Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and The Indian Mutiny Of 1857 - Andrew Ward - Book Review

First of all i frankly admit that the perusal of this book throughout three weeks resembles more or less a psychological torture on my peaceful mind. Indeed, as per author's own words from the preface of this book, the bones of countless hapless Indians,Europeans, Anglo-Indians, Eurasians, Hindoos, Muslims or Christians are scattered throughout each and every page of this unique book on the great Indian mutiny of 1857. Since our childhood we have been taught in the history classes of our school to hail the Mutiny of 1857 as the first war of Indian independence, while on the other part of the globe in Great Britain or rather in Europe it has been touted as Sepoy mutiny. We Indians, while reading the history of 1857 mutiny had attached ourselves emotionally with such stalwart rebel figures like Nana Sahib, Tatya Topi or The Queen of Jhansi Laxmibai. On the other hand the British generals like Henry Havelock, John Nicolsen or James Neill had become hate figures to us for their utmost cruelty to put down the rebellion. But for the first time in life after going through this book i could not control my tears to learn about the massacre of the poor European women and children at the hands of the mutineers in Bibighar as well as in other sites where the mutiny had spread its black shadows. Infact a few questions are hammering upon my mind. First had not the mutineers massacred the British women and children, would the Britishers also have spared the women and children of the mutineers from the retribution in form of rape and murder ? Second had Nana Sahib been able to defeat the British army and driven them out of Cawnpur forever, would the mutineers have shown mercy on the British women and children imprisoned in Bibighar and had allowed them a safe passage to Calcutta? I am afraid to say that i am doubtful about both of these probabilities. Massacre-revenge-counter-revenge, the vicious cycle rolls on and on over the surface of the so-called farce named civilization. There is seemingly no end of it. Dresden bombing in response to London Blitz, Hiroshima-Nagasaki to avenge Pearl Harbour, Second world war and Holocaust to avenge the humiliation of Versailles treaty, the bloody conflict between Israel-Palestine or more recently invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to avenge the destruction of twin towers. Do the 'children Of God'have no chance of escape from the vicious play of revenge and counter-revenge ? Perhaps the human beings are the only living being to descend into the nadir of such hateful barbarity as described from the title page to colophon of this book. While reading this book it seemed to me as if both the British rulers and the Indian mutineers had locked horn with each other in sheer madness to prove whose method of killing is more ingenious and barbaric. Really the human beings possess such superhuman capacity to hate each other !!!! At the end i personally thank Mr. Andrew Ward for writing such a tremendous book on this cataclysmic event of the British-Indian empire and for unlike most Western historians presenting the history of the Indian mutiny from an unbiased standpoint. Really very few books shook me so much as this book did.