Saquib Salim

"My master, Sreemunt Maharajah Peshwa Bahadoor has, for the purpose of defending the religion both of the Hindoos and Mahomedans, prepared himself to slaughter the followers of Christ."

A Slice Of History

These words were not written by the Peshwa’s Hindu Maratha Commander but by his aide-de-camp, a Muslim Syed from Bithoor named Mohammad Ishaq, on 2 January 1858. The letter was addressed to the chiefs of Bundelkhand, urging them to join the First War of Indian National Independence against the English forces. A Muslim officer writing on behalf of a Maratha Hindu ruler to Rajputs and Bundela chiefs, in the name of a shared faith and a shared motherland, is an untold and forgotten story of our history.

A reading of the archival documents tells about this lesser-known history. Mohammad Ishaq, a Syed Muslim, served as a Thanadar under the British Government at Bithoor before the revolt of 1857 started. Well-versed with the colonial machine from within, he chose to dismantle it and sided with the nationalist revolutionaries.

The records describe Ishaq as the principal agent, or Naib, of Nana Sahib of Bithoor, stationed at Kalpi, and held jurisdiction over Kalpi and the many villages around Kanpur. When the revolutionaries returned to Kalpi after their defeat at Kanpur in December 1857, Ishaq stepped forward to hold the administration together, exercising joint authority over the town on behalf of Nana Sahib. So, a Muslim administrator ran the civil government as a viceroy of the Maratha Chief, Nana Sahib. This is a history we have not been taught.

On 31st December 1857, Tatya Tope dispatched letters to the major chiefs of Bundelkhand, viz., the Rani of Jhansi, Raja Bakht Bali, Raja Narpat Singh, Raja Hindupat, Raja Mardan Singh, Kunwar Niranjan Singh, and Raja Ratan Singh, informing them that "Syud Mahomud Ishaq, an aide-de-camp of the Maharaja Peshwa having been appointed by His Highness to manage the affairs of this kingdom has arrived at that place." Tatya Tope's letter directed each of these chiefs not to flinch from the instructions in Ishaq's accompanying circular.

That circular, written by Ishaq himself under the Peshwa's orders and preserved in the Foreign Political Consultations, 31st December 1858, No. 2132, at the National Archives of India, made a political argument of remarkable clarity. The Peshwa, he argued to the chiefs, was not fighting to seize the territories of the chiefs or to assume supreme command over India,

But the only aim was that after a victory over the English, all chiefs should enjoy their lands in peace and happiness.

Those provinces held exclusively by the British would, after due consultation, be distributed among those who came forward. The fight was not of one religious faith against another. It was of all faiths against a common occupier.

Ishaq was not merely a writer of letters or a scribe but was a military strategist. Among the papers captured by the British when they retook Kalpi were documents showing that Ishaq had established rules for appointing a hundred dak hurkaras, intelligence runners who monitored British troop movements at river crossings and reported back to the revolutionary commanders. He also directed the payment of wages to news-writers stationed at the Chilla Tarra Ghat to track English military strength. So one can safely argue that he was running a functioning intelligence and communication network for a revolutionary nationalist government headed by Nana Sahib. A man who had once administered British law later used the experience to outmanoeuvre it.

Why do our histories remain silent on such men?

By May 1858, Ishaq was marching with the Nawab of Banda to Kalpi, reinforcing the assembled revolutionaries with two to three thousand fighting men and guns. British intelligence reported that their arrival had given "the rebels there fresh heart." The Rani of Jhansi and Tatya Tope were also at Kalpi, in what can be called as one of the last great concentrations of the 1857 revolution, and Ishaq had helped bring it together.

After the fall of Kalpi and then Gwalior, Ishaq stayed. At the council of war held at Mahona, the central trio leading the War of Independence present at the table were Rao Sahib as the Peshwa's heir, Tatya Tope as manager of military affairs, and Mohammad Ishaq as manager of civil affairs. The Rani of Jhansi was also present. When most of the assembled sepoys gave up and drifted out of the meeting, the three who remained to take the final decision were Rao Sahib, Tatya Tope, and Mohammad Ishaq. The order to march toward Gwalior was issued by them, among the last few who refused to concede.

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After India gained independence, Mohammad Ishaq has not received his due. We celebrate 1857 as a moment of national awakening, yet we forget the names of those who embodied its most profound aspiration. Hindus and Muslims were not merely tactical allies but inhabitants of the same motherland, fighting the same battle. A Muslim Syed served a Maratha Peshwa, marched alongside a Rajput chief, and wrote to Bundela chiefs in the name of a faith that was both Hindu and Muslim, i.e., the faith of the motherland. This was the soul of the Indian nation, for which these men laid down their lives.