Saquib Salim

“He (Sher Ali) was perfectly composed on the day of his execution, and was quite satisfied to die….. Intense vanity, utter fearlessness, and, above all, pride in the murder of Lord Mayo, were the most marked features of his character, as seen at the last.”  This is how the official records of the British read about the hanging of Sher Ali on 11 March 1872.

Slice Of History

Sher Ali, a Kuki Khel Afridi tribesman from Jamrud Valley, holds the distinction of being the only Indian to ever have assassinated a British Viceroy in India. He killed Lord Mayo on 8 February 1872 in the Andaman Islands. The New England Advertiser while reporting the news of Mayo’s assassination wrote, “The murderer is a ticket-of-leave man, a Mahomedan from the borders of Afghanistan, called Shere Ali; the only reason given by him was that God ordered him to kill the enemy of his country. On being sentenced to death he appeared quite triumphant.”

Though the Indian revolutionaries failed to throw the British out of the country in 1857 they never accepted defeat. Soon after, peasants rose in revolt in Bengal, Vasudev Balwant Phadke in Deccan, and Ulema in Patna and Punjab. Throughout the 1860s, several Muslim scholars were arrested and transported for life to the Andamans for financing and helping an armed revolt against British colonialism in the North West Frontier Province.

Famously, and erroneously, termed as Wahabi trials these actions against the Muslim revolutionaries stirred the nation. Revolutionaries like Bipin Chandra Pal and Manmatha Nath Gupta considered these trials as a point of awakening for the nation.

In 1869, Amir Khan, a leading businessman from Kolkata, was arrested for helping the Indian revolutionaries. The case was well publicised and became one of the most talked about among the Wahabi trials. Amir Khan was sentenced in 1871 and within a few months, Chief Justice Paxton Norman and Viceroy Lord Mayo were assassinated.

Sher Ali's picture on the wall in the Museum

James Wilson, editor of the Indian Daily News, wrote, “The rule of Lord Mayo…became exceedingly oppressive to the people, and led to the disaffection of the most serious and dangerous character throughout the country. This disaffection was not confined to any class. It was felt by all... The Hindoos became restless and sullen, the Mahomedans partook of the feeling, and only needed a special provocation to excite them to the activity of that fanatical order which is dangerous from the uncertainty and determined character of its action. That provocation was given by Lord Mayo in the prosecution of Ameer Khan, Hashmadad Khan, and others, in a way that was condemned by all Englishmen as being opposed to all English ideas of right and justice…. But that it led to the death of Mr. Norman and Lord Mayo is to the writer's mind a fact beyond doubt.”

Major General Sir Owen Tudor Burne, who was accompanying Mayo at the time of assassination as his private secretary, later wrote, “knowing as I did the feeling against the Viceroy and Mr. Justice Norman on account of the past Wahabee prosecutions and the consequent precautions we had to take even in Calcutta for the Viceroy's safety, I have myself always retained the idea that by some mischance Shere Ali had received a letter from the Patna malcontents, inciting him to commit the deed..”

Justice Norman was assassinated in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on 20 September 1871 by Abdullah. After which the security of Mayo was briefed up for the fear of an attempt on his life. Yet, within four months Sher Ali stabbed Viceroy to death in the Andamans, one of the most unlikely places where the British could have thought that revolutionaries could target him.

Burne records, “He (Sher Ali) was by repute a well-conducted man and behaved so quietly in the Settlement that he had been allowed to act as barber, and in this capacity had for years past had a free run of the Hopetown ground, besides being one of the few permitted to receive letters from India. All this accounted for his being in possession of a knife, and, although when a prisoner he made no confession, there was reliable evidence to show that he had given out openly some time beforehand that he had received a letter informing him that 'his brother' had murdered Mr. Justice Norman, and that he was 'proud of the deed.'”

News Clipping

The Viceroy was on the inspection tour of the penal settlement at the Anadamans on 8 February 1872. Sher Ali attacked him with a ‘kitchen knife’ when Mayo was returning from Mount Harriet after watching the sunset. The official report stated that Sher Ali “jumped on him from behind and stabbed His Excellency over the left shoulder, and a second time under the right shoulder blade, before anyone could interpose. The assassin was at once knocked down by the guard and people in attendance, and but for the interference of the officers would probably have been killed.”

The post-mortem report stated, “There were two wounds; one incised wound about 14 inches long, extending obliquely from above downwards, and inwards to the spine, was situated behind lower third of posterior margin of right scapula.”

Sher Ali was arrested by the guards present.  Charles Umpherston Aitchison, one of the officers present, testified, “In reply to questions from me, he stated that his name was Sher Ali, son of Wullee, of Jumrood, near the Khyber, and that he had been in prison here between two or three years, I asked him why he had committed this crime, and he replied, Khoda ne hookoom dya,  is waste kya ((God ordered me, that’s why I have done this). I asked if he had any accomplice. His answer was, Mera shureek koi admi nehee ; mera shureek Khoda hye (No human is my ally, my only ally is God).”

On 9 February 1872, Sher Ali was produced before the court of Major-General D. M. Stewart, Offg. Supdt., Port Blair and the Nicobars. Twelve witnesses testified that he had stabbed Mayo to death. Sher Ali did not defend himself against the charges.

The court records state that Sher Ali “states that he has nothing to say further than that the Judge has heard the evidence, and may decide as he wishes according to his judgment; you have made the inquiry and know all about it, When asked last night whether I committed the deed, I said God knows; in the next world the account will be made; and you will then know.”

The enquiries show that Stewart was also one of Sher Ali’s aims but he could kill only Mayo. He had given a feast to fellow prisoners a day before the assassination. A sweet made of flour and sugar was distributed to all the prisoners as he asked blessings for doing something ‘good’.

The official record later prepared by the Government and compiled by N. A. Chick noted, “He gloried greatly in the deed, saying that he had heard of Abdulla having killed Justice Norman—that that was a great deed, but that his was much greater than anything ever done before, as he had killed the greatest Sahib in India…. He hoped his name would be glorified in his country for the deed which he had done, and that a monument would be raised to his memory by his fellow-countrymen. It was by working on this feeling that most of what we have written was elicited.

ALSO READ: J. N. Tata established IISc on the advice of Vivekananda

Sher Ali communicated his desire for glory to a local official. The latter promised to write an ode on the assassination, which should be sung by his compatriots. The officer also collected a piece of Sher Ali's cloth for placing it in his grave ich he expected would be erected to his memory. When he was, in a most cool manner, mounting the ladder to be executed, Mr. Lambert, to whom the native officer had given the piece of cloth obtained in confidence, showed the cloth to Sher Ali, whose face all at once assumed an expression of bitter revengeful hatred.”

Today, we have no memorial to Sher Ali’s name, the date of his execution is not marked and almost nobody knows his name.