British officials, historians called Ajnala Killings 'nauseous'

Remains not of Sikhs: Historians
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service

key words : Ajnala killings, Kalian wala Khu, skeletons in well, 1857 mutiny, sikh martyrs, purbias, sikh scholars, Rajmohan Gandhi

Bathinda, March 7
Several Indian and British historians have claimed that the 282 soldiers, whose remains were dug out from ‘Kalianwala Khu’ in Ajnala, were not Sikhs and belonged to Bengal or Awadh.

Historians such as Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi stated in his book ‘Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten’ that some top British officers disapproved of the August 1, 1857 killings. They even termed these as ‘Ajnala cruelties’.

The authors claim the killings were a result of the British policy of keeping Sikh and Punjabi Muslim soldiers in confidence, while disarming the ‘Hindustani soldiers’. Correspondence between the British officers reveals that they used the mutual hatred of Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims for the soldiers from the eastern states, whose natives were called ‘purbias’.

Though later Punjabis (including Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus) and Bengalis together spearheaded the freedom struggle, the British cleverly did not allow them to unite in the 1857 uprising.

British author Bossworth Smith’s biography of then Punjab Governor John Lawrence and Fredrick Cooper’s book, ‘Crisis in the Punjab’, state that Cooper, who was the then Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, bragged about the killings. This had shocked Lawrence.

Gandhi states, “After chasing and capturing 303 out of 400 or so disarmed Hindustani sepoys, who had escaped the previous day from their Lahore internment, Cooper had them shot, in batches of 10 in Ajnala near Amritsar. After 237 bodies were dumped into a well, Cooper ordered his Sikh and Muslim police personnel to produce the remaining 66 prisoners.”

Gandhi further writes that only 21 of the remaining soldiers that were locked into a small room were brought by the police. The rest had suffocated to death.

Cooper sent a report of the proceedings to Lawrence, who called the incident ‘nauseous’. Cooper, however, was proud of the fact that “a single Anglo-Saxon supported by a section of Asiatics had coldly presided over so memorable an execution”.

Historians estimated the number of the deceased to be 282. In the recent excavation, the remains of 282 soldiers were found. This indicates that the 21 soldiers fetched were probably spared.

Gandhi puts the Ajnala killings and other incidents into perspective. He writes that the British were wary of the Sikhs, and Lawrence was aware of the Sikh soldiers’ disdain for the ‘Hindustanis’ (who were part of the British troops that ended Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule).

Smith in his book, ‘Life of Lord Lawrence‘, states that Lawrence exploited these elements. “There was the hatred of the Sikh for the Mohammedan, who had persecuted him. The Punjabi, whatever his caste or creed, were contemptuous of the less manly races of Bengal,” Smith said.

Therefore, the British raised a new regiment, the 25th Punjabi, on June 8, 1857. It comprised of Punjabi Muslims, Sikhs and Hindu Dogras. Lawrnece wrote to Brigadier Sydeny Cotton on June 10, 1857 to form a regiment of 10 companies in which four would be of Sikhs, two of hill Rajputs, two of Punjabi Muslims and two of Pathans. These were then distanced from the soldiers from the eastern states and effectively used against them.

The incident

The historians claim the remains of the 282 soldiers found from 'Kalianawala Khu' are of Bengalis
They say the British used the mutual hatred of Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims for the soldiers from the eastern states against the latter
Fredrick Cooper, who was the then Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, had ordered his Sikh and Muslim police personnel to capture the escaped 'Hindustani sepoys'
(first published http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140308/punjab.htm#7)

key words : Ajnala killings, Kalian wala Khu, skeletons in well, 1857 mutiny, sikh martyrs, purbias