Article by Aneesh Gokhale originally published in The DNA online on 26 August 2018.
Read complete article at: https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-barrackpore-1824-the-fire-of-mutiny-first-lit-2654695
Article by Aneesh Gokhale originally published in The DNA online on 26 August 2018.
Read complete article at: https://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-barrackpore-1824-the-fire-of-mutiny-first-lit-2654695
Has there been a typo in the title? Isn’t Barrackpore associated with the year 1857 and not 1824? But there was indeed an uprising in the same Barrackpore cantonment thirty years prior to the events of 1857, and this little conflagration had its full effect on the more well-known ‘India’s First War of Independence’.
By 1824, the East India Company’s (EIC) mastery of the Indian subcontinent was almost complete. The Marathas had been subdued via various battles and treaties by 1818 and the smaller states subdued or made allies – such as the Nizam. The Sikhs were limited to the west of the Sutlej via the Treaty of Sutlej and Sindh was hardly a headache. The problem had cropped up from the east in the form of the Burmese kingdom which had overrun Manipur and Assam and threatened British possessions in Bengal. The Burmese capture and massacre of a small British garrison at Ramu near Chittagong made matters worse. Rumours quickly spread about the ‘eminent’ march of the Burmese general Maha Bandula towards Calcutta, sending the EIC into a tizzy.
The British replied by sending a naval expedition to Rangoon, which Maha Bandula evacuated and he retreated to Ava. With the naval expedition not finding success, the EIC resorted to sending troops overland – via the Cachar hills of Manipur and via Chittagong into Arakan, a province of Burma. They were to then reach the Irrawaddy river valley and join the soldiers who had taken Rangoon.