Mridula Chari - Why lakhs of Indians celebrate the British victory over the Maratha Peshwas every New Year
Five hundred Mahar
soldiers scattered the 25,000-strong Peshwa army for the East India Company in
Koregaon near Pune in 1818.
An hour after New Year struck on Friday, two retired army
officers, PS Dhoble and Dadasaheb Bhosle, set out in a bus from the tomb of
Independence-era leader BR Ambedkar in Mumbai's Dadar area. Accompanying them
in the convoy were more 300 other uniformed men and women. Five hours later, they reached their destination: a large
village just past Pune called Bhima Koregaon. It was here, on the banks of the
Bhima river, that a ragtag group of Mahar soldiers fighting under the British
flag in 1818 defeated the vastly superior forces of the Peshwa. More than 150
years later, evidence of the battle is still apparent. Residents of Bhima Koregaon
say they find swords from the battle in the river bed even today.
Bhosle recounted with pride the story of how 500 Mahar
soldiers on foot launched a heroic attack against the 25,000-strong army of the
Peshwas, staffed with mounted soldiers armed with guns. “Bigod, humne Peshwe ko khatm kiye,” Bhosle said. “The
Mahars only ended Peshwa rule and gave India to the British.” This might seem an unusual sentiment for an officer who has
several medals on his chest in recognition of his services to the nation.
Bhosle served in the 1965 war, in Sri Lanka, in the Andamans and Jammu and
Kashmir.
Yet the Battle of Koregaon has a deep significance to Mahars
and other Dalits in India, who remember it every January 1 as a mark of their
triumph against the dehumanising rule of the Peshwas and as the first step in
their ongoing struggle against caste-based oppression.
A heroic rout: As the story goes, on New Year's Day in 1818, about 500
soldiers of the East India Company's Bombay Native Infantry regiment led by
Colonel FF Staunton waded across the Bhima river and, at Bhima Koregaon, routed
a superior force of 25,000 well-equipped soldiers of the Peshwa. There is some room for exaggeration. Contemporary English
accounts, for instance, mention 900 Mahar soldiers instead of 500, and 20,000
Peshwa soldiers not 25,000. Besides, the Peshwas were already on the back foot
by the time of this battle – the East India Company had taken Pune, the
Peshwa’s capital, some months before and had raised its flag at the palace at
Shanivarwada.
Whatever the figures, though, the battle was one of great
odds. The British viewed it as the clinching episode in the third Anglo-Maratha
war, which ended with the Peshwas being forced to cede control of the Maratha
Empire to the East India Company. This set the foundation for British rule in
western India. Although the first Maratha ruler, Shivaji, freely recruited
Mahars in his army, two centuries later, by the time of the Peshwas, the status
of Mahars was lower than ever.
The Peshwas were Brahmins of a particularly
orthodox bent. Stories told even today recall how when Mahars entered towns,
they were made to tie brooms behind their backs to sweep up the dust of their
footprints and to tie pots in front on their necks to collect their spittle. It
was also a criminal offence to hide one’s caste. Dalit recountings of the battle emphasise that when the
English were approaching, Mahars offered their services to Peshwa Bajirao II.
It was only when he rejected them yet again that they switched their loyalty to
the British instead. In 1851, the British erected a memorial pillar at Bhima
Koregaon, with the names of those who had died in the battle. Most of the names
are of Mahar soldiers.
Escape from oppression: Despite the long military history of the Mahars, the British
government stopped recruiting them into their army in 1893. This was a
consequence of the Indian uprising of 1857, after which the British reassessed
their recruiting strategies to include only those from “martial races” in the
army. Also excluded at the same time were the “effeminate peoples
of the south” and “the so-called Mahrattas of Bombay”. While all groups removed from the army reacted with dismay,
the blow to Mahars, considered to be untouchable in caste Hindu society, was
keenly felt. With their loss of position in the army, Mahars also lost a chance
for education and to work in an environment that was at least on paper
non-discriminatory.
Bhimrao Ambedkar himself spent his early years shielded from
the violence of untouchability in a military cantonment in Mhow, where his
father, Subedar Major Ramji Sakpal, was posted. Sakpal was the headmaster of the military school there that
educated children and relatives of military personnel. He retired in 1894, a
year after the British stopped recruiting Mahars to the army. Even after his
retirement, Sakpal continued to lend his support to different campaigns to
reinstitute the Mahar Infantry Batallion.
On January 1, 1927, Ambedkar led a commemoration at the
pillar just outside the village. The ceremony continues today – people come to
the pillar, lay flowers at its base and then move on to the other amusements on
offer at the 11-acre ground owned by the military.
