Saquib Salim

“Kasim Ismail Mansur, a native of Surat, who is a merchant at Rangoon and Singapore, has been sentenced to death for treason. Details of the case have not been received, but information on record in this office indicates that he acted as an intermediary between Turkish agents and Muhammadan sepoys in Singapore.”

Slice Of Histoy

This is from an intelligence report sent to the Heads of Provinces in India on 4 May 1915. The report said, “It is recommended that this report be burned and not kept on record by recipients other than Heads of Provinces by whom perhaps it might be handed over to the Inspector-General of Police for confidential record.”

Who was Kasim Ismail Mansur?

The Indian revolutionaries planned to motivate the Indian sepoys of the British Colonial Army to revolt during the First World War. The revolutionaries of the Ghadar Party, Ulema, Bengal revolutionaries, and several others came together in this project. However, the plan largely failed and leaders like Rash Behari Bose, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Maulvi Barkatullah, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, M. N. Roy, etc. had to remain in exile for long after that but in Singapore, plan did succeed.

On 15 February 191, more than 900 Indian soldiers, mostly Muslims from Punjab, mutinied and killed English officers and took control of Singapore. It was with the Japanese and Russian naval help that the British could regain the island. The mutineers were shot dead in public ceremonies, a practice discontinued in the 1890s by the British government.

Hundreds were convicted and dozens were shot dead. All but two people convicted were soldiers. They were a Gujarati Muslim businessman Kassim Mansur and an Indian Imam (religious leader), Nur Alam Shah. Both were members of the Ghadar Party and their job was to instill the feelings of nationalism among the Indian soldiers.

The Sedition Committee Report, 1918 noted, “About the 28th of December 1914, letters were intercepted from one Kasim Mansur, a Gujerathi Muhammadan of Singapore, to his son in Rangoon. One of these letters forwarded an appeal to the Turkish Consul, Ahmad Mullah Daud, from the Malay States Guides, one of the two regiments in Singapore, informing him that the regiment was prepared to mutiny against the British Government and fight for the Turks, and requesting that a Turkish warship might be sent to Singapore. Information of this correspondence was given to the authorities in Singapore in time to enable them to transfer the Malay States Guides to another place before any mutiny occurred. The authorities were not, however, able to prevent a serious mutiny of the other Singapore regiment, the 5th Infantry, who had undoubtedly been contaminated by Muhammadan and Hindu conspirators belonging to the American Ghadr party.”

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The investigations pointed out that Kassim Mansur frequented the barracks of Indian soldiers and several soldiers used to visit his house. He also met them at the mosque where Nur Alam Shah preached sedition against the British Government. While all 41 others killed by the firing squad were soldiers, Kassim Mansur held the distinction of being the only civilian other than Nur Alam Shah to receive capital punishment for this mutiny.