DOCSLIB.ORG

From Sepoy to Subedar: Being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
From Sepoy to Subedar: Being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: BRITISH IN INDIA Volume 9 FROM SEPOY TO SUBEDAR FROM SEPOY TO SUBEDAR being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita Ram, a Native Officer of the Bengal Army written and related by himself Edited by JAMES LUNT First English edition published in 1873 This version first published in 1970 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition first published in 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © this version, 1970 James Lunt All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-138-22929-7 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-315-20179-5 (Set) (ebk) ISBN: 978-1-138-24364-4 (Volume 9) (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-23238-6 (Volume 9) (ebk) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. From Sepoy to Subedar 'He got up to welcome my uncle' From Sepoy to Subedar being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita Ram) a Native Officer of the Bengal Army written and related by himself Edited by James Lunt Translated and First Published by Lieutenant-Colonel Norgate, Bengal Staff Corps at Lahore, I 873 Illustrated by Frank Wilson Routledge & Kegan Paul, London First English edition 1873 This edition 19 70 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane London, E.C.4 Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis and Son, Ltd., The Trinity Press, Worcester and London ©this edition, james Lunt 1970 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism ISBN o 7100 6764 x This book is dedicated to the ;awan. past and present with admiration and affection The Hindi word, jawan, meaning village lad, or peasant, has long been used by the officers of the Indian Army as an affectionate description for their soldiers. Contents List of Maps X\ Preface by Translator Xlll Editorial Note XV Acknowledgements xix Introduction XXl Foreword by Sita Ram XXlX I The Beginning 2 2 Joining the Regiment 8 3 The Gurkha War: r8r4-r8r6 I8 4 The Pindari War 32 5 Return to the Village 44 6 The Lovely Thakurin 54 7 The Bulwark of Hindus tan 66 8 The March into Afghanistan: 1838-1839 8o ix 9 Ghazni and Kabul 94 10 The Retreat from Kabul: January 1842 106 II Escape from Slavery II8 12 The First Sikh War: 1845-1846 130 13 The Second Sikh War: 1848-1849 146 14 The Wind of Madness 156 15 The Pensioner 170 Glossary 179 Index 183 X List of Maps I India I 2 The Gurkha War r8r4-I8I6 20 3 The Pindari and Mahratta Wars 34 4 The Afghan and Sikh Wars 82 XI *James Thomas Norgate, 'The Translator', was born in Suffolk in 1824. He joined the Bengal Native Army as an Ensign in 1843, and retired with the honorary rank of Major-General in 1880. He served with the 69th Bengal Native Infantry, which mutinied at Mult:m in 1858, and he later commanded the 12th Punjab Infantry during the campaign in Bundelkhand in 1859. He died in 1894. ]Jrejace by Translator I have attempted to render into English the Life and Ad- ventures of this Native Officer, and in so doing have often been obliged to give the general meanings, rather than adhere to a literal translation of many sentences and ideas, the true idiom of which it is almost impossible ro transpose into English. In some parts of the narrative it becomes rather confused, and some of the dates are evidently incorrect, but when it is remembered that this 'life' embraces scenes and events which occurred during a period of half a century, and are related by an old man, these errors are not surprising. For the opinions contained in the work, I am not responsible. The narrative without doubt might have been expressed in more elegant language, and there are incidents enough, had one the pen of a 'Grant', to have produced a romantic tale, but as Truth is said to be stranger than Fiction, I have preferred to let it remain in its own unvar- nished style and simplicity. For the benefit of those who may wish to criticize the translation, where any idiomatic words are used, the originals are often given, and critics are welcome to put that construction on these as seemeth them best. It is believed that this is one of the first attempts of any native soldier to give his thoughts and ideas to the world, and it took great trouble and a great amount of assurances before the Subedar would part with his memoirs; so afraid are the natives (particularly those receiving pensions) of saying a word which might be considered to censure Govern- ment. It is certain that if we were to study this little work, we might obtain a better insight into native modes of thought and character than unfortunately many now possess. This Life and Adventures appeared many years ago in an Indian periodical since defunct (alas, the fate of most Indian periodicals) and at the time met with great favour, and excited no little interest. The Times said in r863, 'It would be well if all officers whose lot compels them to serve with native troops were to study this life of the old Subedar'. Punjab The Translator* I January 1873 xiii Editorial Note Sita Ram Pande, the author of these