Successful revolution comes about with awareness, not harangues or slogans
RAWALPINDI: Alam Beg, a soldier with Bengal’s forces in an infantry arm of the East India Company, was posted to Sialkot, now in Pakistan, in 1857. When arrested on charges of attacking and rebelling against the Europeans posted to the region, Alam Beg was executed along with others. His 160-year-old skull is now in the possession of a London-based historian Kim Wagner.
The ‘mutiny’ apparently failed because it was confined to few resistance groups in northern India. It could not garner support from the masses. Hence, one valuable lesson from the event is that successful revolution comes about with awareness, not harangues or slogans.
However, as a ‘champion’ of the freedom movement, India should bring his skull back and give him an honoured burial near the Sialkot border with India.
Amjed Jaaved
Published in The Express Tribune, February 7th, 2018.
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