The 1857 Indian uprising and the politics of commemoration

Author / Creator

Pender, Sebastian Raj, 1982- author

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Summary

"The Cawnpore Well, Lucknow Residency, and Delhi Ridge were sacred places within the British imagination of India. Sanctified by the colonial administration in commemoration of victory over the 'Se...

"The Cawnpore Well, Lucknow Residency, and Delhi Ridge were sacred places within the British imagination of India. Sanctified by the colonial administration in commemoration of victory over the 'Sepoy Mutiny of 1857', they were read as emblems of empire which embodied the central tenets of sacrifice, fortitude, and military prowess that underpinned Britain's imperial project in the late nineteenth century. So central were these locations to British conceptions of India that Brigadier H. Bullock, head of the Graves and Monuments Section of the British High Commission, could still note their overwhelming significance as late as 1948. Writing specifically about the Cawnpore Well, Bullock claimed that it was still seen as 'hallowed ground' and was 'one of the few things in India that every Briton has heard of'. Whilst these sites acted as nodal points within colonial discourse they have gradually been incorporated into India's national story. The Lucknow Residency, for example, was designated a site of national importance in a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of Indian Independence in 1972, during which the Residency was 'declared to be saturated with the blood of the Indian Martyrs, who had thus laid the First Foundation of the Freedom Fight, discounting the erstwhile belief that it was reminiscent of British Glory'. Rededicated in honour of what is now officially known in India as the First War of Independence, and thus sacred to the memory of those who revolted against colonial rule, rather than those who saved it, the Cawnpore Well, Lucknow Residency, and Delhi Ridge are today proud signifiers of Indian nationalism"--

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