Awadh in Revolt
In 1851 Governor General Lord Dalhousie described
the kingdom of Awadh as �a cherry that will drop into
our mouth one day�. Five years later, in 1856, the
kingdom was formally annexed to the British Empire.
The conquest happened in stages. The Subsidiary
Alliance had been imposed on Awadh in 1801. By
the terms of this alliance the Nawab had to disband
his military force, allow the British to position their
troops within the kingdom, and act in accordance
with the advice of the British Resident who was now
to be attached to the court. Deprived of his armed
forces, the Nawab became increasingly dependent
on the British to maintain law and order within the
kingdom. He could no longer assert control over the
rebellious chiefs and taluqdars.
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In the meantime the British became increasingly
interested in acquiring the territory of Awadh. They
felt that the soil there was good for producing indigo
and cotton, and the region was ideally located to be
developed into the principal market of Upper India.
By the early 1850s, moreover, all the major areas of
India had been conquered: the Maratha lands, the
Doab, the Carnatic, the Punjab and Bengal. The
takeover of Awadh in 1856 was expected to complete
a process of territorial annexation that had begun
with the conquest of Bengal almost a century earlier.
Lord Dalhousie�s annexations created disaffection
in all the areas and principalities that were annexed
but nowhere more so than in the kingdom of Awadh
in the heart of North India. Here, Nawab Wajid Ali
Shah was dethroned and exiled to Calcutta on the
plea that the region was being misgoverned. The
British government also wrongly assumed that Wajid
Ali Shah was an unpopular ruler. On the contrary,
he was widely loved, and when he left his beloved
Lucknow, there were many who followed him all the
way to Kanpur singing songs of lament.
The widespread sense of grief and loss at the
Nawab�s exile was recorded by many contemporary
observers. One of them wrote: �The life was gone out
of the body, and the body of this town had been left
lifeless � there was no street or market and house
which did not wail out the cry of agony in separation
of Jan-i-Alam.� One folk song bemoaned that �the
honourable English came and took the country��
(Angrez Bahadur ain, mulk lai linho ).
This emotional upheaval was aggravated by
immediate material losses. The removal of the Nawab
led to the dissolution of the court and its culture.
Thus a whole range of people � musicians, dancers,
poets, artisans, cooks, retainers, administrative
officials and so on � lost their livelihood.
Firangi raj and the end of a world
A chain of grievances in Awadh linked prince,
taluqdar, peasant and sepoy. In different ways they
came to identify firangi raj with the end of their
world � the breakdown of things they valued,
respected and held dear. A whole complex of emotions
and issues, traditions and loyalties worked
themselves out in the revolt of 1857. In Awadh, more
than anywhere else, the revolt became an expression
of popular resistance to an alien order.
The annexation displaced not just the Nawab. It
also dispossessed the taluqdars of the region. The
countryside of Awadh was dotted with the estates
and forts of taluqdars who for many generations had
controlled land and power in the countryside. Before
the coming of the British, taluqdars maintained armed
retainers, built forts, and enjoyed a degree of
autonomy, as long as they accepted the suzerainty of
the Nawab and paid the revenue of their taluqs. Some
of the bigger taluqdars had as many as 12,000 footsoldiers
and even the smaller ones had about 200.
The British were unwilling to tolerate the power of
the taluqdars. Immediately after the annexation, the
taluqdars were disarmed and their forts destroyed.
The British land revenue policy further undermined
the position and authority of the taluqdars. After
annexation, the first British revenue settlement,
known as the Summary Settlement of 1856, was based
on the assumption that the taluqdars were interlopers
with no permanent stakes in land: they had
established their hold over land through force and
fraud. The Summary Settlement proceeded to remove
the taluqdars wherever possible. Figures show that
in pre-British times, taluqdars had held 67 per cent
of the total number of villages in Awadh; by the
Summary Settlement this number had come down to
38 per cent. The taluqdars of southern Awadh were
the hardest hit and some lost more than half of the
total number of villages they had previously held.
British land revenue officers believed that by
removing taluqdars they would be able to settle the
land with the actual owners of the soil and thus
reduce the level of exploitation of peasants while
increasing revenue returns for the state. But this
did not happen in practice: revenue flows for the
state increased but the burden of demand on the
peasants did not decline. Officials soon found that
large areas of Awadh were actually heavily
overassessed: the increase of revenue demand in
some places was from 30 to 70 per cent. Thus neither
taluqdars nor peasants had any reasons to be happy
with the annexation.
The dispossession of taluqdars meant the
breakdown of an entire social order. The ties of loyalty
and patronage that had bound the peasant to the
taluqdar were disrupted. In pre-British times, the
taluqdars were oppressors but many of them also
appeared to be generous father figures: they exacted
a variety of dues from the peasant but were often
considerate in times of need. Now, under the British,
the peasant was directly exposed to overassessment
of revenue and inflexible methods of collection. There
was no longer any guarantee that in times of hardship
or crop failure the revenue demand of the state would
be reduced or collection postponed; or that in times
of festivities the peasant would get the loan and
support that the taluqdar had earlier provided.
In areas like Awadh where resistance during 1857
was intense and long lasting, the fighting was carried
out by taluqdars and their peasants. Many of these
taluqdars were loyal to the Nawab of Awadh, and
they joined Begum Hazrat Mahal (the wife of the
Nawab) in Lucknow to fight the British; some even
remained with her in defeat.
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