Seville 2

On January 11, 2026 By Mick CanningIn Alcazar, photographs, Seville, Spain, travel9 Comments

All of these shots are from the Alcazar. The Alcazar – which means palace or fortress of Muslim origin – was built in the eleventh century by the Umayyad dynasty who ruled Seville in the early Middle Ages. Much of the decoration is what is described as Mudejar – a mixture of Islamic and Gothic styles which was prevalent between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.

The Hall of Ambassadors (Salon de Embajadores),

The dome in the Hall of Ambassadors).

Decoration in the Patio de las Munecas (Courtyard of the Dolls).

Just a glimpse of the extensive and beautiful gardens.

The Patio de las Doncellas (Courtyard of the Maidens).

Remnant #1 – The Indian Mutiny

On January 2, 2026 By Mick CanningIn India, Indian Mutiny, writing25 Comments

I recently did a deep dive into the burrows of my hard drive. I’m not sure whether I will write another novel at the moment, but whether I do or not there are several part completed ones that will not actually be completed because I ran out of steam…

One such was a set of preliminary drafts for a story set during the so-called Indian Mutiny of 1857. This piece is part of a chapter setting out the background to what happened. It hasn’t been vigorously checked, but I think the facts are all correct. It’s obviously incomplete, but I think it does stand alone.

And should I post a few more of these remnants occasionally?

9^th May 1857, and a dreadful heat sits on the Northern Indian plain like breathless death. The air is full of dust and the land is parched, cracked and waterless, eight months or so since the last rains came, yet the suffocating debilitation of the temperature, well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit for most of the day and a goodly portion of the night, is made more unbearable still by the effects of the high humidity. One felt that one could almost wring water out of the surrounding air, yet the only moisture visible was the sweat covering anyone foolish enough to attempt to move around in this climate.

In Meerut, less than forty miles northeast of Delhi, eighty-five sepoys have just been sentenced by Court Martial to ten years imprisonment. Muslim and Hindu, they are imprisoned for refusing to bite cartridges that have been smeared both with cow fat that was sacred to some and pig fat which defiled them all. In a move of breath-taking stupidity, the British have decided that this concoction is a suitable one for their native troops to have smeared onto cartridges that work by having the top bitten off, before pouring and ramming the contents down the barrel of the new Lee Enfield rifle. To be fair, after the mistake was realised, moves were made to ensure that the grease was made from different ingredients, but the damage by then was done. The belief was widespread that the grease was still composed of these taboo ingredients and, worse still, that it was a deliberate attempt by the British to contaminate and weaken their religions. The crassly insensitive handling of the issue did nothing to improve matters.

Nor is this an entirely new development. For maybe a quarter of a century things have been going rapidly downhill. There have been a number of ‘minor’ mutinies in the past, but these seem to be on the increase. For High Caste Hindus, ‘crossing the black water’ is prohibited, so attempts to force serving soldiers to sail abroad have been invariably interpreted as caste breaking and resulted both in mutinies and draconian punishments. Both this and the foolishness with the new cartridges have acquired added importance, though, due to the increased activity of Christian missionaries in India. It is possible that the British never fully realised quite how important religion was to the Indians. There never had been an Indian nation. India’s history was one of various states, Hindu and Moslem, shifting empires, conquests and absorptions. The idea of Indian nationhood had not yet arisen. Nor did there exist a universal shared culture. As well as the beliefs and traditions surrounding the different religions – Sikh, Parsi and tribal as well as the predominant two – the massive size of India had meant that most regions knew little about the others, even of their existence.

What mattered most to the average Indian, other than the struggle to survive, was his religion. It was what defined his life. And by 1857 it must have appeared to many that the British were determined to defile and break these religions, and then to impose their own. This was hardly helped by the general change in attitude exhibited by the British towards their subjects.

Much had altered over this time. In the late 1700’s, many of the British who came out to India acquired a huge respect, and frequently love, for the country and its people. Scholars such as James Princep and William Jones immersed themselves in the study of the languages and history of India, carrying out research and making huge discoveries. They treated the educated Indians in their circle as equals, treated others with respect and frequently married Indian wives. More than a few also converted to Islam. All this gradually changed in the 1800’s, however. A major factor in this was a steady increase in the number of women who came out to India from Britain. Debutants became aware of the existence of a pool of marriageable young men who were supposedly earning large sums of money and living in style with servants at their beck and call. They only lacked wives to make their lives complete. What could be more natural than to go to their assistance? Thus the ‘Fishing Fleet’ came into existence.

The impact that this had upon the British way of life in India was dramatic. As more of the British men married within their own, the growing community rapidly came to look down with disgust and contempt on those that cohabited with Indian women. And it was a short step from that to frowning upon those who changed their religion, wore native clothes, or even fraternised with the ‘natives’. Attitudes, too, were changing back in Britain. An increase of Christian evangelical zeal coincided with more information finding its way back from India about the country the British were ransacking, most shockingly that the majority were heathens who worshipped idols.

