissioner Cooper had ordered a long
rope to execute, but had made simultaneous arrangement of 50
Sikh sepoys to kill them with shooting. They were to be
killed 31st July night itself, but due to rains, it was
postponed until next morning, which was Bakrid that year. On
1st August morning, 237 rebel sepoys were taken out and
killed in turns of ten each by shooting in open ground in
front of police station. When other 66 dumped in dungeon did
not turn up, it was found 45 of them were already dead or
half-dead by suffocation. A dry well was there about a
hundred yard away from police station. 237+45=282 dead
bodies with some not fully dead were thrown into the well,
which was filled with sand from above. Cooper called it
‘rebel’s grave’ and wanted to be written in Persian,
Goormookhie and English. At two places in his book, he
refers the Hollwell’s controversial Black hole of Calcutta
of 1756 and well of Cawnpore of 1857, where rebels had
dumped British official’s dead bodies and compares them to
this place and incident, clearly showing his glee of
revenge- There is a well at Cawnpore, but there is also one
at Ajnala!(Same-page 167). This ironically reminds Praveen
Togadia’s recent statement against Muslims-‘They may have
forgotten 2002 Gujarat, but they may be remembering 2014
Muzaffarnagar!”
The well was in place till 1972 with a writing as ‘Kalian
Wala Khuh’(The well of Blacks). In 1928, it looked like a
raised sand hill. In 1957, centenary celebrations of 1857
were observed here in the presence of then Chief Minister
Pratap Singh Kairon. CPM MLA of earlier days Dalip Singh
Tapiala of this region used to hold meetings here. However,
in 1972, villagers built a room over the well and turned it
into Gurdwara. In 2007, 150thanniversary of 1857 was
observed at Gurdwara site. In 2012, town people formed an
11-member committee of all practising Sikhs, led by trade
unionist Amarjit Singh Sarkaria to honour the martyrs by
digging out the well and taking out their remains. They
built the new Gurdwara very near this place and took up the
digging of the well from 28th February 2014. Before
beginning digging work, they tried their best to involve
state and Central Government in this project, but their
efforts bore no fruit as none of their agencies like
Archaeological survey of India showed any interest. As the
well was well known, so within three days of digging on 28th
February and 2ndMarch 2014, ten feet deep walls came out and
nearly hundred human skulls, more than five thousand human
teeth and other parts of bones came out. Hundreds of
volunteers took part in the digging and thousand gathered to
see it. Many medals, jewellery items, coins etc. are also
came out. Electronic local media covered it widely, so was
regional print media. Officials from administration and
Archaeology deptt. did turn up and boxes of human remains
were handed over to them for DNA testing. The managing
committee renamed ‘Kalian wala Khuh’(Well of Blacks) as
‘Shaheedan wala khuh’(Martyrs Well) and appealed to
Government of Punjab and India to allot them nearby vacant
land under the control of army to cremate the remains of
martyrs with full religious rituals and erect a memorial
therein afterwards at the same place like Jallianwalabagh
memorial in Amritsar, 25 kilometres away, where the mass
killings had taken place on 13th April 1919 and similar well
existed there, where dead bodies were found. Another
incident of this kind took place in 1872 at Malerkotla,
where then Deputy Commissioner Cowan had got summarily shot
dead 66 Kukas in two days, who were followers of Baba Ram
Singh.
London based eminent historian of Indian movements-C A Bayly
had a dig at colonial regime on Ajnala discovery as it
reminds ‘how panic had spread among British officials in
Punjab in 1857 and how they were prepared to use extreme
violence’(Hindustan Times, Chandigarh-14/3/2014)
No DNA testing of the martyr sepoys had been done until
date; neither land has been allotted to Martyrs Memorial
committee until now. Committee is going ahead with its plan
to cremate the remains of martyrs recovered from the well by
organising religious rituals of Hindus, Islamic and Sikhism,
as the sepoys could belong to all three religious
backgrounds, though large numbers of them could be from
Hindu religion. Punjab Govt. seems to have been stuck in
politicisation of the issue by certain Sikh fundamentalists,
who wish to ignore the issue ‘as being of Poorbeahs verses
Sikhs, Sikhs being on the side of British colonialism then’!
Govt. they formed a committee, which included some Guru
Nanak Dev University Amritsar scholars too, who never took
trouble to visit the site just 25 kilometres away, knowing
well the non-interest of the government! But it was only
feudal Sikhs like Maharajas of Patiala, Jind and Kapurthala
, who were with British colonial regime, not the ordinary
Sikhs, many of whom took part in rebellion and even in
Delhi, Britishers were afraid of Sikhs, who were considered
anti British in large numbers!
Prof.chaman@gmaifl.com 09646494538/09868774820
*Chaman Lal, retired Professor from JNU, New Delhi is
presently Professor-Coordinator of Centre for Comparative
Literature at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda and
author of recent book-‘Understanding Bhagat Singh’.
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