week 14-20 december:
- The descendants of Tatya Tope, one of the leaders of the 1857 uprising,have been questioning the theory of the warrior’s demise.
- While it is said that the Maratha warrior was hanged in Shivpuri by British government in April 1859, Tope’s descendants argue that he was in fact killed on January 1, 1859, in a battle near Guna.
- Parag Tope, a Tope descendant and US-based software engineer, wrote a book Operation Red Lotus a few years ago, where he questioned earlier theories of Tope’s death.
- RSS affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Itihas Sankalan Yojna (ABISY) has decided to support his findings.
- At a function, ABISY sangathan mantri (organisation secretary) B M Pande described Tope as one of the “forgotten Hindu warriors” as a result of “biased historians”, and said that “British-sponsored” historians had “destroyed the 1857 war history for their benefit.”
- The function was organised to pay homage to Tope, whose original name was Ramchandra Pandurang.
- A professor of modern history at Delhi University, said that Tope’s fellow soldiers cremated him secretly and hid the news of his death in order to keep the soldiers’ morale high.
- British troops later hanged another person and declared that Tope was hanged in order to deflate the spirits of Indian soldiers.
- The ABISY is working on several projects to rewrite history. Last year the outfit organised a function at National Museum to pay homage to the “last Hindu emperor of Delhi Hemu Vikramaditya”.