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| Gen. henry Havelock of British army, Trafalgar sq.suzassippi.wordpress.com |
Above image: General Sir Henry Havelock occupies a spot in Trafalgar Square, just in front of King George IV .............
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| Gen. Havelock upload.wikimedia.org |
Above image: This is the statue of General Havelock in Mowbray Park, Sunderland. William Behnes also designed this statue. Two cannon (replicas of cannons presented to Sunderland after the Crimean War in 1857) stand beside the statue, facing north commanding the view over the park. The statue, however, looks west towards Havelock's birthplace. The statue reads: Born 5, April 1795 at Ford Hall Bishopwearmouth Died 24 November 1857 at Dil-Koosa Lucknow.
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| Gen. Havelock memorial, Trafalgar Sq. flickr.com/ |
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| Gen. Havelock, England. upload.wikimedia.org |
Above image: The statue of General Havelock (by William Behnes) in Trafalgar Square, London
The plaque on the plinth reads: ''To Major General Sir Henry Havelock KCB and his brave companions in arms during the campaign in India 1857. "Soldiers! Your labours, your privations, your sufferings and your valour, will not be forgotten by a grateful country." Sir Henry Havelock is widely considered a military visionary for his systematic suppression of the Revolt of 1857 in northern India.
In 2000, there was a controversy when the then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone suggested that the Trafalgar Square statue, together with that of General Charles James Napier, be replaced with "more relevant" fig
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| Lucknow Havelock tombupload.wikimedia.org |
Above image: An imposing monument to Havelock's memory was erected by his sons, widow, and family. His tomb still stands in Chander Nagar – Alambagh area of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. These verses are inscribed on his tomb: " His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest; His name a great example stands, to show How strangely high endeavours may be blessed, When piety and valour jointly go."...........
The notorious military officer of British India Havelock has memorials all over the world. Road including the one in Southall, London where a road was named after him. Havelock Road will now become Guru Nanak Road, after the founder of the Sikh faith.
Havelock memorial across other countries:
01. Havelock MRT station and Havelock Road along Singapore River, Singapore
02. Havelock Island, in the Andaman Islands was also named in his honour (now Swaraj Dweep).
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| Gen. Havelock Inn, East Sleckburn .flickr.com |
Above image: Several public Houses in England bear the name of Havelock. The General Havelock Inn "The Haydon Bridge pub sign bears his portrait, as does the East Sleekburn one; in addition, there is a road/street called Havelock Mews next to the latter...........................
03. Havelock Road in Luton is claimed to be named after him. The road appears on The 1887 1st edition and 1901 2nd edition OS maps
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| Havelock guest houses, England. tripadvisor.com |
Above image: Havelock Guest House in Jersey.
04. The New Zealand towns of Havelock, on the South Island, and Havelock North, on the North Island, are named after him.
05. Havelock Road in Southall , London, will be renamed Guru Nanak Road in 2021.
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| Havelock, a suburb of Lincoln, Nebraska, USAournalstar.com |
Above image: The town of Havelock, Nebraska, USA which was incorporated in 1893 but was later annexed by the City of Lincoln, was named after him. The former area of the town is still known today as the Havelock neighborhood in Lincoln........................
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| Gen. Henry_Havelocken.wikipedia.org |
Way back in the past a team of retired British Army officers and descendants of British Army officers who suppressed the revolt of 1857 came on a tour of various sites of the 1857 war in India. Positively, it was not part of mourning, rather it was a sort of publicity trip to celebrate the British Empire’s ‘victory’ over the rebels.
The rebellion started off at the Meerut cantonment where against the wish of Hindu and Muslim soldiers, the new Enfield rifles were introduced with greased cartridges containing fat made from cows' and pigs'. What was started off as a small protest snowballed into a huge rebellion across northern states. Though it is true that more than 100 British subjects including women and children were killed by the rebels here and there, according to unofficial figures roughly one million Indian natives were mercilessly killed by the British army to save the falling empire and to take revenge. The British team of retired officers in order to save the name of the empire made an attempt to glorify the army men by way of erecting plaque in memory of the “bravery and distinguished service” of the 1st Battalion of the 60th King’s Royal Rifle Corps between May 10 and September 20, 1857.
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| 1857 blowing up with cannon fire. atrocities at Jhansi.The Victorian Web |
A little is known in England that the suppression of 1857 revolt against the unjust and racist East India company's misrule resulted in mass killing of Indians, replete with appalling atrocities. An act of racial humiliation and cruelty such as hanging the rebels in public from the trees without any basic inquiry or tying them to the mouth of powerful cannons and blowing them up into smithereens. The dead bodies of the rebels were hung on the gibbet publically for days so that others won't resort to protests in the future. This kind of celebration of the the ex army men of 1857 was an audacious act. As of today there has been no apology from the British army or from the government for their atrocities in 1857 or for the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre caused by Col. Reginald Dyer.
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| Sir Mark Havelock Allantwentyessex.com |
Above image: Sir Mark Havelock Allan, descendant of the notorious Sir Henry Havelock and inheritor of the title ‘Baronet of Lucknow’ conferred on Havelock posthumously after the Siege of Lucknow, said, “enormous admiration” for Havelock and his fellow colonialists; the Raj had been a “good thing” and claimed that India’s stable democratic system was attributable to the British Raj!
The statement by him was quite nonsense and hilarious!!.May be pigment of his imagination.............
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According to Virendra Sharma, a member of parliament in Southall, about campaigning in the 1980s, “I have often been ashamed [that] the names of empire still pervade our streets,” adding that “names like Havelock belong in books, classrooms and museums, not on the streets to be celebrated”.
Henry Havelock got a name for his brutal suppression of the 1857 Indian Rebellion at Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. he played an active role in the First Anglo-Sikh War ( Dec. 1845-Mar. 46), and in the aftermath a large swathe of Punjabi territory was taken over by the English company. Gen. Havelock's name is synonymous with murder, oppression and looting, but in England the wily British gave a rosy picture about not only Havelock but also other notorious psychopaths like Gen. Brig. James Neil of the ‘Madras Fusiliers’ (nick named the butcher of Allahabad). William Raikes Hodson (19 March 1821 – 11 March 1858) a military officer and another neurotic person killed all the three princes of last mogul ruler in 1857; he shot them point blank right before the Khooni Darwaza, Delhi. For his patriotic act in 1860 Queen Victoria honored him posthumously by granting his widow a grace-and-favour apartment at Hampton Court Palace "in consideration of the distinguished service of your late husband in India".
Removing the name of a notorious colonialist from one street in Southall may be a good thing but the statues or names or memorials of those associated with slave trade or colonialism in England need to be removed for ever and the statues shifted to the museums. for the posterity.
Taking down a statue or a street sign is just the beginning of decolonizing 21st-century Britain as well a across the world. The dark chapters of the world history must be relegated to the back so are their vestiges.
