A tragedy and British brutality at Chhawani and the resilience of Bharatvarsha

In retaliation of the first battle of Independence in 1857, which the British termed as an uprising, the East India Company carried out massive and brutal retaliations against the participants of the mutiny. Most of the action was concentrated in Uttar Pradesh where entire villages were decimated. Once place called Basti Chhawani witnessed the most heart rendering moment in the history of British rule in India. A memorial in that place bears testimony to this brutality alongside the banyan tree also witness to that fateful day.

Peepal Tree at Chhawani, Basti

Not too much information is available as to how and what exactly happened. These events were not archived by the British mercenaries of East India Company. During the events of 1857, a group of Englishmen were surrounded by the freedom fighters and killed in a village called Amodha which in those days was a princely state. In retaliation around 250 to 500 freedom fighters were rounded up and hanged from a Peepal tree in the centre of the town.

During that war, Queen Talaash Kunwari of Amodha fought pitch battles with the British. After her death, her commander Avadhoot Singh continued the fight. Thousands of fighters joined him in a decisive battle on 6th March 1858 where many British soldiers were killed. The immediate trigger for this brutality could have been the assassination of General Keele (Verification needed). Any revolutionary caught by the British was hanged on this tree and a nearby mango tree and were left there as an example.

This event remained as a folklore till 1971 when the local authorities decided to trace out the names of freedom fighters who were martyred. Only 19 names came to light which were inscribed in a memorial under the tree.

Origin of this name

During the period of 1857, the East India Company had setup a huge army camp to fight the revolutionaries. This is the reason why it got the name Chhawani or Chhawni which is the Hindi translation of the word camp or cantonment. However later the camp was removed but the name stuck.

Bharatvarsha

Indian Civilization is the greatest and the oldest. It is also the one which has lasted the test of time while all other civilizations perished. India was never a united republic but it was the culture and religion which bound us together.

After Varanasi was conquered by Kutubuddin in 1197, it was recaptured in 1212 by a Bengal King who erected the Pillar of Victory which declared this place as the “Kshetra of Visveshwara”. This King perhaps did not have the money or resources to build a new temple and so he made do with the pillar.

But the question to ask here is what was a King of Bengal doing in Varanasi. United by religion, he wanted to reclaim the holy city.

In 1279 when Jizya Tax was imposed on devotees who visited Kashi, King Narsimha the Third donated the earning of an entire village to fund the tax. Donations also poured in from places as far as Bengal, Karnataka, Gujarat and Bihar. It was the year 1496 when Sikander Lodhi ordered the complete destruction of Varanasi. Along with this, the religious scholars who taught at the ancient Vedic schools had to flee south. But just 50 years later, Brahmins from Maharashtra and Karnataka led the resurrection of Schools in Banaras.

The unspeakable brutality of the British was aimed at decimating our culture and heritage. Despite trying for more than a 100 years, they could never succeed.