memoirs, was one of the many Indian soldiers who helped the British to conquer India, and thereafter to hold it. He enlisted in r8r2 as a sepoy into an infantry regiment of the Bengal Native Army, and he remained a soldier until he went on pension in r86o after forty-eight years' service. During the intervening period he had taken part in the campaigns against the Gurkhas, the Pin- daris and Mahrattas, and the Sikhs; he had been present at the storming of Bharatpore; and he had taken part in the ill-fated First Afghan War. He remained true to his salt during the Mutiny. He rose from Sepoy to Subedar, but only attained the latter rank when he was too old to be able to perform his duties. He claims that he was wounded seven times, taken prisoner once, and was awarded six medals. At the end of this long and interesting career, and at the behest of his last Commanding Officer, he set down in writing the story of his experiences in the service of the always incomprehensible British. The expansion of British rule in India during the last cen- tury is abundantly documented. In addition to State Papers there are numerous memoirs, letters, and diaries of British officers, military and civilian, who played a part, great or small, in extending the frontiers of British India, and in pacifying the interior. Even more humble individuals, such as John Shipp and Private Waterfield, have committed their experi- ences to writing; but although it may be a mistake to claim for Sita Ram that his memoirs are unique of their kind, it can be said that they are the only account so Jar published of an Indian sepoy's experiences during the first half of the nineteenth century. Other memoirs may come to light in the future; they may be lying in a cupboard in some feudal mansion in Bundelkhand or the Punjab, or be hidden beneath the debris in a humble village home in Madras or Maharashtra. So far as is known, however, Sita Ram was the only Indian soldier of his time to yield to the persuasion of his British Commanding Officer and write the story ofhis life in the service of the Sirkar. He was reluctant to write his memoirs and for obvious reasons. The Sirkar-a Hindi word meaning government or rule but ap- plied in these pages to mean the East India Company-was the fount from which he drew his pension. It was for that pension, small enough in all conscience but sufficient to hold poverty at bay, that Sita Ram underwent XV so many trials and tribulations. He was fearful lest anything he wrote might offend the Government and result in the termination of his pension. And yet he wrote frankly, giving praise where praise was due, and where criticism was justified he was critical, both of the policies of the East India Company, and of the British officers under whose command he served. There is a great deal of wisdom in the old man's comments, written in the evening of his days, and who of us, with the advantages of hindsight, would quarrel with his observations on the folly of the First Afghan War, or with the causes to which he attributes the mutiny of the Bengal Native Army in 1857? It is generally accepted that Sita Ram was persuaded to write his memoirs by Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) J.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Gurkhas', 1857-2009
    "Bravest of the Brave": The making and re-making of 'the Gurkhas', 1857-2009 Gavin Rand University of Greenwich Thanks: Matthew, audience… Many of you, I am sure, will be familiar with the image of the ‘martial Gurkha’. The image dates from nineteenth century India, and though the suggestion that the Nepalese are inherently martial appears dubious, images of ‘warlike Gurkhas’ continue to circulate in contemporary discourse. Only last week, Dipprasad Pun, of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for single-handedly fighting off up to 30 Taliban insurgents. In 2010, reports surfaced that an (unnamed) Gurkha had been reprimanded for using his ‘traditional’ kukri knife to behead a Taliban insurgent, an act which prompted the Daily Mail to exclaim ‘Thank god they’re on our side!) Thus, the bravery and the brutality of the Gurkhas – two staple elements of nineteenth century representations – continue to be replayed. Such images have also been mobilised in other contexts. On 4 November 2008, Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley, of the Metropolitan Police, told the Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee, that Gurkhas would make excellent ‘recruits’ to the capital’s police service. Describing the British Army’s Nepalese veterans as loyal, disciplined, hardworking and brave, Hurley reported that the Met’s senior commanders believed that ex-Gurkhas could provide a valuable resource to London’s police. Many Gurkhas, it was noted, were multilingual (in subcontinental languages, useful for policing the capital’s diverse population), fearless (and therefore unlikely to be intimidated by the apparently rising tide of knife and gun crime) and, Hurley noted, the recruiting of these ‘loyal’, ‘brave’ and ‘disciplined’ Nepalese would also provide an excellent (and, one is tempted to add, convenient) means of diversifying the workforce.
