That the grave of an Irishman can become a heritage site in Delhi is hard to reconcile with.But that’s just what Nicholson cemetery has become over the past 162 years. Every May 11, and on September 14 and 19, tourists and descendants of Brig-Gen John Nicholson visit the place to pay homage to a virtual giant among British troopers, who played a big part in the recapture of Delhi after the first war of independence in 1857. Nicholson lost his life in the process, but he acquired the status of a hero, who was idolized despite his brutality, not only by his compatriots, but also by the Indian soldiers of the Multani Horse he had led. There’s a lot of literature on him but the latest, and probably the best, is by a BBC staff member.
While researching his book, Cult of a Dark Hero: Nicholson of Delhi , (for which Sir Mark Tully has written the foreword) Stuart Flinders retraced the route that Nicholson took during the assault on Delhi, and found that though the city had changed much since then, it still retains quite a few landmarks. He circled Old Delhi from the Ring Road, passing by the ruined city-wall that led to the Kashmere Gate, though the Burn Bastion and the Lahori Gate no longer exist. He could also not find the marble memorial tablet pointing out the spot where Nicholson was fatally shot.
However some 10 years ago, I led a British group to the places associated with the ‘mutiny’ and finally to Khari Baoli. Here, after a rigorous search, we landed up in a side-lane where some people were sitting selling ice. At first, they were unable to understand what we were looking for. But after much explanation they removed a rag from the wall behind them and, lo, the memorial tablet came into view.
This was not the same one that the British put up, but a replacement post-Independence that was not very adulatory to Nicholson. It also praised the brave sniper who had shot him from a top window of a double-storey house as Nicholson, waving his sword in the air, led his men during the storming of Lahori Gate.
Hardly much of the park named after Nicholson now remains.The urban legend, that his headless body is seen on certain nights, walking around the cemetery where he is buried, doesn’t stand to reason because the Brig-Gen was not beheaded, just shot in the back, with his head in place.
Linked to this is another story, about a White Lady, seen occasionally past midnight at the Kashmere Gate, where a tablet proclaiming the British storming of the gate remains . The statue of Nicholson stood, up to 1952 before it was sent to Ireland, right in front of this tablet.
The White Lady (sic) is seen as smoking a cigarette — she did not belong to ‘Mutiny’ but probably met a violent end there at the hands of a disgruntled lover or a midnight thief.
Nicholson, of course, doesn’t come into the picture here. He was not a ladies’ man, keeping clear of any romantic liaison during his life. But this is how tales create myths, and so Nicholson’s ghost began to be associated with a female counterpart about whom Flinders rightly doesn’t make any mention.
The Victorian hero’s biography, published last year by Bloomsbury, makes interesting reading. Son of an Irish doctor and eldest of five brothers, his statue was shipped off to Belfast. It now occupies pride of place in Dungannon as a memorial to the “Dark Hero” who was “Nikal Seyn” to his men of the famed Multani Horse. They wept at his funeral and, after clutching handfuls of grass from the grave, refused to take part in further fighting.They had come from a place beyond Multan (now in Pakistan) to mourn their leader, fallen at the age of 34. His death inadvertently gave birth to the Nikal Seyni mystic cult, but one wonders if Nicholson would have received the same adulation had he lived longer, and his brutal ways had eclipsed his fame.
The author is a veteran chronicler of Delhi
