Hindu-Muslim unity: Remembering the Battle of Chinhat


Hindu-Muslim unity: Remembering the Battle of Chinhat
Timeline of a battle

Muslims and Hindus jointly fought the first battle against British

By Yusra Husain

By Yusra Husain

Chants of ‘Bajrang Bali, Ya Ali’ and ‘Ek pita ki dui santaan, ek Hindu ek Musalman’ (Two children of a father, one Hindu, the other Muslim) rang out as the Mohammadi and Mahaveer (Hanuman) flags were first raised in Awadh at the Battle of Chinhat on the outskirts of Lucknow where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Taluqdaars and farmers came together to fight the British in 1857.

At a time when region is rife with communal flare-ups, June 30 marks the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Chinhat. This is said to be the first organised battle the British lost to a united Indian population after their fall in Kremlin, Russia.

Historians believe the cries resonating in Ismailganj—on the border of Chinhat—brought to the fore the true secular character of the country’s populace. The event needs not only to be re-visited but also never forgotten.

The British, being the losers, did not document a lot of things around the Chinhat battle. “But oral history preserves several indigenous slogans coined at that time,” said historian Amresh Mishra. These include the Mangal Pandey Aalah (folk song of Bundelkhand) that recounts events after his martyrdom and speaks about the battlecry of ‘Ya Ali, Bajrang Bali’ that was used then.

Mishra has also mentioned the battle cry in his book ‘War of Civilisations: India AD 1857’. “There were other slogans too such as ‘Allah o Akbar’, ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and the one that goes ‘Deen, deen, deen, Hindu aur Musalman ka ek hee deen’ referring to the righteous call of duty towards the nation being the same,” added Mishra.

Several other slogans of unity filled the air 160 years ago in Lucknow. “Mohammadi and Mahaveer flags symbolising Hanuman are well documented to have been part of the battle and so was the slogan of deen,” said S. Z. H. Jafri, a history professor of Delhi University who specialises in topics related to the uprising of 1857.

On June 30, 1857, the British tasted defeat at the hands of a band of men comprising not just the protesting soldiers but also peasants, farmers, Taluqdaars and clerics at Chinhat.

“Nawab Ali, the Mahmudabad Taluqdaar was first to commit his forces to the uprising and with the sepoy revolt and civil unrest, the movement turned into an organised battle,” said Mishra.

What happened next baffled the British who had underestimated the Indian strength. When Henry Lawrence, then chief commissioner of Awadh, crossed over the Kukrail bridge towards Chinhat, some fighters at Ismailganj met him and lured the British army towards Chinhat. A large number of natives hiding in mango groves sprang out.

An organised battle was then fought and the British suffered heavy casualties. Those who survived retreated to the Residency.

Remembering the first war of Independence

Lucknow: Memorial to British officer Henry Lawrence

Lucknow: Memorial to British officer Henry Lawrence

The battlecries and victory sounds that reverberated in Ismailganj adjoining Chinhat on June 30, 1857 echoed once again at a tribute to the historic Battle of Chinhat in a tribute opposite Lucknow’s new high court building on Friday.

Lighting torches in the evening and taking the pledge to preserve the country’s unity, integrity and brotherhood, citizens under the banner of 1857 Nationalist Forum came together to relive the sectarian unity of the nationalist movement at the venue of the battle.

A water kiosk at the venue stood for the name of the country instead of religion.

“It is important for all of us to understand our shared history that tells us how Hindus and Muslims were equally involved in the Independence struggle. It was after the British lost in Chinhat that they divided us on the lines of Hindi-Urdu and Hindu-Muslim, something that we are still paying the price for,” said Deepak Kabir, one of the organisers of the event.

The 1857 Nationalist Forum has put forth a charter of demands in memory of the battle of Chinhat. The demands include renaming the Ismailganj-high court flyover ‘1857 Memorial Connecting flyover’, renaming any one of the crossroads in the area around high court ‘1857 victory crossing’, renaming either of the Ismailganj wards ‘1857 revolution ward’ and construction of a victory pillar to commemorate the events of 1857 and the Indian freedom fighters.

It is high time there was a memorial of the Battle of Chinhat.

Yusra Husain is a journalist with The Times of India, Lucknow edition. She did her masters at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and was a fellow at the Swedish Institute’s ‘Young Connectors of the Future Programme 2015’. Yusra believes in peace between people and nations and writes on human interest and history apart from covering other topics.

Times of India, June 30, 2017




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