    [Show full text]
  • Impact of the Sepoy Mutiny on Indian Polity and Society
    Impact of the Sepoy Mutiny on Indian Polity and Society claws.in/1420/impact-of-the-sepoy-mutiny-in-indian-polity-and-society-isha-naravane.html #1420 184 August 14, 2015 By Isha Naravane Introduction The events of 1857 loom large in Indian History. Some consider it the first great war of independence, others a mere mutiny and some say it was a revolt against existing conditions. Whatever be the case, the most singular consequence for India’s army was how the British now viewed their armed forces in India. Whether the British ruled it as a trading company or as a nation, the use of force and military might was still necessary to occupy and subjugate the subcontinent. The Revolt of 1857 led to a re-organization of the Indian army and this article highlights some of the socio-economic and cultural impacts of this re-organization. The soldier is also a product of his socio-economic, cultural and political landscape. The recruitment of natives for the British Indian army on a large scale, their training in modern warfare methods, the salary and rewards given to native soldiers all had an impact on the environment where the soldiers came from, on Indian rulers who fielded armies on the battlefield, and on agrarian communities who ultimately shouldered the revenue burden for maintenance of armies. Salient Features Impacting Post-Mutiny Re-Organisation The events of the 1857 uprising all over India are well-documented. This article will discuss those which are pertinent to large scale re-organisation of political and military systems.
    [Show full text]
  • Alison Safadi
    alison safadi From Sepoy to Subadar / Khvab-o-Khayal and Douglas Craven Phillott Introduction During the 1970s John Borthwick Gilchrist, convinced of the potential value of the language he called ìHindustani,î1 campaigned hard to raise its status to that of the ìclassicalî languages (Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit) which, until then, had been perceived by the British to be more important than the Indian ìvernaculars.î By 1796 he had already made a valuable contribution to its study with the publication of his dictionary and gram- mar. It was the opening of Fort William College in 1800 by Wellesley, however, that signaled the beginning of the colonial stateís official interest in the language. Understandably, given his pioneering work, a substantial amount has been written on Gilchrist. Much less attention has been paid to the long line of British scholars, missionaries, and military officers who published Hindustani grammars and textbooks over the next 150 years. Although such books continued to be published until 1947, British scholarly interest in Hindustani seemed to have waned by the beginning of World War I. While Gilchrist and earlier authors had aspired to producing literary works, later textbooks were generally written for a much more mundane 1Defining the term ìHindustaniî satisfactorily is problematic but this is not the place to rehearse or debate the often contentious arguments surrounding Urdu/ Hindi/Hindustani. Definitions used by the British grammar and textbook writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are inconsistent and often contradictory. For the purposes of this paper, therefore, I am using the term in its widest possible sense: to cover the language at all levels, from the literary (Persianized) Bāgh-o- Bahar and (Persian-free) Prem Sagur to the basic ìlanguage of commandî of the twentieth-century military grammars.
