Narratives of Survival and Retribution: The Mahua Dabar Massacre of 1857

Abstract

The current research casts a questioning eye over the 1857 massacre of British officers which immediately followed the village of Mahua Dabar and the consequent complete destruction of that township by British colonialists. Based on the primary source documents of the time, i.e., the traumatic narration of the sergeant Busher, the official papers of the Commissioner William Wynyard, and the military diaries of William Peppé, this work examines the fusion of colonial trauma and the state-sponsored revenge. The exploration of the events that followed the Faizabad mutiny is also narrated with a special focus on how the British government changed its attitude of defensive helplessness into an offensive operation of aggressive cleansing of the surrounding rural setting. This thesis argues that the destruction of Mahua Dabar did not just serve as a case of military necessity but was in fact a symbolic performance of power of the colonizers meant to reestablish Iqbal-i.e. prestige- through the physical eradication of a supposedly rebellious district. Moreover, the ambiguity of the local loyalties is interrogated in furtherance of the future of the agency of the Indian intermediaries who ambivalently participated in the insurgency either by aiding the fugitives or by joining the insurgency. Contrasting between the information power, represented in the British documentary evidence, and the corporeal silence of the destroyed village, the paper provides subtle understanding of counter-insurgency tactics, as well as the politics of shared memory in the Great Uprising in the Basti district.