Gen. Henry Havelock, ruthless British colonial army man's memorials and statues must be removed!!


Gen. henry Havelock of British army, Trafalgar sq.suzassippi.wordpress.com


Above image:  General Sir Henry Havelock occupies a spot in Trafalgar Square, just in front of King George IV .............


Gen. Havelock upload.wikimedia.org

Above image:  This is the   statue of General Havelock in Mowbray Park, Sunderland.  William Behnes also designed this statue.  Two cannon (replicas of cannons presented to Sunderland after the Crimean War in 1857) stand beside the statue, facing north commanding the view over the park. The statue, however, looks west towards Havelock's birthplace. The statue reads: Born 5, April 1795 at Ford Hall Bishopwearmouth Died 24 November 1857 at Dil-Koosa Lucknow.


 Gen. Havelock memorial, Trafalgar Sq. flickr.com/


Gen. Havelock, England. upload.wikimedia.org

Above image:  The statue of General Havelock   (by William Behnes)  in Trafalgar Square, London
The plaque on the plinth reads:  ''To Major General Sir Henry Havelock KCB and his brave companions in arms during the campaign in India 1857. "Soldiers! Your labours, your privations, your sufferings and your valour, will not be forgotten by a grateful country."  Sir Henry Havelock   is widely considered a military visionary for his systematic suppression  of the Revolt of 1857 in northern India.


In 2000, there was a controversy when the then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone suggested that the Trafalgar Square statue, together with that of General Charles James Napier, be replaced with "more relevant" fig


Lucknow Havelock tombupload.wikimedia.org

Above image:  An imposing monument to Havelock's memory was erected by his sons, widow, and family.  His tomb still stands in  Chander Nagar – Alambagh area of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. These verses are inscribed on his tomb: " His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest; His name a great example stands, to show How strangely high endeavours may be blessed, When piety and valour jointly go."...........

The notorious military officer of British India  Havelock  has memorials all over the world. Road  including the one in Southall,  London  where  a road was named after him.  Havelock Road will now become Guru Nanak Road, after the founder of the Sikh faith.

Havelock memorial across other countries:

01. Havelock MRT station and Havelock Road along Singapore River, Singapore

02. Havelock Island, in the Andaman Islands was also named in his honour (now Swaraj Dweep).


Gen. Havelock Inn, East Sleckburn .flickr.com

Above image:   Several public Houses in England  bear the name of Havelock. The General Havelock Inn "The Haydon Bridge pub sign bears his portrait, as does the East Sleekburn one; in addition, there is a road/street called Havelock Mews next to the latter...........................

03. Havelock Road in Luton is claimed to be named after him. The road appears on The 1887 1st edition and 1901 2nd edition OS maps


Havelock guest houses, England. tripadvisor.com

Above  image: Havelock Guest House in Jersey.


04. The New Zealand towns of Havelock, on the South Island, and Havelock North, on the North Island, are named after him.


05. Havelock Road in Southall , London, will be renamed Guru Nanak Road in 2021.


Havelock, a suburb of Lincoln, Nebraska, USAournalstar.com

Above image: The town of Havelock, Nebraska, USA  which was incorporated in 1893 but was later annexed by the City of Lincoln, was named after him. The former area of the town is still known today as the Havelock neighborhood in Lincoln........................


Gen.  Henry_Havelocken.wikipedia.org


Way back in the past a team of retired British Army officers and descendants of British Army officers who suppressed the revolt of 1857 came on a tour of various sites of the 1857 war in India. Positively, it was not part of mourning, rather it was a sort of publicity trip  to  celebrate the British Empire’s ‘victory’ over the rebels. 

The rebellion started off at the  Meerut  cantonment  where  against the wish of Hindu and Muslim  soldiers, the new Enfield rifles were introduced with  greased  cartridges containing   fat made from cows' and pigs'.   What was started off as a small protest snowballed into a huge rebellion across northern states. Though it is true that more than 100  British subjects including    women and children were killed  by the  rebels  here and there,   according to unofficial figures roughly one million Indian natives were mercilessly killed by the British army to save the falling empire and to take revenge.  The British team of retired officers in order to save the name of the empire  made an attempt to   glorify the army men  by way of erecting  plaque in memory of the “bravery and distinguished service” of the 1st Battalion of the 60th King’s Royal Rifle Corps between May 10 and September 20, 1857.


1857  blowing up with cannon fire. atrocities at Jhansi.The Victorian Web

A little is known in England that the suppression of 1857  revolt against the unjust and racist East India company's misrule   resulted  in mass killing of Indians, replete with  appalling  atrocities. An act of racial humiliation and cruelty such as hanging the rebels  in public from the trees without any basic inquiry or tying them  to the mouth of powerful  cannons and blowing them up into smithereens. The dead bodies of the rebels were hung  on the gibbet publically  for days so that others won't resort to protests in the future. This kind of celebration of the the ex army men of 1857  was  an  audacious act.  As of today there has been no apology from the British army or from the government for their atrocities in 1857 or for the 1919 Jallianwala  Bagh massacre caused by Col. Reginald Dyer.   

    
Sir Mark Havelock Allantwentyessex.com

Above image:  Sir Mark Havelock Allan, descendant of the notorious Sir Henry Havelock and inheritor of the title ‘Baronet of Lucknow’ conferred on Havelock posthumously after the Siege of Lucknow, said, “enormous admiration” for Havelock and his fellow colonialists;  the Raj had been a “good thing”  and claimed that India’s stable democratic system was attributable to the British Raj! 
The statement by him was quite nonsense and hilarious!!.May be pigment of his imagination.............


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According to  Virendra Sharma,  a  member of parliament in Southall, about campaigning in the 1980s,   “I have often been ashamed [that] the names of empire still pervade our streets,” adding that “names like Havelock belong in books, classrooms and museums, not on the streets to be celebrated”.


Henry Havelock got a name for  his brutal suppression of the 1857 Indian Rebellion at Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.  he played an active role in the  First Anglo-Sikh War ( Dec. 1845-Mar. 46), and in the aftermath  a large swathe of Punjabi territory was taken over by the English company. Gen. Havelock's name is   synonymous with murder, oppression and looting, but in England the wily British gave a rosy picture about not only Havelock but also other notorious psychopaths like  Gen. Brig. James Neil of the  ‘Madras Fusiliers’  (nick named the butcher of Allahabad).   William Raikes Hodson  (19 March 1821 – 11 March 1858) a  military officer  and another neurotic person   killed all the three princes of last mogul ruler in 1857; he shot them point blank right before the Khooni  Darwaza, Delhi. For his patriotic act in 1860 Queen Victoria honored   him  posthumously  by granting his widow a grace-and-favour apartment at  Hampton Court Palace "in consideration of the distinguished service of your late husband in India".


Removing the name of a notorious colonialist  from one street in Southall may be   a good thing  but  the statues or names or memorials of those associated with slave trade  or colonialism in England   need to be removed for ever and the statues shifted to the museums. for the posterity.     

Taking down a statue or a street sign is just the beginning of decolonizing 21st-century Britain as well a across the world. The dark chapters  of the world history must be relegated to the back so are their vestiges.