Within the army itself, the Indian troops noticed a change in their officer’s attitudes. Previously, British officers would happily mix with their men, socially as well as on duty and spoke their languages well. They were now more reluctant to learn these languages, found it irksome to talk for long to their men and no longer went hunting or to social events with them. This, the troops tended to put down to the influence of the church – the ‘Padre Sahibs’.

The British have always referred to the uprising that exploded in 1857 as The Indian Mutiny. The Indians prefer to give it the title of the First War of Independence, yet there had already been a number of mutinies throughout the time that the British had been in India, even within the Bengal army. In 1765, on the eve of the Battle of Baksar, Company sepoys had rebelled and been executed. Then in 1806 an attempt was made to force sepoys in Tamil Nadu to wear a leather badge, anathema to Hindus, which had resulted in rebellion. And throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there had regularly been mutinies when the British had forced sepoys to serve ‘abroad’, often prohibited by their caste, which was frequently viewed as a deliberate attempt to weaken said castes. And viewed as a prelude to attempting to convert them to Christianity.

There were, of course, many other factors contributing to this outbreak of violence. Over the previous twenty five years or so, the British had steadily been displaying a greater intolerance towards all facets of Indian society than they had done before. The respect that they had previously shown towards India’s long and rich history had all but disappeared, to be replaced by an attitude that they were governing ‘ignorant savages’ who were ripe for conversion to Christianity. And indeed, the company encouraged further Evangelical and Unitarian missionary activity; frequently this consisted simply of setting up schools and medical facilities for the poorer Indians, but this did nothing to allay Indian suspicions. In another insensitive gesture, English also replaced Persian as the official language of both government and education.

So, simmering just beneath the surface of all walks of Indian society was this fear, this suspicion, that the English were determined to break the native religions and to force Christianity upon India. And it only needed a spark like the Meerut incident to ignite a conflagration that would rapidly sweep across Northern India.

Move forward twenty-four hours and dreadful deeds have been done in the Indian heat. In the morning, the remainder of the Indian regiment at Meerut rose up to free their comrades, broke into the armoury, and then began to systematically slaughter the European community.

Even then, it was possible that the revolt might have petered out, if the sepoys had not decided to ride through the night to Delhi, to seek out the aged Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, who ‘ruled’ as no more than a puppet of the English, and to declare themselves as his army of liberation. As they rode, they gathered supporters from the disaffected population and, around dawn, poured into Delhi.

It was the middle of Ramadan, so most of Delhi had been awake for some while, since for all Muslims it is forbidden to eat or drink during the daylight hours of Ramadan, and so across the city meals had been prepared, cooked and eaten before sunrise. At this time of year, too, because of the intense heat, much of the other activity of the city happened around dawn and dusk, whence it was a little cooler. And so, the streets were busy with worshippers making their way to and from mosques and temples, traders and shoppers busy at markets, beggars and hawkers, businessmen and palanquin bearers, soldiers and magistrates, all out and about in the labyrinth of streets and alleys that criss-crossed Delhi between the city gates.

Rumours of rebellion had been abroad for some months before, and so much of the native population of Delhi was in a state of keen anticipation. The rebels immediately found that they had sympathisers who rose in revolt as soon as they entered the city, especially many of the native soldiers stationed there. The British soldiers were mainly barracked outside the city walls and although a few Europeans quickly realised the severity of the situation, in the main events unfolded faster than could be dealt with and the city was largely overrun before the army could effectively intervene.

By nightfall the majority of the European population of Delhi – men, women and children – had either fled the city or been hacked to pieces. The only ones spared during the initial massacre were those few that had converted to Islam.

The next four months saw much bitter fighting across the north, as the rebels tried desperately to widen the rebellion and hold onto areas they had taken, while the British, with any hope of reinforcements many long weeks away, attempted, equally desperately, to break sieges and retake towns and garrisons that had fallen to the rebels. On both sides, tremendous cruelties and massacres were carried out, few more infamous than that at Cawnpore…

Sarnath

On October 14, 2022 By Mick CanningIn Buddhism, India, Sarnath, travel31 Comments

It’s mid February 2008, and I am in Sarnath.

Formerly a deer park, Sarnath lies 10km outside Varanasi and is the place where the Buddha came after his enlightenment at Bodhgaya, to seek out his former companions who were living there in huts and give his first sermon, on the turning of the Wheel of Dharma. This comprises the Buddha’s path to Enlightenment: the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold path and the Middle Way.

This altar is still used by pilgrims for pujas – not just Buddhists, but also Jains, for whom Sarnath is also sacred.

