1857 Beyond the Ganga

The same year broke out far from Delhi and Lucknow: on the Chhota Nagpur plateau, in the Chhattisgarh plain, in upper Assam and in the Bombay Karnatak, each with its own grievance and its own end. This chapter tells 1857 from Raipur, Ranchi, Jorhat, Nargund, Surapur and a Beda village that would not hand in its guns.

Lessons in this chapter

• The Same Year, Far from Delhi — A register in a Deccan village, two refused adoptions, a rising on the Chhota Nagpur plateau, and a letter seized at Jorhat
• The Grain of Sonakhan — He opened a hoarder's grain store in the famine of 1856, wrote to tell the Deputy Commissioner, and Raipur executed him for it on 10 December 1857
• Two Ropes at Ranchi — Thakur Vishwanath Shahdeo and Pandey Ganpat Rai raised Chhota Nagpur in 1857 and were hanged at the same Ranchi tree five days apart
• The Dewan of Jorhat — Assam's first tea planter wrote from Calcutta in 1857 to put an Ahom prince back on the throne, and a letter handed to the wrong man cost him his life
• Nargund — Babasaheb of Nargund was disarming himself on schedule until he heard who his new political agent was
• The Raja of Surapur — A British officer raised him, a horoscope predicted his end, and he was dead in British custody at twenty-three
• The Bedas of Halagali — A village of Beda hunters that refused the Disarming Act of 1857, and the nineteen hanged at Mudhol and Halagali that December

Back to Kranti Veer: The Rising and the Underground (1857-1911)