An earlier "crime against humanity" by the oppressed

["Lou Paulsen" <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Never was devised a blacker scheme than that which Nena Sahib had planned.
Our miserable countrymen were conducted faithfully enough to the boats-
officers, men, women, and children. The men and officers were allowed to
take their arms and ammunition with them, and were escorted by nearly the
whole of the rebel army. It was about eight o'clock a.m. when all reached
the riverside- a distance of a mile and a half. Those who embarked first
pushed off from the shore; but others found it difficult to get their boats
off the banks, as the rebels had placed them as high as possible.  At this
moment the report of three guns was heard from the NenaÕs camp. The
mutineers suddenly levelled their muskets, guns opened from the banks, and
the massacre commenced. Some of the boats were set on fire, volley upon
volley was fired upon the poor fugitives, numbers of whom were killed on the
spot ... A few boats crossed over to the opposite bank, but there a regiment
of native infantry (the 17th), just arrived from Azimghur, was waiting for
them; and in their eagerness to slay the "Kaffirs," rode their horses belly
deep into the river to meet the boats, and hack our unhappy country men and
women to pieces."  - Sir Colin Campbell

This quotation is from a webpage devoted to the rebellion of 1857 in India:
http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Mutiny.html

Marx was the earliest commentator to recognize the 'national' character of
the 1857 Revolt. Writing in 1857 itself, he commented that the British in
creating a native army had simultaneously organized the "first general
centre of resistance which the Indian people was ever possessed of." He also
noted that Muslims and Hindus had combined against their common masters by
renouncing their mutual antipathies. Noting the sense of outrage in the
British press regarding the atrocities committed by the Indian sepoys, Marx
said that their conduct was only a reaction in a concentrated form to
England's own record in India during the foundation of the empire and after.
It was a kind of historical retribution. He noted the deliberate
exaggeration of the outrages by Indians, while the English cruelties were
related as acts of martial vigor.

http://www.foil.org/history/1857.html

Note: this page has links to numerous articles on the Indian rebellion by
Marx, all in German:
http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me_ak57.htm
I can't find the English translations online.

>From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

"A grim feature of the mutiny was the ferocity the accompanied it.  The
mutineers commonly shot their British officers on rising but were also
responsible for massacres at Delhi, Cawnpore, and elsewhere.  The murder of
women and children enraged the British, but in fact some British officers
began to take severe measures before they knew that any such murders had
occurred.  In the end the reprisals far outweighed the original excesses.
Hundreds of sepoys were shot from cannons in a frenzy of British vengeance
(though some British officers did protest the bloodshed)."

(Note: the Britannica also argues that the rebellion was caused by
traditional hatred of western values, the emancipation of women, desire to
retain the caste system, etc.)

-----------------

Summary: apparently, for Marx, the religious, monarchic, traditionalist,
etc. ideologies of the rebellion, and the killings of civilians, were
secondary.  The primary aspect was the national rebellion.



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