An interesting passage from an article which was published in www.livemint.com on Indian Sepoys is worth asking few questions:
What have we missed while history was taught to us?
With progress of time will she unfold many more mysteries to us?
Will some part of history will remain buried for ever never to known to mankind?
It seems we are not reading history but are chronicling footnotes of history?
Excerpt from the article:
Like all wars, the recruitment for World War I was also an elite affair, dictated from the top down. On the eve of the momentous event, the Nizam of Hyderabad gave a fiery speech, pledging his support to the Crown: “In 1887, my revered father offered to Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria, the sum of ₹60 lakh when danger merely threatened the borders of the Indian Empire,” he said. “I should be untrue alike to the promptings of my own heart and to the traditions of my house if I offered less to His Imperial Majesty, King George V, in this just and momentous war.” If the rulers of the princely states felt beholden to support the British, to whom they owed their titles and land, leaders of the nationalist movement, such as Jawaharlal Nehru, trained their sight on long-term gains from India’s participation in the war, hoping for national self-determination as a reward for India’s fealty to the Crown.
Even M.K. Gandhi, sworn pacifist and follower of ahimsa (non-violence), prompted Indians to go into battle—his injunction to the soldiers was not to kill but to sacrifice their lives for the sake of their motherland. Das pays close attention to the ambiguous nuances of Gandhi’s reasoning in a compelling section, where even the Mahatma appears susceptible to instrumental reasoning. ‘Martyrdom’ in the war, he felt with leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, would pave the way for India’s self-rule. In a bitter irony though, the year after the war ended, the British government would pay back Indians with one of the worst devastations ever, as General Dyer ordered the massacre of hundreds of innocent Indians gathered at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919.
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