China-India standoff: a perspective from the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857

But none of these things, including an audience with Queen Victoria, helped further the cause of his master. The Court of Directors of the EIC remained immovable; it was clear they had influenced the Queen and her ministers against justice in the case. Disappointed, Azimullah Khan headed back to India. What he did on the way is a vital part of the Mutiny story: a stop-off in Constantinople, today's Istanbul. The British at the time were suffering defeat at the hands of the Russians in the Crimean War that was raging not far away. There he saw for himself the superiority of Russian power over the British. The famous journalist, William Russell, covering the war for The Times, recorded the following description of the man: "I went down for a few days to Constantinople and, while stopping at Misseri's Hotel saw, on several occasions, a handsome slim young man of dark-olive complexion dressed in an oriental costume, which was new to me, and covered with rings and finery. He spoke French and English, dined at the table d'hôte and, as far as I could make out, was an Indian prince who was on his way back from the prosecution of an unsuccessful claim against the East India Company in London."

Of all things, Azimullah stayed for a while with Russell at the Crimean front "to see those great Roostums – the Russians – who have beaten the French and the English together." There he saw the British Army in a state of depression and formed a very unfavourable opinion of its morale and physique in comparison to the French. He was also able to see first-hand, through the good offices of Russell who obtained for him a pass from the British general in charge, Russian batteries at work against the English and French. Soon after, he left the camp suddenly one morning and, as Russell still slept, scribbled a note to him saying, "Azimullah Khan presents his compliments to Russell, Esquire, and begs to thank him most truly for his kind attentions, for which I am most obliged."

A British historian of the time, who knew India well and who had met Azimullah, described him as outwardly a lively, "smiling, voluptuous sort of person, intent always upon the amusement of the hour, [but] inwardly brooding over some unexpressed feelings." The same historian pointed to how failure and disappointment had caused Azimullah to "brood over bitter animosities" and driven him to scheme against the British in India. That was certainly true. Azimullah observed that soon after his return to India, and having briefed Nana Saheb on his experiences in both London and the Crimea, his master undertook a tour of parts of northern India under the guise of a religious pilgrimage to organise a revolt against the British. He obviously worked closely with Nana Saheb in planning the Mutiny, together with Tatya Tope, the military genius who fought its great battles and who is another national hero of India's First War of Independence.

Many Indian historians have paid tribute to Azimullah Khan and the way he overcame early handicaps. One has written that, "Nature had endowed him with well-favoured features and a charming personality, to which he added, by his own efforts, cultivated manners, and when he reached England he was admitted to the best society where he moved with natural ease. It was no small compliment to his accomplishments that he won the affection of elderly matrons of the British aristocracy, and fair maidens found in him an object of love and admiration in spite of 'the shadowed livery of the burnished sun'."

When the British ultimately quelled the Mutiny of 1857 and searched the palace buildings in which Nana Saheb, Azimullah Khan and the other leaders had lived they discovered bundles of letters addressed to Azimullah from "high class ladies of London", which were couched in terms of "the most intimate friendship." He had continued to receive such letters from England and France on his return.

Both during and after the Mutiny, Nana Saheb was excoriated by the British as the villain who had plotted the entire affair. He was never caught. Azimullah Khan also disappeared, rumoured to have spend the rest of his life in Mecca and Constantinople. Tatya Tope also appeared to have escaped, though in 1859 the British executed a man they claimed to be him.

There were times during the Mutiny when the rebel forces had the British on the back foot. If they had cut the telegraph and rail lines earlier they may have taken full control of the north of India and held the British hostage. If the sepoy armies in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies would then have turned on their colonial masters and driven them out of India will never be known. But one thing is certain: the rebels, from Nana Saheb down, would be proud of India today, the world's largest democracy. They would, however, be puzzled as to why China, which has suffered its own trials and tribulations, needs to bully India regularly along their shared border.