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Literary Review
Distilled wisdom and prejudice
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The Indian Mutiny gives the overwhelming impression that this is a book written for a British audience by a British historian, says P.J.O. TAYLOR.
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THAT this is a work of genuine scholarship there can be no doubt. It is not so unproblematic however that we can applaud it wholeheartedly and without qualification. Hesitation begins at the very beginning: why undertake it at all, given the plethora of books that already exists on the "Mutiny", the "First War of Independence", the "Sepoy Revolt" — call it what you will? David, incidentally, has no hesitation in choosing the title most favoured in Britain for these events, and thereby shows his hand. For, however careful he has been to appear objective in his approach we are left with the overwhelming impression that this is a book written for a British audience by a British historian. Even when atrocities by British troops are reported we get the impression that they are retaliatory, provoked, and perhaps "understandable in the circumstances".
But I repeat; this is a work of genuine scholarship: immense labour and determination has produced a distillation of the accumulated wisdom and prejudice of that multitude of writers who have attempted in the last 150 years to make sense of the "Mutiny", and it is not the author's fault that the great majority of these writers has been European. Surprisingly perhaps there is no reference to F.W. Buckler's theory that if there was a mutiny it was by the East India Company, not the sepoys; nor to the unique contribution of Edward J. Thompson and his Other Side of the Medal.
While applauding the immense labour involved we still have to answer the question as to why it was undertaken. The dust jacket informs us that "Saul David has written the definitive modern account of the Indian Mutiny". Perhaps, but it also goes on to speak of "ground-breaking research", "casts fresh light", and "challenges long-standing assumptions", and it is here that we must really take issue. The author has clearly read, and incorporated, the essence of much of the primary and secondary source material on the subject, but we may look in vain for anything "ground-breaking", or for those startling new facts which the dust-jacket appears to promise us, and it is this aspect which grieves me most. Dust jackets and publisher's blurbs are not usually written by the authors; perhaps they should be, or at least submitted to them for vetting. A field that has, incidentally, been neglected in this book but which might have furnished much valuable material, is the work of INTACH during the last 20 years or so: the local historians who have contributed to this work have been helpful.
We have said the work is "scholarly", but I suspect the author would rather be known for his attractive and fluent narrative style. To avoid damaging the latter he has omitted all numbering for the notes which accompany the text. This may help the flow but it puts a query on the scholarship. Whole passages are quoted verbatim from other published works, and these quotations are acknowledged in the notes, but who is likely to read notes if they are not signposted by numbering within the text? Are Allen, Hibbert, Taylor, Ward, Alavi, Mukherjee, Tapti Roy not likely to feel "short-changed" by such an arrangement, flattered though they might be by the inclusion of their text?
The peripheral aspects of the book deserve a few words. The maps are adequate without being inspiring, and contribute little to the atmosphere. The illustrations are run of the mill and there is nothing outstanding. We might feel that they are chosen for the newcomer to the subject: some are given, by their inclusion, a seal of approval they do not deserve e.g. the "Interior of the Secunderbagh" was deliberately concocted by Beato long after the event, with bones scattered artistically about just for the camera; the "Interior of the Bibigarh at Cawnpore" is equally doubtful, and the "Mutinous Sepoys destroying a bungalow at Meerut" comes from a Narrative of the Mutiny published in London in penny numbers in 1858 with illustrations owing more to imagination than to fact.
There are few obvious inaccuracies, and this is most commendable in a book of more than 500 pages, but for the record Mammu Khan was not hanged, he was sent to the Andamans; his photograph appears in the wonderful Alkazi Collection, the "Mutiny" items from which are soon to be published. And the details of the Wheeler family could be brought up to date. But these are quibbles, the overall impression the book leaves with us is that it is a very readable and attractive narrative based upon a sound effort to set the picture, to give background to the drama, including pen portraits of many of the chief protagonists. If you have the time it is well worth reading.
The Indian Mutiny 1857, Saul David, Penguin Viking, 2002.
P. J. O. Taylor is the author of numerous books on the Indian Mutiny, including The Companion to the Indian Mutiny.
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