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