    [Show full text]
  • The Legend of the Great Game
    ELIE KEDOURIE MEMORIAL LECTURE The Legend of the Great Game MALCOLM YAPP School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London A PERSISTENT THEME IN THE WRITINGS of Elie Kedourie was his mistrust of large, seemingly attractive concepts or ideas, ideas which were lightly advanced and quietly incorporated into political or historical folklore without being subjected to the close and critical scrutiny which he rightly believed to be an obligation of statesman and historian alike. One such concept is that of the Great Game and it is my intention in this lecture to examine the historical ethnology of this famous phrase and to offer some comments on its significance and value. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at Christmas 1979 gave the phrase a new lease of life. The association of Russia and Afghanistan was irresistible and the upheaval was pronounced to be another round in the Great Game, understood to be a contest for mastery in Central Asia which had begun in the early nineteenth century. We were regaled with some strange geography and some curious history. Pakistan’s Khyber Pass was awarded to Afghanistan, Dr Brydon rode inaccurately again and Roberts marched in the wrong direction at the wrong time. Subsequently, the term ‘the Great Game’ was applied to what was seen as a new contest between the USSR and the USA and to the struggle for control of oil resources in the region of the Caspian Sea.1 Read at the Academy 16 May 2000. 1 The Times, 26 Nov. 1999, 7 Feb. 2000; Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia (2000).
    [Show full text]
  • British Indian Army: Role of Punjab in the World War I
    201 B. Singh & B. Singh: British Indian Army British Indian Army: Role of Punjab in the World War I Bhupinder Singh and Bawa Singh Central University of Punjab, Bathinda ________________________________________________________________ The British Indian Army evolved out of the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, which had come under the control of the East India Company in the second-half of the eighteenth century. With the outbreak of the Sepoy mutiny 1857, both the administration and the Indian army were radically restructured. The Punjab’s strategic location, the onset of the ‘Great Game,’ and what was believed to be the martial character of local people played an important role in placing this region in the center of British planning. This paper examines the role of Punjab in providing soldiers as well as generous politico-economic support to the British Empire during the World War I. ___________________________________________________________________________________ The origins of the British Indian Army were modest. It began in the 17th century as the East India Company’s irregular force guarding a group of four factories with a few hundred men. A pioneer scholar of military history, Roy (2009), claims that with the passage of time, the colonial army became one of the largest employers in India. In the beginning, the presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras contributed significantly to the building of the colonial army. This first phase was popularly known as Bengalization of the British Indian Army, owing to Bengalʹs substantial contribution. The prominence of Punjab and Punjabis in this Army began with the annexation of Punjab in 1849 and was reinforced by onset of the Great Game in general and World War I in particular.
    [Show full text]
  • British Interventions in Afghanistan and the Afghans' Struggle To
    University of Oran 2 Faculty of Foreign Languages Doctoral Thesis Submitted in British Civilization Entitled: British Interventions in Afghanistan and the Afghans’ Struggle to Achieve Independence (1838-1921) Presented and submitted Publicaly by by: Mr Mehdani Miloud in front of a jury composed of Jury Members Designation University Pr.Bouhadiba Zoulikha President Oran 2 Pr. Lahouel Badra Supervisor Oran 2 Pr. Moulfi Leila Examiner Oran 2 Pr. Benmoussat Smail Examiner Tlemcen Dr. Dani Fatiha Examiner Oran 1 Dr. Meberbech Fewzia Examiner Tlemcen 2015-2016 Dedication To my daughter Nardjes (Nadjet) . Abstract The British loss of the thirteen colonies upon the American independence in 1783 moved Britain to concentrate her efforts on India. Lying between the British and Russian empires as part of the Great Game, Afghanistan grew important for the Russians, for it constituted a gateway to India. As a result, the British wanted to make of Afghanistan a buffer state to ward off a potential Russian invasion of India. Because British-ruled India government accused the Afghan Amir of duplicity, she intervened in Afghanistan in 1838 to topple the Afghan Amir, Dost Mohammad and re-enthrone an Afghan ‗puppet‘ king named Shah Shuja. The British made their second intervention in Afghanistan (1878-1880) because the Anglo-Russian rivalry persisted. The result was both the annexation of some of the Afghans‘ territory and the confiscation of their sovereignty over their foreign policy. Unlike the British first and second interventions in Afghanistan, the third one, even though short, was significant because it was instigated by the Afghan resistance. Imbued with nationalist and Pan-Islamist ideologies, the Afghans were able to free their country from the British domination.
