The myth on which the Empire rested

The hot-headed Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daula, attacked the East India Company forces in Fort William in 1756 and packed the survivors in a tiny cell on 20 June, the hottest day of the year. Most of the British captives perished in the insufferable heat, causing widespread indignation throughout the empire.

Thus was born the legend of the Black Hole of Calcutta""another example of the barbarity of the Mughal court. And who else but Company Bahadur could bring to book the uncivilised rulers and their equally medieval subjects. The incident triggered swift and merciless retribution from the company's servants. Soon, almost the entire country was at their feet.

It is quite possible to say that without the Black Hole, the military expansion undertaken by the East India Company would not have happened. Was it a ploy used by the Nabobs to expand the company's territories? The East India Company's stock was traded in the market place; territorial expansion was one definite way to drive the price up.

And wasn't extending into the heartland good for the company's gentlemen officers too? After all, it was an open secret even then that the key officers were making vast amounts of money on the side through private trade. With more country under their control, their private enterprise would flourish further.

It's been 250 years since the fateful night. And the jury is still out on the reportage of the event. Jan Dalley's book, written with equal insight and passion, shatters the myth. By the time you turn the last page of the book, there is no doubt that the Black Hole was a myth used first by the East India Company and later the British to justify their 200-year raj in India.

Soon after the incident, various accounts were published. First off the block was John Zepahniah Holwell's account "written the following year (1757) on board a homeward-bound ship, artfully written in the form of a letter to a friend but certainly intended for publication". Holwell was a survivor of the Black Hole. And his book came to be accepted as the most definitive account of the incident. Dalley has pointed out interesting inconsistencies between the book and his other correspondence on the subject, which shows that his account may not be altogether true.

In fact, modern historians have come round the view that the casualties might have been far less. Some have even suggested that the number could not be more than 40. Also, the people who died that night were definitely not earnest civil servants, who formed the backbone of the civil administration in the country. These were buccaneers out to make a buck or two in India.

These facts were conveniently ignored and the British brought up the subject at regular intervals. Thus, in 1843, Macaulay called it "that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity". Coming from the highest-ranking East India Company officials in the country, this left no doubts in the mind of the people""it was a crime for which the Indians would have to pay for two centuries.

Almost 150 years after the Black Hole, Viceroy Lord Curzon, in 1902, put up a memorial for the victims""146 British citizens of Calcutta of whom only 23 survived. It was now cast in stone: The numbers as well as the nationality of those who died. Only British life was lost. A lie, repeated ad nauseam by the rulers, became a truth. The Black Hole, right through the British rule, was the diet on which British children were raised, lest they fail to find motivation to rule over India with an iron fist.

Dalley's work, apart from blowing the myth of the Black Hole to pieces, is also a grand tour of the then Kolkata and recounts vividly the circumstances that led to the event. The book is an artistic work of history.

There are chilling similarities between the Black Hole and events that are shaping the world today, and Dalley doesn't shy away from mentioning them. The US invaded Iraq on the excuse that it had credible information that the country's leader, Saddam Hussain, had set in motion various plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. Years later, there are no traces of chemical or nuclear weapons being developed by that regime. Saddam Hussain is dead and gone and there is a civil war going on in Iraq. It has been dug into its own black hole.

The Black Hole
Money, myth and empire

Jan Dalley
Penguin
Pages: 222