Saquib Salim

“Baba Ramcharan Das and Amir Ali had reconciled Muslims to hand over Ram Janm Sthan at Ayodhya to Hindus. This development frustrated the British government’s designs of divide and rule.” Amritlal Nagar noted this in his book Gadar ke Phool (Flowers of Revolt).

Nagar was a prominent Hindi writer who had written the account of 1857 in Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh. The account, Gadar ke Phool, was published by the Uttar Pradesh government in 1957 to mark the 100 years of the First War of National Independence. The idea was to gather the ‘oral histories’ from the region adjoining Lucknow to bring out the narratives silenced by colonial writers and historians.

A committed Marxist, Nagar held several positions at the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and Indo-Soviet Cultural Society. He was also awarded the Soviet Land Nehru Award. When he got this opportunity to research in 1857, Nagar wanted to know how Hindus and Muslims fought as a united force despite having Ram Janm Sthan and Babri Masjid feud between them.

During his research, he came to know that in 1857 Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh, a Mughal prince, was trying to incite people against Bahadur Shah Zafar and other revolutionaries at Faizabad. One day when, during a Friday prayer, he was asking people to support the British, Achchan Khan stood up and said, “Dear compatriots, Mirza Sahab has become a traitor. He wants to sell this country to the British.” 

People in the mosque attacked and threw Mirza out. After this Amir Ali, another leader, stood up and appealed, “Dear brothers, brave Hindus are fighting for us. To pay back this debt and get a place in their hearts, we should return the Babri Masjid, which they call Shri Ram Janm Bhumi, to Hindus. This will entrench the roots of Hindu Muslim unity in India so deep that no European can ever uproot it.”  

Every person in the mosque agreed. Hindus and Muslims fought valiantly against the British. The agreement between Hanuman Garhi head Baba Ramcharan Das and Amir Ali frustrated the colonial government.

When the revolutionaries were defeated they were given special punishment. Achchan Khan and Shambhu Prasad Shukla were publicly beheaded with a sharp knife. Their heads were further mutilated to make a point on how Hindu-Muslim friendship would be dealt with.  

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On 18 March 1858, Baba Ramcharan Das and Amir Ali were captured and hanged to death on a tamarind tree at Kuber Tila. Indians started paying tributes at this tree which stopped only in 1935 when the British government cut it to erase a shrine of Hindu-Muslim unity at Ayodhya.