Lost history: What happened to Nana Saheb the Indian Prince who defied the British Empire?

Lost History is a new weekly feature from Reaction exploring intriguing stories from the past

In 1857, sepoys in Meerut revolted against their British commanders. Soon after, these insurgents reached Old Delhi and declared Bahadur Shah Zafar “Emperor of India”. Military and civilian uprisings erupted across the country and elements of the native aristocracy, army, clergy and wider population united in resisting British reprisals.

With little remorse, both sides committed lamentable horrors and achieved extraordinary triumphs, but debates still rage over the appropriate name for the events of 1857-1859. It has been called a mutiny, a revolt, a war and a revolution, but most contemporary Indian historians consider it a seminal moment of national awakening. The Indian martial and political leaders of 1857 are today venerated as champions of liberty and as heroes of their country. The most famous and mysterious of the generals who fought determinedly against the British Empire was Nana Saheb, a fabulously wealthy nobleman who besieged the British community at Cawnpore and oversaw the bloodiest episode in the first saga of modern India.

Nana Saheb was born in 1824 to an obscure Brahmin and his wife. Prominent Maratha politician and aristocrat, Baji Rao II, who was incapable of producing his own children, decided to adopt the young Saheb. At Baji’s court, Saheb grew up in the company of several future leaders of the revolt including Rani Lakshmibia, Tatya Tope and Azimullah Khan. At this time, the East India Trading company enjoyed supreme jurisdiction in India on behalf of the British government.

In 1848, the British Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, contrived a policy of annexation, known as “The Doctrine of Lapse.” It stipulated that whenever an indigenous ruler proved “manifestly incompetent or died without a direct heir” the company would intervene and arrange the governance of the territory. This strategy naturally enraged many monarchs, chiefs and leaders who saw it as their right to choose their own successors.

Using this policy as a point of just cause, the company claimed the governance of Satara, Jaitpur, Sambalpur, Baghat, Nagpur, Jhansi and Awadh and by doing so drastically increased its annual revenue. After his adoptive father’s death, Nana Saheb ascended to the rank of Peshwa and became heir-presumptive to the throne of Maratha. He expected to receive his predecessor’s pension of £80,000 from the British, but the aforementioned policy banning a ruler’s prerogative to select a successor barred Saheb from this source of income. He, however, did not need the money having inherited a now immeasurable fortune from his new family.

By 1857, British administrators held Nana Saheb in very high esteem. He had hosted several parties for European settlers and his undue benevolence was perceived as a fair reason to trust him. As fighting broke out in 1857, Saheb sent 1,500 sepoys – ostensibly to support the British garrison at Cawnpore. However, after his troops entered the ammunition store Saheb revealed his intention to rule as a vassal of the new Emperor. When word of his stance spread, the numbers of Saheb’s followers grew exponentially.

On the 5th June, he lay siege to the British encampment of Cawnpore. The two sides sniped each other until the 27th when Saheb granted a ceasefire and invited the Europeans down to a dock on the Ganges. He provided them with boats for safe passage to Allahabad and instructed his men not to attack. The depleted British column marched out of their camp and steadily trudged down to the dock. One hundred and twenty European women and children accompanied their husbands and fathers on this fateful journey. Huge crowds of locals and sepoy soldiers amassed across the crests of surrounding slopes to watch the spectacle of white settlers being forced to abandon their stronghold.

There is confusion as to what exactly happened next…

It seems snipers perched high above the British began firing and soon general fighting ensued. No one knows whether an order was issued by Saheb or whether he was simply powerless to prevent his people from engaging. What we do know is that the majority of British soldiers were slaughtered then and there. The rest were recaptured along with the women and children and taken to Saheb’s headquarters, where all British men were summarily executed. The women and children were thereafter housed in a nearby villa while the Indian leaders argued among themselves about what to do. It was finally agreed, in part out of revenge for cruelties committed by the East India Trading company, that every European who remained at Cawnpore should be killed.

Saheb is said to have opposed this decision and to have left the vicinity before the butchery started, but it seems he did little to save the lives of over a hundred non-combatants. The women and children were shot through their shutters before being savagely hacked to death by men wielding large knives and machetes. The corpses were indiscriminately thrown down an adjacent well. While delivering the bodies to their mass grave, a man reportedly discovered three young British boys who had survived the slaughter. Their captor threw them screaming down the well one after the other where they presumably died of suffocation.

When a relief expedition reached Cawnpore and found evidence of their enemy’s horrific crime, they were naturally incensed. An enormous manhunt was conducted to kill, but preferably capture, the man who had allowed such a gratuitous massacre of innocents. Every possible effort was made to locate the whereabouts of Saheb and his inner circle, but he vanished into the forests and never returned. Rumours circulated that Saheb had died of a fever while on the run. This explanation was robustly rejected by the British and the search continued.

Throughout the following years, new leads emerged as fast as they fell away. Sightings of Saheb were reported in Nepal, Gujarat and even in Istanbul. In the 1860s, the British government learned that Saheb’s wives and children were living in Nepal under state protection. Some Nepalese government records claimed Saheb himself had died hunting a tiger in 1859, but again this account of his sudden and total disappearance was rejected. In the 1970s, three documents were recovered from an alleged relative in Sihor. The first two were letters addressed to Saheb’s Sanskrit teacher, dated 1856 and signed by a “Baloo Nana”. The third was a diary belonging to the brother of Saheb’s Sanskrit teacher. The diary describes the sad arrival at Sihor of Saheb and his followers after their defeat. It also records the death of Saheb in 1903, a full forty-four years after the end of the war. There have been other credible claims that he lived the rest of his life, like his biological father, as a Brahmin and prayed, fasted and preached in the sacred forest of Naimisha in Sitapur. In these accounts, he lived to the age of 102.

The fate of Nana Saheb has puzzled erudite scholars and enthusiastic amateurs for decades. Apart from not knowing what happened to him after the war, we still cannot say how much blame he is owed for the atrocities of Cawnpore. Regardless, in posterity, he has become an icon of his peoples’ independence. He may have failed in his attempt to take back control of his country, but Nana Saheb left the world of the living only to live on in the legends of India.