At the ground: The British began to recruit Mahars again during the First
World War, but disbanded the regiment after the war was over. Finally in 1945,
the Mahar Regiment was permanently reformed. Both Dhoble and Bhosle are members
of that regiment, which is now based in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, not Mhow. Every
year, members of the Mahar Regiment, in and out of uniform, come to the pillar
to pay their respects. The two veterans, Dhoble and Bhosle, became trainers of the
Samata Sainik Dal after their retirement in the early 1990s. The paramilitary
organisation affiliated to the Buddhist Society of India, was established by
Ambedkar in 1926, partly in response to the growing militarisation of Hindus in
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“There are layers of memory surrounding the memorial,” said
Shraddha Kumbhojkar, a historian at the University of Pune. “There is the
battle of Koregaon, which was forgotten in immediate history. Then Dr Ambedkar
visited it in 1927, which added a pilgrimage value to it. After his demise, it
became a part of an attempt to create an alternate culture to mainstream Hindu
culture.”
Remembering valour: The functions at Bhima Koregaon have similarities to other
Ambedkar commemorations. Three large tents in the centre of the ground served
as the base for a series of political parties to give speeches, for musicians
performing stirring songs about the history of Bhima Koregaon and for visitors
to simply take shelter from the unusually sharp heat this year. Outside the tents was the usual array of people selling
books on caste, CDs (though fewer people buy them every year now that Whatsapp
and Youtube have cornered the music market), statues of Ambedkar and Buddha,
posters and calendars.
Also present were vendors of sweets, fruit, juice and snacks
who are regulars at any fair. They knew their market. In the field adjoining
the Bhima Koregaon ground was another mela complete with giant wheel, slides
and whirling carousels. But compared to its neighbour, it was almost-deserted.
Just beyond both were quiet fields of lush sugarcane that had not yet been cut
for this year.
Just before noon, the distant whir of a helicopter’s blades
became audible. As everyone instinctively looked up, the chopper flew past the
pillar and let streams of flowers rain down on it. Cheers went up from the
crowd. The helicopter flew past four more times. Each time, it was greeted with
loud approval. The helicopter was an advertising move for the
Lashkar-e-Bhima, an up-and-coming Dalit-oriented political party based in
Maharashtra.
Scaling up: They certainly got widespread exposure. This year, at least
one lakh people are estimated to have visited the site to pay their respects.
Until even a decade ago, old-timers say, though the commemorations were regular
they were not very well attended. This, said Bhausaheb Bhalerao, husband of the sarpanch of
Bhima Koregaon, was due to the efforts of the Bhima Koregaon Ranstambh Seva
Samiti. The committee has 11 organising members from the village itself and 500
volunteers who come from all parts of Maharashtra. Most of these volunteers are
relatives of the committee members.
Together, they regulate crowd flow, create organised paths
for movement, have water and food supplies on standby for people who have
travelled great distances and set up tents for more organised activities. “Ten years ago, there was not much of a crowd here,”
Bhalerao said. “There were perhaps 50,000 who came in a day. Now there must be
at least four lakh people.”
The pillar also seems to have inspired at least 15 people to
have joined the army, though there have been fewer recruits in recent times.
Bhalerao’s son, for instance, wants to join the police. Bhalerao’s brother, now deceased, formed the committee in
2005, on seeing how much travellers suffered inconveniences every year. The
gram panchayat itself contributed Rs 50,000 to ceremonies this year, while
individual members contributed more on their own. “Though we started in 2005, we got a grip only by 2010,”
Bhalerao said. “Next year, we hope to make this even better.”
Making memories: “This year everything is much better organised than the last
time I came,” confirmed Durpatabai Ghorge, 80, who had travelled overnight from
Nanded to visit the memorial. Her last visit was 10 years ago, at which point,
she said, there were far fewer people visiting. Gayatai Kokre, 61, who organised Ghorge’s and 107 other
women’s travel from Nanded district, was dismissive of the massive presence of
various Dalit parties at the memorial. “We don’t want to be associated with any greedy political
party,” she said. “We are happy with the progress of the Dalit community, but
we are angry with the parties so will leave them. Remembering the valour of the
Mahar soldiers is a matter of pride for us and those soldiers are an
inspiration to women to take our lives into our own hands.”
She spoke of how they sang songs all night as they
travelled. “We came by railway and every one of us has a ticket,” she
said, taking out papers from her blouse as evidence. “We will not travel free
on government services. Nobody can ever say this of us.” Kokre was perhaps conscious of aspersions cast on Dalits
whenever they congregate in large numbers, whether in Mumbai, Nagpur, Mahad or
Bhima Koregaon.
Shraddha Kumbhojkar, the Pune university historian, in a
paper on how people of different identities view the Bhima Koregaon memorial,
noted that caste Hindus from Pune, which is only 50 km from the village, only
make it a point not to travel by that road on New Year’s Day. “Every New Year day, the urban middle classes who use the
highway remind each other to avoid the stretch that passes by the memorial with
the warning that ‘those people will be swarming their site at Koregaon’,” she
wrote. That does not diminish its importance to those involved in
the struggle against caste. Said Bhikkuni Purnima, a Buddhist nun who had travelled all
the way from Delhi to attend ceremonies, “I am a Buddhist who believes in
peace, but we come here to give respect to those who sacrificed their lives for
their society and for self-respect.”
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