A monastic tradition flourished at Sarnath for over 1500 years after the Buddha. Many monasteries and two great stupas were built, which survived until the end of the 12th century when they were destroyed during the Muslim invasions and not rediscovered until 1834 by a British archaeological team. Amongst these ruins were a stone column 15.25m high with four lions as its capital, erected by the emperor Ashoka, a convert to Buddhism after witnessing the terrible carnage of a war he had unleashed in the 3rd century BC. This capital was adopted as the symbol of the modern Indian republic.

The Dhamekh Stupa. Built in the sixth century, this solid cylindrical tower, 33m high, consists of a stone base with the upper part made of brick, and was virtually the only building to survive the Islamic destruction, perhaps because of its sheer size and bulk. It marks the spot where the Buddha supposedly gave his first sermon. The five former companions, who became his first disciples on hearing him speak, had deserted him when he gave up his ascetic vows. On achieving enlightenment, he determined to follow the ‘Middle Way’, avoiding both luxuries and asceticism. This is the basis of its appeal to me personally – nothing to do with religion, but a sensible lifestyle avoiding extremes, with kindness at its heart. A philosophy of life.

Delicate carvings on the base of the Damekh Stupa.

Just outside the Deer park, there are a number of modern Buddhist monasteries, attracted to the site because of its history. This particular spot was a beautiful peaceful place, but I can’t remember exactly where it was! I think it was outside the Japanese Temple…

Inside the Dharmachakra Japanese monastery

Mulagandhakuti Vihara built by the Mahabodhi Society in 1931

The Kashmir Issue

On June 12, 2017 By Mick CanningIn history, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, politics58 Comments

I posted a little while back that I had prepared a rather contentious post.

This is it.

Of course, I realise I risk being shot down in flames over this post. An Englishman blogging on what he thinks might be the solution to an incredibly difficult problem in the Sub-continent. So I will put on my tin hat, duck behind the sandbags, and press ‘Publish’.

As always, I welcome your comments. In fact, it is probably pointless my posting this unless there is a conversation. But, please, keep it polite.

Obviously, I am not the only person to have thought of this idea. Indeed, I read about it a long time ago, when these various options were being discussed to the backdrop of bombs and bullets.

Plus ca change.

twenty eight

I fear there is only one solution that is practical in the long term, but I strongly doubt that the governments of India or Pakistan would have the courage to implement it. For the whole of Kashmir to remain in Indian hands will mean a continuation of the devastating armed conflict in progress at present, with no prospect of it ever ending, plus the ever-present prospect of it escalating into something much more serious. But for it to pass entirely into Pakistani hands would be considered out of the question by the huge majority of the Indian population, and certainly by the whole of the political class.

No, the only prospect of peace that I see is for the state of Kashmir to be partitioned in much the same way as India herself was in 1947. The areas of Muslim majority such as the Vale of Kashmir would need to be ceded to Pakistan, and the remaining ones would remain part of India. Pakistan and the insurgents would need to agree to give up all claims to these areas. This would need to be achieved by negotiation in good faith with goodwill on both sides, both conscious of the risks and the monumental steps they are taking to finally establish permanent peace, and to restore prosperity to a troubled part of the sub-continent. And upon resolution, all parties would need to declare very publicly that this was a solution agreeable to all, and give it their blessing.

It is not as though there is no precedent to that arrangement. After all, both the Punjab and Bengal were divided this way at independence, and although it was strongly resented by some, it was also generally viewed as the only practical solution. And it is what should have happened to Kashmir, then.

If the difficulties in the way of this solution are huge, then so too are the incentives for success. It goes without saying that the loss of life and the devastation caused by the troubles are highly undesirable in the first place, and then there is the massive drain in resources to both sides by keeping huge forces established on either side of the border. With the prospect of peace, then agriculture, industry and tourism could return to normal with major benefits for everyone involved. Lastly, with the removal of the ‘Kashmir Issue’ as a friction between them, it is possible that both sides might finally come to the sort of mutual respect, collaboration, and friendship envisioned back in 1947. Even if the attempt were to end in failure, then the goodwill generated by the attempt could be a positive that might spill over into other areas of India / Pakistan relations.

The alternative solution, sometimes mooted, of an independent Kashmir under UN jurisdiction, appears an unworkable ideal. The state itself is too divided for this to work, and both Indian and Pakistani players would still covert the whole country. It is unlikely that conflict would cease under these conditions; it would be more likely to simply escalate. The small state would forever be reliant on the UN for security, leading to a constant financial drain on the organisation. The peacekeepers, too, would inevitably become military targets raising the risk of new frictions arising.

I believe that the option of doing nothing is one that must be finally put aside. At present the situation is one where a resented and hated military presence governs within its own borders through fear and the threat of violence, That is not a situation that is likely to ever change to trust. The population are never going to learn to love their rulers that way. The only option in that situation is the eternal continuation of the status quo.

But it lies within the power of the regional players to solve this crisis once and for all, and it is essential that the attempt is made.