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| 1857 Massacre Ghat, Kanpur (Cawnpore) flickr.com |
Above image: The Massacre Ghat or Satti Chaura Ghat is a popular ghat in Kanpur (Cawnpore) City, Uttar Pradesh. It is located on the south bank of the River Ganges, but the river already drifted far away from the bathing ghat. The ghat has been around for centuries - far back pre-colonial days. That in the past, some women committed ''Sati'' there, and a small temple was built in their honor has made this place more poignant.(credit goes to the British who abolished this age old tradition of sati meaning voluntary immolation of a widow on her husband's funeral pyre). Here, the initial events of the Indian Rebellion named as the Siege of Cawnpore, took place. On the 27th. June 1857, around 300 British men, women and children were killed according to the English Co records. But historians say it was purely accidental and not planned before. .............
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| execution Indian rebels before cannons. 1957 courses.lumenlearning.com |
The First War of Independence or the Sepoy Rebellion by the Sepoys of the East India company that started off at the Meerut Cantonment on 10 May 1857 was not a preplanned one. It happened unexpectedly and the soldiers and the people who suffered stoically availed themselves of the opportunity to express their pent-up abomination and anger for the unjust English company's rule in India. So, it was the culmination of simmering hatred for the British who had been misruling India since the middle of the 18th century.
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| Cawnpore siege 1857 mimimatthews.com |
Above image: Blowing Mutinous Sepoys From the Guns, Steel Engraving, London Printing and Publishing Co., 1858. As part of revenge against massacre, the British caught the Indian Sepoys stationed in Kanpur (Cawnpore), tied them up before the cannons and blew them up. An extreme act of savagery against innocent people. ............................
Racial discrimination in the army, in the govt. offices, exploitation of Indian lands both cultivable and forest lands, dishonest annexation of Indian rulers' kingdoms - example: annexation of Awadh (part of UP) in February 1856 and the state of Jhansi (Madhya Pradesh) in 1857 by the British under the terms of the Doctrine of lapse by Lord Dalhousie and a host of other grievances made Indians angry. Royal members of many families became part of the upraising against the EIC when it began to spread across the northern states. By June 1857, the Indian rebellion had spread to several areas and places like Cawnpore, Meerut, Agra, Mathura, and Lucknow became scenes of mass rioting, rampage and brutality.
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| Massacre Ghat, Cawnpore, June 1857. India alamy.com |
When the rebellion was spreading like a wild summer bushfire and inching toward Delhi, the Siege of Cawnpore was an important episode in the history of India's first major rebellion which punched a big hole on the British Empire. People in the area never expected this sudden turn of political event. Neither the besieged Company forces and nor the civilians of Cawnpore (now Kanpur) were prepared for an extended siege.
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| .Massacre Ghat, Cawnpore (Kanpur), India, alamy.com |
.It was at the Ghat near the Ganges in Cawnpore (Kanpur) events became topsy-turvy Earlier it was nicknamed as Massacre Ghat by the East India Company officials in their British Colonial records and the events led them to tag it the Siege of Cawnpore. This Ghat has become historically important since the Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.
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| .Location map. Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) mapsofindia.com |
On June 27, 1857 at the Satti Chaura Ghat, Kanpur, about 300 British men, women and children were rounded up and killed by the hell-bent mob and later this place gained notoriety as the Massacre Ghat. Unfortunately, those who escaped from the clutches of death here, as fate had it, were later brutally killed in another place; it is called the ‘Bibighar Massacre.’ The rioting rebels got a bad rap because of these massacres at two different locations and the victims included women and children.
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| Massacre in the boats, Siege of Cawnpore, June 1857. thehindu.com |
After almost three weeks, the company forces including Indian soldiers under Officer Wheeler surrendered to Nana Sahib who headed the rebellion in return for a safe passage to Allahabad via the river Ganges. Nana Sahib was the adopted heir to Baji Rao II, the ex-Peshwa of the Maratha Confederacy.
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| Chaura Ghat, landing place 2nd massacre victorianweb.org |
Cawnpore was an important garrison town for the East India Company forces and the sepoys there were not a part of the war. However, the European families were not comfortable and began to shift into the entrenchment (a military position fortified by trenches). The Indian sepoys were asked to collect their pay one by one, to avoid an armed confrontation. Threatened by the fortifications sepoys protested against it. In the ensued minor skirmishes, a lieutenant fired on his Indian guard when drunk, and was jailed for a night. On the following day rumors were thick in the air that the Indian troops would be summoned to a parade to be massacred. Not prepared to take risks, in June, 1857 the sepoys joined the rebellion against the East India Company.
The evacuation under Peshwa Nana Saheb did not go as planned and the British thought it was a safe passage to Allahabad. The sudden commotion while getting into the boats, panicked the Sepoys who fired at the departing British. At that moment somebody fired a shot possibly from high banks. Immediately, boatmen jumped overboard and prevented a few cooking fire in the process. The fire soon engulfed a few boats.
According to Morbray Thompson, in his book ‘Story of Cawnpore’, mentioned about the eye witness. He said that the British were the first to open fire on Indian boatmen and this forced Nana Saheb’s men to go for retaliation. Many historians are of the view that ''Sati Chaura Ghat massacre was not a premediated or a one and it happened as a result of confusion.''
When the East India Company forces stationed in Allahabad marched to Cawnpore, midway women and children who had been captured by the sepoys were killed and their remains thrown into a nearby well. Following the recapture of Cawnpore and the discovery of the massacre, the furious company forces retaliated and captured rebel soldiers and local civilians. This came to be known as the Bibighar massacre.
Renamed as Nana Rao Ghat it is a mute spectator to the horrors of the 1857 Sepoy rebellion. Standing in the serene Ghat is a small white temple. The sanctity of his place and the nearby Ganges will replace the scar left behind here by the English company and the natives. The holy river has changed it course and drifted 1 km from here - Ghat toward Shuklaganj as if it does not want to part of a place where the humans became wild animals. The ghat is, indeed, a traumatic and desolate place where the Indian history is written in blood.
Weeds have grown all over the place and the district administration has not done anything to clean up this dry area. Ita ghat for name sake as the river moved away from it. Only during the monsoon the river widens its banks and reaches this place.
https://www.dgde.gov.in/content/massacre-ghat-kanpur-cantonment
https://www.thehindu.com/features/kids/siege-of-cawnpore/article7353941.ece
