1. Roy Said,

   Oh.. the drawing of 16 sepoys being hanged at the same time is really really hurtful.

   I am convinced that British won because they had better guns.

   Better organization too, but we could have overcome that because of the size

2. The Sepoy Mutiny Blog » Blog Archive » Remembering the fallen - Indians killed during the rebellion Said,

   […] have shown you the pictures of the gallow where four people at a time were hanged. It is a very troubling picture and unfortunately the scene has been repeated often. I will not show […]

3. F.J. Hughes Said,

   Execution at the mouth of a cannon was a practice adopted by the British from a practice of the Mughals. It was seen as an honourable means of execution by the punished and was an instanteous death for the victim, prefered over hanging or firing squad. It is difficult not to be emotionally effected by the norms and values of a bygone age, but these are historical facts, not a living reality.

4. R G Said,

   F J Hughes is apparently mis-informed.. On the Peshawar executions, a letter appeared in the Blackwood’s Magazine, for November 1857. Reproduced below are extracts from the said letter: “You must know (writes the correspondent) that this is nearly the only form in which death has any terrors for the natives.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 rights required by his religion; if a Hindoo, that his body will be burned with all due ceremonies; and if a Mussalman, that his remains will be decently interred, as directed in the Quran. 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 some one of a different religion to himself might possibly be burned or buried with the remainder of his own body, is agony to him. It is therefore not clear on whose authority F J Hughes says that the victims preferred this horrendous method of execution.. Besides, the conduct of the execution was itself bordered on terror tactics. All forty to be blown from guns were lined up together in the Parade Ground (Execution Ground).Ten were blown from ten guns at a time — the portfire of the guns burning all the while..The correspondent further says “After the first ten had been disposed of, the next batch, who had been looking on all the time walked up to the guns quite calmly and unfalteringly, escorted by the provost marshal and allowed themselves to be blindfolded and tied up to the wheels of the gun without moving a muscle, or showing the slightest signs of fear, or even concern. It was impossible for the mutineer’s direst hater not to feel some degree of admiratiuon for the way in which they met their deaths.” Perhaps Hughes would not have made such a comment if he understood the mental agony implicit in this type of execution. .

5. Peter Said,

   Dalrymple describes how British troops bribed executiomeers in Delhi to use short ropes to prolong the agony of those executed by hanging.It is highly unlikely that the British chose blowing from the guns because it was quick and painless.

6. F.J.Hughes Said,

   RG and Peter, I have read several accounts - British accounts - that stated that the method of execution was adopted from a Mughal practice. The stoicism of the concemned was admired. Hanging has been described as the ‘ death of a dog’. Humanitarian considerations were the least of the executioners concerns. I am under the impression that the Sephai prefered it as a means of execution over hanging, as Peter’s remarks show that execution by hanging could be prolonged. As for the mental agony involved, I also understand that sometimes those about to be hanged were sometimes smeared in pig or cow fat and that force feeding of these prohibited foods occured prior to the gallows. As for terror tactics - isn’t death by execution a terror tactic irrespective of the methods employed?

7. F.J.Hughes Said,

   RG and Peter.
   Re: Execution by cannon.
   I cite David, Saul, The Indian Mutiny (2003). Chapter 10, page 146, paragraph 2.

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