Col. James Smith Neil, ''Butcher of Allahabad'' - natives in Ayr, Scotland want it removed

Col George Neil's statue, Wellington, Ayr.commons.wikimedia.org
 

James George Smith Neill statue, Wellington Square, Ayr. Scotland change.org

Above image:  This is the statue of   Butcher of Allahabad Col. James George Smith  Neil (27 May 1810 – 25 September 1857) in  Wellington Square,  Ayr, Scotland.   A committee in Calcutta  had been set  up   by  Lord Canning, Gov. Gen. of EIC  to have a statue erected for Col, James Neil who was killed in the 1857 rebellion in India.  Committee collected funds through public subscription and raised roughly   Rs. 18,953  by 1858. The sculptor was one Mathew Noble,  a popular English  sculptor.  The initial plan of an equestrian one, befitting his military  statue  was given up and preference was given in  favor of a standing statue of Neill  with an expression of a commanding  gait.  The same committee in Calcutta made a final decision to have a similar gigantic statue erected in his native place   Ayr in Scotland so that natives of his town would respect and revere  him  for his purported valor and courage. This statue was unveiled  fin 1859, in a well-attended, public ceremony. This huge statue standing  pride of place in the center of Ayr  has a plague that reads: ''A brave, resolute and self-reliant solider, universally acknowledged as the first who stemmed the torrent of rebellion in Bengal"

Given below are some of the atrocities committed by the EIC's army in India: 

01. Natives of  Ayr,  Scotland may not be aware that  the 1857 Great Indian rebellion was caused by the English company. Social injustice, religious interference, misrule, land-grabbing (using doctrine of Lapse and Subsidiary  alliance)  rampant corruption and  exploitation of  Indian natural resources coupled with racial discrimination and mass killing. the list goes on  ad infinitum.


02. General Neill  got  the notoriety  for numerous indiscriminate killing of Indians in the aftermath of a local massacre of British subjects by rebels called  Bibighar Massacre, close to Cawnpore. 120 British women and children captured by the Sepoy forces were killed without remorse;  their remains being thrown down a nearby well in an attempt to hide the evidence.

03. Disgusted and embittered the British troops went on a large scale   killing spree led by col. Neil.   To take revenge,  he had set the entire village afire and shot those who escaped from the village. the death toll  was more than 2000, acceding to historians. The villagers had nothing to do with that massacre.


04. At Cawnpore,  Col Neil and his men got into  a program of swift and vicious drumhead military justice (culminating in summary execution) for any rebel soldier captured from the city who was unable to prove he was not involved in the massacre. 


05. Suspected rebels  were forced to lick the clotted blood from the floor and walls of the Bibighar compound  where the Europeans were killed. 


06. They forced countless men  to jerry rig  gallows of wooden logs where the rebels were flogged with bull whip and finally hanged to death.   


07. The rebel soldiers were  religiously  humiliated   by being forced to eat (or force fed) beef (if Hindu) or pork (if Muslim).. 


08. The Muslim soldiers were sewn into pig skins before being hanged. 


09. The troops  forced  so called   low-caste Hindu street sweepers  to execute the high-caste Brahmin rebels  thus addicting more insults to the dying men.  


10.  Not content with these disgraceful acts,  some natives were rounded up like cattle in in ranch  and tied  across the mouth of powerful  cannons. When fired, their bodies would fly far away and blow to pieces.


11. Yet another  horrifying  incident happed soon after the British  troop of EIC  captured Delhi in 1857. They captured the last mogul king and basined the old man to Burma to live in exile. Before banishment,  senior military officer  William Raikes Hodson  in  September 1857 captured three last mogul princes in a hideout and in a whiff near the Kkooni  Darwaza (Gate)  in Delhi shot them dead point blank after removing their jewelry, etc. 


12. According to Indian and some western historians, about a million Indian natives lost their lives during the British slaughter in 1857. Last  Mogul ruler Bahadur  Shah Zafar, an old man, had no link with the rioting Indian soldiers. But a  already humiliated he was forced to spend his time till death in Burma (present day Myanmar.). His legal heirs were wiped out without traces in Delhi. Soon the crown administration took over the administration directly and continued the repressive rule and looted India. 


The statue of Col. James George  Neill  in Ayr, Scotland  is an insult to the natives of that town whose ancestors  served mostly in the British   military in India and the British had   held  the key  administrative   positions.   Glorifying such a man  known for mass killing of innocent people in India for the  corrupt and dishonest English company will not only show the Scottish  people in bad light but in reality, is just  opposite to good human values and respect for fellow humans. Col James Neil is  a blot on the town's rich culture and legacy. More than 1000 people of this town had   signed up the petition  in the past asking the town council to have this disgraceful statue of Col James Neil  removed from the public place of Ayr. 

Tit-bits: 

State of Col. Neil, Chennai (madras)< TN. dtnext.in

A similar 10 foot tall  large  bronze statue of   same size of Col. James Neil, installed by Gov. Harris of Madras presidency in  1858-59,  was removed and shifted to a museum in  Madras (Chennai  in 1952). He stands, full-length, pointing with his right arm and with left hand resting on hilt of sword. He wears military dress with cloak. Now, it is gathering dust there  and no Indian wants to see the statue of a sinned and mentally sick man who got a nick name  the butcher of Allahabad.   The same city saw  the first ever public protest  way back in 1927  during the Raj to remove  mass murderer Col  Neil's  statue from the public place in Madras.