Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• COURTNEY, CHRIS

Titel

Gadadhar Singh: An Indian Adrift in the Qing Empire

Ist Teil von

• Economic and Political Weekly, 2018-09, Vol.53 (36), p.29-31

Ort / Verlag

Mumbai: SAMEEKSHA TRUST

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• [...]with the capital under foreign occupation and the emperor in exile, in place of sombre state rituals a group of Rajput soldiers had gathered to celebrate the Holi festival. In the penultimate section of his book, entitled "Loot and Atrocities," Singh launches a sustained tirade against the brutality he witnessed, which included children being burned alive, women being raped and murdered, and prisoners being nailed to doors. Singh was an adherent of the Arya Samaj movement, and so looked to the Vedas to affirm his militarism, noting that the gods therein "proclaim that the race/caste that defeats the enemy can enjoy peace and comfort in the world" (p 45). [...]sketches offer intimate portraits of the interior worlds of ordinary Indian soldiers struggling to accommodate the considerations of religion and caste in an alien terrain.