    [Show full text]
  • Martial Races' and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2019 Who Does The Dying?: 'Martial Races' and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army Ammon Frederick Harteis Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Comparative Politics Commons Recommended Citation Frederick Harteis, Ammon, "Who Does The Dying?: 'Martial Races' and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1417. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/1417 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Who Does The Dying? ‘Martial Races’ and War Time Unit Deployment in the Indian Army Ammon Frederick Harteis Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori Frederick Harteis 1 Abstract During the Second World War, the Indian Army held back units and soldiers that were not from the so-called “martial races” from frontline combat service. The British “martial races” theory held that only a small number of communities in India were fit for military service and people from all “non-martial” communities should be excluded from the Army. Has the Indian Army, after gaining independence from British leadership, contended the Second World War practice of deploying “martial” units in combat while assigning “non-martial” units to non- combat roles? It has been conclusively demonstrated that “martial race” groups have contended to be overrepresented in the post-colonial Indian Army.
    [Show full text]
  • 1.Origin and Development of Presidency Armies
    Unit-III Indian Army Under East India Company Topic: 1.Origin and Development of Presidency armies (I)Origins Bengal Army The Bengal Army originated with the establishment of a European Regiment in 1756. While the East India Company had previously maintained a small force of Dutch and Eurasian mercenaries in Bengal, this was destroyed when Calcutta was captured by the Nawab of Bengal on 30 June that year. Bengal troops in the 19th century (1840) In 1757 the first locally recruited unit of Bengal sepoys was created in the form of the Lal Paltan battalion. It was recruited from Bengalis, Bhumihar, Bihari Rajputs and Pathan oldiers that had served in the Nawab's Army from Bihar and the Awadh who were collectively called Purbiyas. Drilled and armed along British army lines this force served well at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and 20 more Indian battalions were raised by 1764. In 1766 the Monghyr Mutiny, quelled by Robert Clive, affected many of the white officers of the Bengal Army. The EIC steadily expanded its Bengal Army and by 1796 the establishment was set at three battalions of European artillery, three regiments of European infantry, ten regiments of Indian cavalry and twelve regiments (each of two battalions) of Indian infantry. In 1824 the Bengal Army underwent reorganisation, with the regular infantry being grouped into 68 single battalion regiments numbered according to their date of establishment. Nine additional infantry regiments were subsequently raised, though several existing units were disbanded between 1826 and 1843. On the eve of the First Afghan War (1839–42) the Bengal Army had achieved a dominant role in the forces of the HEIC.
    [Show full text]
  • HISTORY of INDIA (1750S-1857)
    CC-12: HISTORY OF INDIA (1750s-1857) VI. POPULAR RESISTANCE: (B). UPRISING OF 1857 The year 1857 witnessed armed revolts in parts of central and northern India, as a result of which effective British rule nearly collapsed in these regions until the spring of 1858, when order was restored again by the advancing imperial forces. The revolt witnessed an extraordinary amount of violence unleashed on both sides. As British rule had "meticulously constructed a monopoly of violence", it was retorted with an equal amount of counter-violence of their subjects. If the British counter-insurgency measures included public execution of the rebels, blowing them off from cannons and indiscriminately burning native villages, the rebels also massacred white civilians-women and children included-without mercy. The revolt, for long mistaken to be a mere mutiny of the Indian sepoys in the Bengal army, was indeed joined by an aggrieved rural society of north India. Its causes, therefore, need to be searched for not only in the disaffection of the army, but in a long drawn process of fundamental social and economic change that upset the peasant communities during the first century of the Company's rule. The Company's government while raising a standing army since mid-eighteenth century respected the traditions and customs of the indigenous communities and a high caste identity of the army was deliberately encouraged. This was particularly true of the Bengal army, which had a predominantly high caste character, mainly consisting of Brahmans, Rajputs and Bhumihars, whose caste rules, dietary and travel restrictions were scrupulously respected by the army administration, under instructions from Warren Hastings.
