== *184* ==
[Urdu 1859] [5.0] CAUSE V -- THE INSUBORDINATE STATE OF THE INDIAN FORCES

There's a huge discrepancy in the title itself: the Urdu blames the 'ill-arrangedness' [bad-inti:zaamii] and 'neglectedness' or 'unsupervisedness' [be-ihtimaamii] of the army, both of which sound like defects of organization and leadership, political or military or both. The translation of 1873 transfers the blame to the 'insubordinate state' of the army, which sounds like a problem of bad behavior on the soldiers' side. The Urdu can't possibly justify such a tendentious reading.

== *184* ==
[5.1] [5.1x] The paucity of the English forces.

Here's another discrepancy in subtitling: the Urdu puts the whole first paragraph under a separate introductory heading with the same title as the chapter itself. For the sake of clarity, I've gone with the 1873 translation.

The 1873 translation seems to repeat, with only slight paraphrase, the sentence about Nadir Shah's two armies.

[5.2] [5.2x] If these two castes formed distinct Regiments perhaps the Mahommadans would not have objected to the use of the new cartridges.

The Urdu uses a different heading for this section.

Sir Sayyid says that Hindus and Muslims are two communities [qaum] that are mu;xaalif to each other-- as Platts says, 'contrary, opposite, adverse; unfavourable, unsuitable, uncongenial; repugnant, dissentient; contradictory; --an opponent, adversary, enemy, foe' (p.1011). The range of meaning is thus from 'very different' through 'uncongenial' to 'enemies'. No doubt what he's highlighting is mainly a (useful) tendency to distrust each other, just as Nadir Shah's Persians and Afghans did. The 1873 translation calls the two groups 'antagonistic races': the adjective is a wide-open one that reflects the range of the Urdu, but the noun equates 'race' with 'religion' in a very simplistic way that Sir Sayyid doesn't deserve. At least, he doesn't deserve it in this passage.

And again, the mixing of the groups caused this tafriqah not to remain-- this 'difference, distinction; separation, division; variance, discord, disunion' (Platts p.329). Another multivalent word with a wide and slippery range. The translation of 1873 simply goes for 'difference'.

== *185* ==
[5.3] [5.3x] The employment of Hindus and Mahommadans in the same regiment.

As so often, there are minor discrepancies in the placing and wording of the headings. In this case the Urdu ones seem more lucid than the English ones.

From our vantage point in time, this is a melancholy passage to read. Sir Sayyid is strongly advising 'our Government' to implement the notorious 'divide and rule' tactics of which the British were later so often accused. He has laid it all out very clearly: men who live and work together become a 'brotherhood'-- and biraadarii is a very strong term, with the suggestion of a single caste group. These men consider themselves brothers, they support and help each other, they share in all their activities. That, he urges, is what 'our Government' must prudently avoid at all costs, by keeping the two groups strictly separated, so that the tafriqah between them remains in force.

There's no indication that Sir Sayyid felt any special problem about this advice; with hindsight, it's much easier to see that it's the beginning of the road to Partition. To be fair to Sir Sayyid, though, he's not urging that actual hostility or tensions should be created or maintained between the two groups. He simply advises that they shouldn't be encouraged to fraternize or bond with other as individuals, or to subsume their religious identity in common projects.

Throughout his life he thought Hindus and Muslims should first organize separately, and then the two groups could work together for common goals. It's also clear that at least later in his life, one of the main reasons he advocated such separatism was what he perceived as Muslim 'backwardness' in terms of education and colonial career credentials. He perhaps wanted chiefly a kind of temporary protectionism, that would shelter his community until it could compete on equal terms in an open market. It's hard to say, because in practice he harped so constantly on the theme of (western-style) education, and felt so strongly that his community was far from making satisfactory progress in that direction; he surely felt that there was no point in planning for some distant, utopian, pie-in-the-sky future.

== *186* ==
[5.4] [5.4x] The pride of the Indian forces and its causes.

Here too there's a discrepancy in the placing of the headings. In this case I've gone with the 1873 translation.

The 1873 translation says the sepoys looked on English soldiers as 'a myth', which hardly makes sense. I think it's translating kuchh ;haqiiqat nahii;N as though it were meant literally, ignoring its idiomatic sense of 'worthless'.

To object to both 'setting out and halting' [kuuch aur maqaam] is probably an idiomatic way of saying that they objected to everything. I don't know where the 1873 translation gets its rendering of 'when ordered to march consequent on the yearly reliefs'. The 1873 translation also misses the contrafactual sense of the whole expression, and takes it as a report of something the army actually did.

The use of the word dharm suggests that the reference is especially to Hindu soldiers; but then ma;zhab extends the range.

== *187* == *188* ==
[5.5] [5.5x] The league of the Indian Army against the use of the new cartridges: formed after January 1857.
[5.6] [5.6x] The impropriety of punishing the non-commissioned officers at Meerut, which touched the vanity of the Indian forces.
== *189* ==
[5.7] [5.7x] Want of confidence in the Indian forces towards Government after the occurrence of Meerut.

The 1873 translation's 'we should have been compelled to do anything' is not accurate at all: the Urdu repeats the claim that the government 'would have destroyed us'. xx

== *190* == *191* ==
[5.8] [5.8x] Why the mutiny did not break out in the Punjab, and its causes.

The initial sentence 'Let us now see how these opinions of mine affect the rebellion or "part rebellion" which took place in the Punjab.' is really very poorly phrased, since obviously Sir Sayyid's opinions won't affect any past events whatsoever. Nor does he refer to a rebellion or a 'part rebellion'; he simply mentions 'conditions' in the Punjab, and in fact argues that there was no rebellion there.

Sir Sayyid promises three reasons, but actually seems to offer four. The 1873 translation renumbers these to reflect the actual logic of his argument.

== *192* ==

 
 
 

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