Delhi Urdu Newspaper from 17th May 1857

The issue of 17 May of Delhi-Urdu-Akhbar newspaper, contains the Editor’s eye-witness account in great detail of the events at Delhi on 11 May and the subsequent days.

The report is preceded by Quranic extracts and Persian and Urdu passages on how God can make totally unforeseen events happen.

The initial reaction to the Mutiny in the this issue is, indeed, that of gleeful surprise on so sudden a turn of events, leading to the fall of the mighty English. There is no sympathy or compassion shown for the English, even for their women and children who were now killed. A degree of unabashed pleasure is perceptible in the report on the killing of Nixon, the head of the ‘Chancellery’ and Taylor, the Principal of the Delhi College.

The terms used are almost invariably Angrez for the English and Tilanga for the rebel Sepoy.

There is a grudging approval of the Tilangis when they killed the English, but disapproval of their trigger-happy conduct when they killed a Khatri horseman or injured a vegetable vendor in Chandni Chauk. The paper complains of the helplessness of the City Kotwal in maintaining law and order in the presence of the army of ‘the Tilangis’ that has descended upon Delhi.

Via Shireen Moosvi, Professor of History at the Centre of Advanced Study, Aligarh Muslim University.