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting the Historiography of the Madras Presidency Army, 1801-1858
    IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 13, Issue 4 (Jul. - Aug. 2013), PP 46-49 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.Iosrjournals.Org Revisiting the historiography of the Madras Presidency Army, 1801-1858 Manas Dutta Research Fellow Department of History, University of Calcutta, West Bengal, India Abstract: Madras Presidency army was the earliest army establishment under the colonial rule in India. While talking about the army, it is necessary to focus on the historiography so that it could form the basis of our understanding of this particular field. The rise of the New Military history again questions of the so called army historiography in alternative way. The conventional method of writing historiography of military history of India has been questioned by the new age military historians. Researchers now somehow influenced by this term and consequently tried to explain the militia in this regard. This short paper will discuss what New Military History is and its application for the reconstruction of the idea concerned with the Madras presidency army. This paper will revisit the history and historiography of the Madras presidency army. Keywords: army, caste, historiography, lower, warfare. I. Introduction Armies and warfare have been crucial determinants in India‟s history. Yet, rarely do we recognize the importance of armies and warfare in shaping the course of modern Indian history. Chandragupta Mauriya maintained an army of about 600,000 men. The land forces in the Mughal Empire exceeded several hundred thousand. The army remained the largest government employer till 1947. The socio and economic impact of the military establishment was also massive.
    [Show full text]
  • Conflict in Afghanistan
    Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:15 09 May 2016 Conflict in Afghanistan Conflict in Afghanistan provides a timely discussion of the concept of asymmetric warfare which has become one of the main issues of the day in the wake of the attacks of 9/11 and the ensuing invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Broadly speaking this describes a means of fighting where comparatively weak belligerents have been able to exploit successfully the vulnerabilities of their more powerful and sophisticated opponents. Two recent examples have been the Vietnam and the Soviet–Afghan wars, but the historical roots of the concept lie deeper, particularly in Afghanistan. Conflict in Afghanistan, laying emphasis on contemporary documents and drawing on material from Soviet archives, centres on wars conducted in Afghanistan which have been of the asymmetric variety. Subjects examined include: • five wars conducted in Afghanistan by an external invader over the past two centuries; • the decisions and actions of politicians and the military involved in the wars in question; • the successes and failures of diplomatic endeavours during the wars. This book is essential reading for those who have research interests in Asian studies, military studies and current affairs. Martin Ewans is a retired diplomat with considerable experience of South Asia, including three years as Head of Chancery in Kabul. He is author of Afghanistan: A New History and Afghanistan: A Short History of its People and Politics. Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:15 09 May 2016 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:15 09 May 2016 Conflict in Afghanistan Studies in asymmetric warfare Martin Ewans Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:15 09 May 2016 LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal , Free-Standing Articles Shah Shuja’S ‘Hidden History’ and Its Implications for the Historiography of
    South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal Free-Standing Articles | 2012 Shah Shuja’s ‘Hidden History’ and its Implications for the Historiography of Afghanistan Shah Mahmoud Hanifi Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3384 DOI: 10.4000/samaj.3384 ISSN: 1960-6060 Publisher Association pour la recherche sur l'Asie du Sud (ARAS) Electronic reference Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, « Shah Shuja’s ‘Hidden History’ and its Implications for the Historiography of Afghanistan », South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal [Online], Free-Standing Articles, Online since 14 May 2012, connection on 03 May 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3384 ; DOI : 10.4000/samaj.3384 This text was automatically generated on 3 May 2019. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Shah Shuja’s ‘Hidden History’ and its Implications for the Historiography of ... 1 Shah Shuja’s ‘Hidden History’ and its Implications for the Historiography of Afghanistan Shah Mahmoud Hanifi Introduction: Locating Shuja in the first Anglo-Afghan war and in the context of the Pashtun domination hypothesis 1 The first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-1842 sets the stage for this examination of Shah Shuja, and the large volume of literature on the war itself requires attention before we can turn to the Afghan monarch who is most intimately associated with the catastrophic colonial failure in Pashtun dominated Afghanistan. The first Anglo-Afghan war is well documented yet poorly understood. It is well documented from the diplomatic and military perspectives, but questions still remain about what is generally viewed as the most consequential defeat suffered by colonial forces in the history of the British Empire.
    [Show full text]