‘That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it weres Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first murder!’

–William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

A discussion between I and Brigadier Sufyan on an eve of 2018 on The Skull of Alum Bheg: The Life and Death of a Rebel of 1857 by Kim A. Wagner, was the reason behind the idea of diorama ‘Blowing up of Freedom Fighters by East India Company’. Brigadier Sufyan, I, Aamna Nadeem, and Sammar Akram carried out numerous sessions on this book. Sammar, I, and Aamna carried out further research, and ultimately, we were able to acquire reasonable data from various primary and secondary sources on the subject. We shared our research with Major General (later Lieutenant General) Muhammad Aamir and Lieutenant General Aamir Riaz. Both General officers supported the idea and we started working on a display. Initially, it was decided that a digital painting may be prepared, however, Major Arshad Pervaz (retired) traced a barrel of an East India Company’s rare 9 Pounder Smooth Bore Muzzle Loading (SBML) at some unknown place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). We decided to procure the original barrel and prepare the carriage with the help of our experts. General Aamir Riaz gave us the green signal and we procured the barrel. The carriage was prepared in Rawalpindi under the supervision of Major Arshad, uniforms of East India Company Artillery were prepared in Sialkot, while sculptures were prepared by Mr. Aftab Changezi and his team in Lahore. Conservation and cleaning of the barrel was carried out by Ms. Arshia Sohail while Ms. Zeenat Zia designed the display area. It is worth mentioning that the museum was inaugurated and opened for the public in autumn 2017, while this diorama was added in 2019.

Blowing from a Gun
Blowing from a gun is a method used for execution. The victim is typically tied to the mouth of the barrel of the cannon, which is then fired, resulting in death. According to George Carter Stent: 
“The prisoner is generally tied to a gun with the upper part of the small of his back resting against the muzzle. When the gun is fired, his head is seen to go straight up into the air some forty or fifty feet; the arms fly off right and left, high up in the air, and fall at, perhaps, a hundred yards distance; the legs drop to the ground beneath the muzzle of the gun; and the body is literally blown away altogether, not a vestige being seen”.
1857: A Tragic Account of How Freedom Fighters were Blown Up
The method of execution is strongly associated with its use by the British during the suppression of the 1857 War of Independence. The magnitude of the executions made by the British in 1857 can be gauged from the reports published in the journal, Allen's Indian Mail: 
“On June 8, two sepoys from the 35th Light Infantry were blown from guns. On June 10, in Ludhiana, Peshawar, some forty from the 54th Regiment were blown from guns. On June 13, ten sepoys from the 45th Regiment at Firozpur were blown from guns, two hanged. The same day in Ambala, ten sepoys from the 54th regiment suffered the same fate. The 26th of the same month, in Aurangabad, one was blown from a gun, one hanged, and three were shot. On July 8, in Jhelum, it is assumed that captured rebels would be blown away. On the 19th, in Aurungabad, one was blown away, two shot. On September 5, in Settara, six were blown away. On September 17, in Multan, one was blown away, and 121 were summarily executed. On September 23, in Karachi, one was blown away, seven were hanged and twenty deported. (The local body count on court-martialed individuals then came to four blown away, 14 hanged, 22 deported and 3 beheadings). At the end of October, in Rohilkhand near Agra, one was blown away. On November 16, in Bombay, two sepoys from the 10th Regiment were blown away.”

One inhumane method used by the British was blowing up the freedom fighters from artillery cannons/guns. 

Blowing up of Freedom Fighters in 1857 by Artillery Cannons inside Pakistan
The Englishman Berkley says, provide me mares, Rai Ahmad and I will secure a citation for you from London. Rai Ahmad says, “No one in his life ever shares wives, land and mares with others”.
In 1857, natives fought the first War of Independence against the British colonial occupation. The British occupation of ancient Pakistan commenced with the capture of Sindh in 1843 and Punjab (which also included KP) in 1849. However, by 1857, only a part of Balochistan was under British occupation. Major and minor battles were fought at more than 20 different locations in Pakistan. Troops of British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Government, meted out untold atrocities against those who revolted against the British colonialists. One inhumane method used by the British was blowing up the freedom fighters from artillery cannons/guns. Some of the places where people were blown up from British artillery cannons/guns include:
Blowing up of Sherbaz Khan and his Sons 
The diorama display in Army Museum Lahore shows son of Sherbaz Khan tied to the front of a British 9 Pounder cannon at Agency Ground in Murree. On August 14, 1947, after 100 years of struggle against British colonisation, the nation was reborn as Pakistan. Presently, agency ground is used by the students of F.G. Public School, Murree and Chinar Army Public School and College, Murree.
The Bloody Cannon
The 9 Pounder Bronze Cannon displayed in the museum is one of the original cannons which were used to blow up freedom fighters during the 1857 War of Independence. This is also a rare 9 Pounder Smooth Bore Muzzle Loading (SBML) cannon which was cast in 1855 at Cossipore Gun Factory in British India. In 1858, almost all the SBML bronze cannons were melted at the foundry to produce new rified muzzle loading bronze cannons. Only a few survived and one of those is displayed here. The diorama was made by Mr. Changezi and Samar Akram while research was carried out by Brigadier Sufyan (retired) and Major Arshad (retired).
The Gugera Uprising
The Gugera movement was the most widespread and dangerous rebellion within Punjab's borders, and for a time threatened the British rule in the region. Starting from Jhamra and Gugera, it soon captured the important stations of Kamalia, Pindi Sheikh Musa, Saiyyidwala, Harappa, Chichawatni, Tulumba, Serai Sidhu, Shorkot, Jamlaira, Sahuka, Kabula, and Pakpattan. The strength of the freedom fighters can be gauged from the report of R.C. Temple, Secretary to the Chief Commissioner, according to which an Islamic postal clerk told the Chief Commissioner that the number of freedom fighters was exactly 125,000. The Deputy Commissioner of Gugera, Bayan Elphinstone, testifies to the strength of the freedom fighters that the entire country, even as far as Tulumba in Multan District, is in open rebellion. According to the census report of 1855, the population of Gugera District was 308,020 and the population of Multan District was 971,175. The popularity of this movement can be estimated from the fact that Muslim women are also seen supporting men in the rebellions, “moving along the tops of the houses with their skirts stretched out, so as to cover the matchlockmen as they crept about from point to point”.

