Daily Pioneer, India
May 6 2007

Canning’s cunning

Wartime press censorship, a panicky populace, a cool-headed
governor-general: Udayan Namboodiri reports on Calcutta’s busy summer

How was Calcutta affected by the events of 1857? Historians, whether
British or Indian, are unanimous that as the capital city of the East
India Company it could not escape impact. But while everyone talks in
terms of "uprising in Delhi" or "massacre in Kanpur", for British
Calcutta the only description deemed apt is "panic".

>From the denizens of Government House to the natives who lived beyond
the Mahratta Ditch, everybody trembled with fear at the thought of
Calcutta falling to the sepoys. For, by 1857, Calcuttans of all hues
had developed a stake in Company raj. Whether European or native,
Chinese indigene or American itinerant, there was genuine concern
that a city that had become an outpost of Europe in Asia, with
institutions in banking, law, education – a proper university was
established in January that year – was in danger of slipping back to
medievalism.

A strange equilibrium had been reached in the relationship between
the ruler and the ruled. British administration symbolised stability,
growth and a modern outlook. Once earlier in its history, Calcutta
had been taken. In 1756, troops from Murshidabad, under
Siraj-ud-Daulah, had stormed the city and occupied it briefly. To the
British, the Mutiny revived the imagery of the Black Hole myth. For
the baboo of Sovabazar, on the other hand, another blast from old
India would have meant two things: a return to chaos, and destruction
of the achievements of the first phase of the Bengal Renaissance.

As no fighting happened in Calcutta, historians usually give the
"people’s history" of the city, during the term of the hostilities,
secondary treatment. The city is deemed less important than the grand
military strategies and diplomatic games conceived there.

Lord Canning, the governor-general who had arrived two years earlier,
and his charming wife Charlotte were quick to discern the tension.
The section most stricken by fear was the native Christians. It is
possible to glean, from the pages of the Bengal Catholic Herald and
the Enquirer, how the ordinary Goan, Bengali and Eurasian community
had nightmares of mass execution because the sepoys, whether Hindu or
Muslim, made little secret of their antipathy towards the "new"
religion.

So the first couple at Government House took it upon themselves to
reassure the locals. Lady Canning made it a point to continue with
her practice of short rides along the riverfront with a small escort.
Seeing her composure, a leading sweetmeat maker of the city named a
new product after her – the Lady Kenny, an oval version of the gulab
jamun but less syrupy.

The day news of the rising at Meerut reached Calcutta, Canning, who
didn’t lose his head through the crisis, ordered the immediate return
of troops sent to Persia and asked the governor of Madras to have two
European regiments ready for embarkation. He then sent a steamer to
Pegu, in Burma, to fetch a regiment. John Lawrence in Punjab was
directed to send every available man to Delhi. Finally, Canning wrote
to London seeking three additional regiments for service in India.

May 24 was Queen Victoria’s birthday. Lord Canning thought it fit not
to cancel the annual ball held to celebrate the event. After all, the
diplomatic community of the city, which included an American presence
since 1792, had to be persuaded that the British were not taking the
uprising too seriously. But the military bandobast made it clear that
Calcutta was in a state of high alert.

Rumours flew about "imminent attacks". The Garden Reach palace of the
deposed Nawab of Awadh was considered a hotbed of conspiracy. Acts of
"insolence" by native servants, both real and imagined, drove people
crazy. Lord Canning was worried that everybody carried guns. He
admitted in a letter that he was "ashamed" by the role of Englishmen
in deepening the divide with Indians.

The last governor-general of the East India Company, later to become
the first viceroy of India, goes down in history as a leader who
sought to not just defeat an enemy at war, but win the peace as well.
He restricted action to professional soldiers. To offers from the
Calcutta Masonic Fraternity, the European Traders’ Association and
sundry federations of Armenian and Jewish merchants to raise not only
money but also armies, Lord Canning’s reply was a firm no.

In fact, Canning earned the rage of Christian zealots when he made it
clear that he shared none of their hatred and condemnation of Hindus
and Muslims. He issued a "Proclamation of Pardon" after the uprising
was quelled, an act that somewhat absolves him of responsibility for
the disproportionate vengeance extracted by the British in Delhi. He
also passed a "Gagging Act", making it mandatory for newspaper
publishers to obtain licences and submit material for vetting prior
to publication.

Canning rolled out the red carpet for Jayaji Rao Scindia, the
pro-British ruler of Gwalior, and hosted a state reception for the
potentate when he visited Calcutta in September 1857. This sent out a
message to the Indian princes that the Company was willing to accept
the Doctrine of Lapse as a mistake. This helped contain the
geographical extent of the rebellion.

Calcutta’s hospitals were filled with wounded soldiers. It is
important to note the role played by nuns of the Loreto Order. They
toiled night and day in the heat and grime, tending to patients. This
was the first war anywhere in Asia to see Catholic nuns doing the job
of nurses.

The flagship Loreto convent on Calcutta’s Middleton Row – it still
stands – was partially turned over to house the widows and orphans of
European soldiers who streamed in from upcountry war zones.

A grateful Calcutta resident composed an ode to "Bishop Oliffe’s
Female Brigade" (Bishop Oliffe was the secular head of the Catholic
Bishopric of Calcutta until 1860). It went like this:

Calcutta needs no volunteers, the papist bishop cries
>From rebels he’ll defend the town, by aid of women’s eyes
Our citadels are … Convent walls! each rosary a gun
The leading Chief – an abbess fair, each sentinel a nun!
Loreto’s dames will quite suffice, to batter Delhi down
And save the gem that glitters most, in Queen Victoria’s crown!

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