Colossal A view of Vellore Fort; (below) the entrance to the ammunition dump; (facing page, from top) the memorial in a traffic island; and the flagstone where the mutineers hoisted the Mysore flag.UDAY BALAKRISHNAN

RUBRIC CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC John Company’s bloody lesson A little over 200 years ago, soldiers at Vellore Fort staged India’s very first uprising against the British, but the city and the country have long forgotten it

UDAY BALAKRISHNAN were killed by the mutineers. Of the Indian dead I could find no trace. he fort in Vellore dwarfs Early in their uprising, the sepoys everything else in the city like cleaned out the paymaster’s treasury, a massive man o’ war in a and soon after raided the munitions Tsmall bay. I spent two days depot, leaving them in control of the exploring it, and marvelled at its formidable fort. The rebels could have vastness, the solidity of its held out much longer had they not construction and the durability of gone on a looting spree and got drunk some of the buildings within, such as on a large cache of arrack they the surprisingly well-preserved happened upon, while failing to firmly ammunition dump and jail. secure the fort’s entrances or man its Built by chieftains of the ramparts. All this enabled the few Vijayanagara Empire in 1566, Vellore’s surviving British soldiers to regroup fort was designed to hold out and position themselves strategically, indefinitely, as a British garrison did enabling a relief force from nearby for two years against Hyder Ali before Arcot led by Rollo Gillespie to easily the latter gave up and lifted his siege. break into the fort and regain control. Following Tipu Sultan’s defeat and A bloody reprisal followed, with death at the battle of Srirangapatna in Gillespie and his men killing over 600 1799, his large family and their of the mutineers, including 100 who massive retinue were relocated there. have happened. It was a direct result The mutiny was savage and brief. were lined up and summarily shot Vellore Fort is best known for the of Cradock’s obduracy and the Starting in the wee hours of July 10, against one of the walls of the fort. A brief but violent mutiny there in 1806 pusillanimity of the Governor of 1806, it went on until just past 2 p.m. subsequent court martial resulted in by the East India Company’s sepoys. It Madras, Lord William Bentinck, who, of the same day. The mutineers killed the execution of 19 ringleaders of the was no freedom struggle. Rather, as against better advice, supported him. over 100 unsuspecting British soldiers mutiny, five or six of whom were three inquiries revealed, it was a and their families, most of them in blown from the mouths of cannons. violently emotional reaction to a move Cassandra truth their sleep. This included Colonel Although the mutineers raised the flag that hurt the religious sentiments of The Auditor-General of the British Fancourt, the commander of the fort, of Mysore in the fort, investigations Hindu and Muslim sepoys in British army at Madras, Colonel Brunton, had who had actually stood by the sepoys failed to establish any involvement of A pay. sent a letter well before the mutiny, in their opposition to Cradock’s Tipu’s family in the bloody event. The mutineers If Sir John Cradock, the warning Cradock that “many things of orders. As an uprising, the mutiny was killed over 100 Commander-in-Chief of the Madras serious moment have originated in Writer and Tamil scholar Theodore brief and confined to Vellore Fort. Army, had not insisted that the sepoys trifles,” and advising him to redress Baskaran showed me around the However, it had far-reaching unsuspecting exchange their turbans for round hats, the grievances of the sepoys, cemetery at Vellore’s Central Church administrative and military British soldiers compelled them to shave off their considering that “native troops” were where, unknown to most, Colonel implications reaching into our times. and their families, moustaches and beards, and barred “absolutely and indispensably Fancourt is buried along with two Cradock and Bentinck were sacked most of them in them from wearing caste marks and necessary”. His warning went lieutenants, four corporals, a and recalled. The British began to their sleep ornaments, the mutiny would never unheeded. drummer and 70 privates, all of whom reorganise their largely Indian army

A A subsequent court martial resulted in the execution of 19 ringleaders of the mutiny, five or six of whom were blown from the mouths of cannons on more humane lines, while bringing in a degree of professionalism and regimental pride in the soldiers.

Imperial academies At the time, the British were in the early stages of appreciating that administering an India with a rich and complex civilisation and culture of its own required a depth of understanding beyond what they then possessed. A few months before the Vellore mutiny, the East India Company College had been established in Haileybury to train administrators for India, drawing its faculty from the best that Oxford and Cambridge had to offer. Indian languages like Hindustani, Telugu, Bengali and Marathi were taught there in addition to Persian. Three years after the mutiny the East India Company Military Seminary was opened in Addiscombe to train military officers for service in India. Clearly, patronage was giving way to merit in selecting administrators and soldiers for their prized domain. Strangely, the British did not heed the warning of the Vellore revolt, repeating their mistake half a century later to devastating effect, sparking the first war of independence in 1857. India’s first major armed uprising against the British deserves to be commemorated by something more substantial than that slight and absurd memorial set in the middle of a small traffic island facing the fort, one that fast receded in my wing mirror as I headed back to Bengaluru...... The writer teaches at IISc, Bengaluru.