According to the Montgomery Gazetteer, Ahmad Khan Kharral was an exceptional leader with mind and heart. He was brave and courageous and it was he who shook people up. Even after half a century, he is remembered as a hero in folk tales and songs.

According to Cave-Browne, the crisis was even greater from the fall of Delhi in those September days and had greater implications for Britain's survival than in May and June. Ahmad Khan Kharral, the mastermind of this movement, said that he was in constant contact with the freedom fighters of Delhi and Hansi and personally with the Mughal emperor and publicly swore allegiance to the British, claiming that he was fighting on the orders of Emperor Bahadur Shah. Other Muslim leaders who participated in the Gugera movement include Nadir Shah Qureshi, Walidad, Salbat, Mokha, Bahlak Wuttoo, Mehr Bahawal, Mehr Murad Fatiana and Mohammad Khan. English writers have tried to valorize this movement and discredit its leaders as cattle thieves and thieves. But historical records do not support this claim. Although some British officers disagree. Major F.C. Marsden, Deputy Commissioner of Gugera, reported: "On my arrival at Gugera, I found that the mighty Kharral tribe under their old leader, Ahmad Khan, a wealthy and determined old man, had been attacked." According to the Montgomery Gazettee, Ahmad Khan Kharral was an exceptional leader with mind and heart. He was brave and courageous and it was he who shook people up. Even after half a century, he is remembered as a hero in folk tales and songs.¹
Executions in Lahore 
In 1858, the Imperial Gazetteer of India stated that "Had Lahore and Ferozepur fallen, India would surely have been restored." Lahore was important to the entire imperial enterprise. A merciless massacre was the only option in the frightened rulers’ minds.
On May 11, 1857, the Meerut camp mutinied and its British officers were killed. Soon, a large army of liberators marched towards Delhi and declared Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar as their ruler. The news reached all the camps in the Indian subcontinent and Punjab, and the first revolt against foreign rule was at Ferozepur, where the 45th Native Infantry attacked the outer defences. The Company was more concerned about the huge arsenals at Ferozepur and Lahore. They then headed towards Lahore.
On the morning of May 13, 1857, all the local soldiers in Lahore were summoned for a parade and ordered to disarm. An uproar broke out in the ranks as all the English artillery was ready to fire on one side and the cavalry on the other to charge. The situation was desperate. All the arms were taken to the fort of Lahore, where six months' rations of four thousand persons were taken from all the bazaars. With weapons secured and ready for a possible siege, it was only a matter of time before the massacre of unarmed civilians and soldiers began.
Unfortunately, those who were left behind ransacked and pillaged the villages around Lahore on their way to Delhi. However, the revolution was not planned. Revolutions were never planned. The stage was set for the great battle in Delhi, and Lahore was the starting point for crushing the rebellion. But before the great train left Lahore to break the siege of Delhi, they assembled at Company Bagh, later renamed Lawrence Garden, to put down all traces of the rebellion in Lahore.
The first place made available was Anarkali Cantonment. It must be remembered that the shrine of Mian Mir Sahib was not made at that time. The first victim was a soldier who was praising the rebels in the old Anarkali bazaar. They immediately grabbed him, put him in front of the cannon and fired. The sale of lead and sulfur was immediately prohibited afterwards, and all stocks were confiscated.
Inside Lohari Gate, a small procession raised anti-Company slogans. Lahore Police arrested five freedom seekers under the supervision of Subhan Khan’s Police Battalion. The cannon was placed in front of the Lohari Gate and all of them were blown. Silence fell over the Old City and cannons were placed outside the Delhi Gate. But the largest concentration of arms and soldiers was on the grounds of the present university ground, which was then the parade ground in Anarkali. There was a large armed group behind Lahore Fort and there were guns on all the towers.
All roads leading to the Anarkali camp were closely guarded by police and army officers, and news also reached the neighboring towns. Some examples might illustrate the company's military spirit. On June 26-27, Company's guard corps moved to the Anarkali Cantonment Parade Ground. Two soldiers, both locals, spoke ill of the Company. They were immediately captured and placed in front of two guns. The Anarkali market crowd was invited to watch the parade and set off.
According to one manuscript, a soldier in Anarkali drew his sword and wounded several British officers. He was expelled in the same way, but a wave of executions followed when a full account was made against all the opponents of the Company living in the besieged city. They were either caught, imprisoned, fined or cannoned. All these hangings were carried out at various places including Anarkali Parade Ground, present-day Tollinton Market, Lahori Gate, Delhi Gate, present Fortress Stadium, Shah Almi Gate, and outside Lahore Fort. A similar execution site was near the boat bridge on the Ravi River.
