Freedom vs emancipation

Freedom is one thing, emancipation quite another. Until now India was guilty of having the first but not the second, at least not in the fullest measure. That is why May 11, 2007 ought to go down as the date on which the fight for one was celebrated and the other was achieved.

One celebration took the form of a tedious, government-sponsored dance-and-drama show. It was what in the old days would have been called a variety show. It was staged in order to mark 150 years of the events of the summer of 1857. Native Hindu and Muslim troops had rebelled against the British. Native, because the more modern idea of India as opposed to the less modern one of Hindustan had yet to take hold.

They succeeded in the beginning but were then decimated, often at the mouths of cannon. One British officer later wrote that he enjoyed the spectacle of flesh raining down, some of it on him.

The other celebration was more genuine. This was the result of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election in which a Dalit, and a woman at that (or, equally, a woman and Dalit at that) trounced a powerful opposition. This opposition comprised castes which have ruled and oppressed the Dalits "" not to mention women "" for the last 2,000 years. It is in that sense that it was emancipation.

If the fight for freedom in 1857 ended in a rout for the fighters for freedom, the struggle for emancipation in 2007 has ended in an equally resounding success. In 1857, there was tremendous unity; yet the Indians lost.

In 2007, there was tremendous disunity leading to forecasts of a hung assembly, President's rule, horse-trading, coalitions and so on. Yet, in the end, India has won. It is truly a moment to savour.

Politics, which is just a fancy name for openly expressed prejudices, always colours the eventual assessment of historic events. Mayawati's fantastic victory will fade into history's shadows, much as the events of 1857 have and it is hard to say how the new government in UP will fare. But 150 years on, it is useful to be reminded of some of the real lessons of 1857, if only to ensure that we don't commit those mistakes again.

To understand 1857, it is vital to put it in the context of another event which took place 100 years earlier and whose 250th anniversary this is. This was the infamous battle of Plassey where Mir Jaffer, having been bought over by Robert Clive, refused to allow his troops to enter the battle. Bengal was lost that year, and over the next 70 years, India.

As the Chinese say, "Fear not the sun/fear not the moon/fear the foreign devil/who speaks English." At the risk of sounding preposterous, it is necessary to ask the government, why overlook Plassey when it holds such an important lesson?

If history is coloured by prejudice, historians can be prejudiced by their profession and sometimes overlook the importance of myths in the modern nation-state. Not all myths are disruptive and one or two serve to unify, rally and coalesce citizens around a common purpose.

1857 is one such myth, so historians who have been knocking it should ignore it instead of muttering darkly under their breaths that everything is going to pot. Sometimes the silence of academics can be golden.

In 1857, as the Prime Minister said, Hindus and Muslims came together in a common purpose. Pakistan was still 90 years away. Did it celebrate 1857, which some of its historians claim was when the movement for Pakistan began? Google it to find out.