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| Brig.Gen. James Neill. British India.royalcollection.org |
Neill was killed in combat at Lucknow in September 1857. The inscription on the pedestal of Neil’s statue read: “Universally acknowledged as the first who stemmed the torrent of rebellion in Bengal (vide: ‘Madras Hand Book 1871)..........................
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| James George Neill (1810-1857) was a Scottish military officer ofAlamy |
Col. James Neill of the ‘Madras Fusiliers’, a European unit, was summoned from Madras to command the army to deal with the Mutiny that was gaining upper hand in Lucknow. Without any remorse, he came down heavily on the rebels, using “ruthless and horrible” methods to put down the mutineers. What shocked the civilized world was the ghostly and gruesome method followed by James Neill who had surpassed the most dreadful dictator in terms of brutality and his killing spree of innocent people. It was just spine-chilling and macabre. Neill did what other military officials would carefully avoid. He ordered the “entire villages to be burnt down and inhabitants hanged” as he marched towards Cawnpore (Kanpur) without any qualms about his murderous act. He massacred thousands of rebels during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857l and more or less the same mass killing was reenacted in Jallianwallah Bagh on 13 April 1919 under yet another mass murderer Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer.
The gigantic (10 feet in height), sculpted bronze statue of James Neil that was on Mount Road, Madras until 1937, kept away from the public eye and is now coated with dust deposited over a long period of time since 1952 in the Anthropology section of the Madras Museum. So, the present generation of Indian have no idea about this notorious British Army officer whose motto was "Violence can be won by violence".
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| 1857.The Relief of Lucknow, by Thomas Jones Barkern.wikipedia.org |
When the statue was taken to the museum in 1962, one man said who wanted a statue of a Scottish man who committed massacres against Indians on our own soil. Anyway, Neill's statue is a grim reminder of Sepoy mutiny that was fought both by Hindus and Muslims united in their struggle against the colonial power and how, with callowness, some rude and brutish English officials treated the natives right on their own soil.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/99637/butcher-allahabad-lies-museum-attic.html