Hisar (Haryana): The First War of Independence or the Indian Rebellion that happened in 1857, when the Indian soldiers rebelled against the British East India Company, is the beginning of the spark that led to the Indian Independence almost a century later. India sacrificed thousands and thousands of lives to the brutality of Company repression of the revolt which eventually ended the company rule in India and brought the Indian subcontinent under the sovereignty of the British Crown a year later.
When the Indian soldiers rebelled against the British officers, one province after another fell like a pack of cards, and the rebelling forces managed to establish a free rule at least for a brief period till the East Indian Company troops regrouped and quelled the Indian Rebellion. Hisar in Haryana is one such region that enjoyed a brief period of Independence during 1857.
On May 29, 1857, the rebel forces captured Hisar and declared it independent, but this fight was not over yet. All the British soldiers who were in Hisar were either put to death or imprisoned by the revolutionaries but one of the British soldiers managed to escape and informed his senior officers about the whole incident.
The British forces soon regrouped and planned to attack the rebel forces. The rebel forces were being led by Azam Khan who belonged to the family of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor. The revolutionaries had traditional weapons while the British forces were well armed with guns and cannons. Apart from this, the British forces had an edge over the rebels as their forces were inside the fort while the rebels were outside.
The resistance did not last long. Several revolutionaries were killed as the conventional weapons of those times could not stand a chance in front of modern firearms. As many as 438 revolutionaries were martyred in this battle. Out of which the bodies of 235 martyrs were scattered around Hisar and the rest of bodies could not be found.
The worst was yet to come; the British forces ordered the killing of the Indian prisoners held by them. There is a road in Hisar called Lal Sadak and it is here 123 revolutionaries were crushed under road rollers. Though short-lived, Hisar remained independent from 30 May 1857 to 19 August 1857. These unsung heroes will always be credited for their contribution to our independence. The revolt of 1857 was an extraordinary event in the history of British rule in India. It united many sections of Indian society for a common cause. No matter the revolt failed to achieve the desired goal, it sowed the seeds of Indian nationalism that fruition into Indian Independence on 15 August 1947.