The fear of the East India Company was so great that according to one source, people stopped discussing the events in the streets, but all this had a terrible effect on the minds of the unarmed soldiers. Then there was a big explosion on July 30, 1857, as the soldiers of the Saddar camp in Mian Mir Cantonment, Lahore revolted. Major Spencer was murdered, and everything was out of control after that. 
Hundreds of soldiers fled to the Ravi River, now known as Mehmood Booti locality. There, the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, Mr. Cooper, led a party and shot hundreds of soldiers as they swam across the river. Another group advanced towards Amritsar, and although they surrendered, they were killed.
There was a sudden influx of new prisoners in the Lahore jails, which had 2379 prisoners. This sudden rush and lack of space led to an official elimination policy. There's no count of how many were eliminated, but one account says it could be in five figures.²
May-September 1857: Executions in Peshawar
According to an official paper (not a collection of newspaper reports) presented in the British House of Commons in 1859, only in Peshawar Valley in Punjab (Peshawar was a part of Punjab) for the period, 523 were recorded executed, of them 459 shot by musketry, 20 hanged (13 for desertion) and the last 44 were blown from a gun). Of those 44, four were executed on charges of desertion rather than mutiny. 
As a ‘traditional’ Indian practice, however, the use of the cannon supposedly overcame the perceived need to ‘translate’ the spectacle of execution. A contemporary British newspaper report elaborated on the cultural specificity of the spectacle enacted during the first mass execution of sepoys at Peshawar in June 1857: 
“You must know that this is nearly the only form in which death has any terrors for a native. If he is hung, or shot by musketry, he knows that his friends or relatives will be allowed to claim his body, and will give him the funeral rites required by his religion; if a Hindoo, that his body will be burned with all due ceremonies; and if a Mussulman, that his remains will be decently interred, as directed in the Koran. But if sentenced to death in this form, he knows that his body will be blown into a thousand pieces, and that it will be altogether impossible for his relatives, however devoted to him, to be sure of picking up all the fragments of his own particular body; and the thought that perhaps a limb of someone of a different religion to himself might possibly be burned or buried with the remainder of his own body, is agony to him.”³
Mass executions, however, were chaotic matters, both literally and symbolically, and it was only by sanitising the accounts of sepoys being blown from guns, that they could be represented as orderly and unequivocally efficacious spectacles. Kaye's assessment of the executions carried out in Peshawar on June 10, for example, was refuted by the report of Lord Roberts, who witnessed the case:
“It was a terrible sight, and one likely to haunt the beholder for many a long day; but that was what was intended. I carefully watched the sepoys’ faces to see how it affected them. They were evidently startled at the swift retribution which had overtaken their guilty comrades, but looked more crest-fallen than shocked or horrified, and we soon learnt that their determination to mutiny, and make the best of their way to Delhi, was in nowise changed by the scene they had witnessed.”⁴
In addition to their deterrent effect, these executions were seen as uniquely effective in restoring the colonial rule by enhancing the prestige of the British. In the semi-official history of the rebellion, John W. Kaye described the effects of the executions in Peshawar:
“To our newly-raised levies and to the curious on-lookers from the country, the whole spectacle was a marvel and a mystery. It was a wonderful display of moral force, and it made a deep and abiding impression […] Perhaps some of the most sagacious and astute of the spectators of that morning’s work said to each other, or to themselves, as they turned their faces homeward, that the English had conquered because they were not afraid. […] Among the rude people of the border, the audacity thus displayed by the English in the face of pressing danger excited boundless admiration. They had no longer any misgivings with respect to the superiority of a race that could do such great things, calmly and coolly, and with all the formality of an inspection-parade. The confidence in our power, which the disbandment of the native regiments had done so much to revive, now struck deep root in the soil. Free offers of allegiance continued to come in from all tribes.”⁵ 

( To be continued...)

The writer holds a Master’s degree in English Literature and a Ph.D. in Education Administration.
E-mail: [email protected]

1.  Adapted from Sargana, Turab ul Hassan, Gugera Movement 1857: Nature, Extent and Significance.
2.  Adaptation from works of Majid Sheikh.
3.  Blowing from Guns at Peshawar, Daily News, November 5, 1857.
4.  Roberts, Forty-One Years in India, p. 69.
5.  Kaye’s and Malleson’s History of the Indian Mutiny.