The months of May and June 2007 have been a time of turmoil for me. On the 9th of May I was sitting in Nanarao Park, in my home town Kanpur. I was not afflicted by the scorching heat, but by concern about my Great Grand Father, Manuel Xavier de Noronha (MX). No, he wasn’t kidnapped, but I was wondering where he was on that day in 1857 – 150 years ago?
That was the eve of the First War of Independence, which the British termed the Sepoy Mutiny. We were, 150 years later, commemorating the martyrs who had laid down their lives for the freedom of the country. Present with us was one of the descendants of Tantya Tope, who along with Nanarao Peshwa, led the revolt in Kanpur on the night of 4th June 1857. The memorial service was held in the shadow of the old Banyan Tree where the British hanged 150 freedom fighters, after they had recaptured Kanpur (then known as Cawnpore). That was the spot where the Bibighar once stood, the place where British women and children were quartered, and later slaughtered, by the freedom fighters.
Before that Nansaheb had granted safe passage to the British to sail along the Ganga to Allahabad. The British had embarked on their boats with their families, when the Indian troops fired on them, quite literally massacring them. The place came to be known as Massacre Ghat. On reconquering Kanpur, the British first made the mutineers /revolutionaries lick the blood on the parapet of the well where the British women and children had been slaughtered, before they hanged them.
And there I was sitting with other citizens, all eulogising the bravery of the freedom fighters, and condemning the cruelty of the Gora Sahibs. All very politically correct; but how true? As Dan Brown of “The Da Vinci Code” notoriety very correctly says, “History is written by the winners”. In 1857 the British finally won, and they wrote the history of the uprising, quite obviously from a very British point of view.
There were no Indian historians around, to record the Indian version. May and June saw many contemporary historians writing about the tumultuous events of 1857, and refuting the British versions. In their writings it is the British who were cruel and ruthless. Which ever side we take, there was bloodshed and killing, mostly of innocent persons, including women and children. I am a believer in Gandhian non-violence, and recall how Gandhiji suspended the freedom movement after the violence in Chaurichaura. Never mind the historians. Gandhiji always insisted that the ends do not justify the means. Violence has no winners – only losers, mostly the innocent.
Where was MX in all this? He had learnt photography from the Portuguese in his native village of Aldona in Goa. Family legend says that he led a caravan of 300 bullock carts. He travelled to courts of Rajas and Nawabs, taking their photographs. He reportedly charged the princely sum of Rs 200/- per photograph150 years ago! This was before the invention of celluloid or cameras. He fabricated his own cameras, and gold and silver nitrate solutions, for making the positives and negatives on plate glass. The negatives looked like ghosts, so he was sometimes beaten up for removing the “souls” of the royal subjects!
In the course of his travels, and three years after he left Aldona, MX’s caravan arrived in Cawnpore in 1857. He immediately got sucked into the vortex of the violence. He reportedly took photographs, which are unfortunately lost to posterity. What was MX’s role in 1857? What of the retinue of 300 bullock carts, or whatever remained of it after 3 years of intrepid adventure? How many people were with him? Were they Konkani speaking Goans like MX? Were they Catholics or Hindus? My father, who was born in 1897, (just 40 years after the war, and therefore a credible testator) told me that at that point in history Christians were identified with the British, and given protection by them. So where was MX? On which side was he, if at all he did take sides. There are two strands of written evidence.
The first is a souvenir published by the Aldona Association of Bombay in 1943. It mentions 3 persons on the village’s Roll of Honour. Two were patriots/ martyrs, and sandwiched between their names is that of MX. It states that he saved 80 lives during the 1857 war, and was mentioned in the writings of Rudyard Kipling (of Mowgli fame). Kipling does write about an elephant going berserk in the house of a Goan family in Cawnpore. That was MX’s family. But which 80 lives did MX save? Were they his native Goans, his fellow Indians, or the British? I really don’t know; which is why I am in turmoil.
The other shred of historical evidence is a letter dated the 3rd July 1880, written by one Col Mowbray Thomson, Resident with the ex-King of Oudh, and Superintendent, Government Pensions. He states that one Col. Wilson of the 64th Foot was mortally wounded in a skirmish with the Gwalior Contingent, and “Noronha behaved gallantly as well as compassionately in staying with him till he was safely carried off the field and into the Fort where he died a short time afterwards”. Gallantry and compassion are words that are seldom used in tandem, much less in war! So MX must have been an exceptional person. It would seem that human life was more precious to him than violence, no matter how highly motivated.
But the mystery of MX still deepens. He was born in Aldona on the 30th October 1825. So he would have been just 29 years of age when he left Goa; and 32 when he arrived in Cawnpore. He established business in Cawnpore in 1858 under the name and style of M/S M X de Noronha & Son. From photography he branched out into auctioneering, printing, brick kilns, running the post and telegraphs, generating and supplying electricity, real estate, etc. This is what we know about MX.
What we still don’t know is what happened to him and his retinue between 1857 and 1858? He did not return to Goa then. So where was he? The British ran away to Allahabad. Had he been a British supporter he would have been killed by the freedom fighters. Sitting in Nanarao Park, commemorating the martyrs, thoughts were swirling around my head. Then I got a brainwave. Nanarao Peshwa and Tantya Tope were Marathas, and spoke Marathi. MX was a Goan and spoke Konkani, akin to Marathi. So did Nanarao find in MX a kindred spirit, and grant him and his retinue protection? I would love to know the answer.
Perhaps the people of Aldona, and Goa, would find MX’s story inspiring and intriguing. But going by the records, MX had imbibed the spirit of adventure and entrepreneurship from his native village of Aldona. In the 1943 Aldona Souvenir, Dr. Thomas C D’Silva MBBS writes, “In trade and commerce, the Aldonense (Aldonkar today) has usually blazed the trail; he may be called the pioneer among Goans”. In the same souvenir, Luis Jose D’souza MA, MSc, writes: “At a time when the so-called Novas Conquistas (New Conquests) were as unknown to the Goans as Bombay was, the Aldonense with his characteristic daring and unsurpassed spirit of pioneering, penetrated the ‘unchartered area’. He went as a businessman…. Their means of transport were the oxen. Many of us still remember the caravans of oxen with bags slung across their backs and bells jingling from their necks, trudging their way wearily over hills through malaria-ridden jungles plying their trade…. They left us a legacy of daring, love of work, integrity of character, unsurpassed qualities of leadership, and above all a marvellous spirit of self-confidence”.
I don’t have all the answers to the questions about my great grand dad. But I know enough to follow in his footsteps. May his life and struggles be an inspiration to the youth of today, especially of his native Goa, in this sesquicentennial year of his arrival in what was then Cawnpore.
* The writer is a Gandhian social activist; community leader, and a businessman by profession.
JULY 2007
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