Mahua Dabar: The Forgotten Massacre That Erased an Entire Village

Representative Image

Nearly five thousand innocent Indians were slaughtered, and the village of Mahua Dabar was wiped off the map. The story of Mahua Dabar is nothing short of shocking. Around 5,000 people were surrounded and killed, and a major conspiracy was carried out to erase the village’s identity by resettling another village with the same name nearly 50 kilometres away. But history cannot remain buried forever. Decades later, excavations unearthed the truth hidden beneath the soil, yet not a single word of remorse ever came from the perpetrators of this monstrous act.

Exactly 168 years ago, on July 3, 1857, the brutal British regime, aided by mounted cavalry forces, surrounded Mahua Dabar village under Bahadurpur Block of Basti district from three sides and riddled it with bullets. The elderly, children, and women were hacked to pieces and then set ablaze. Not only that, but all the houses, shops, and weaving factories of Mahua Dabar were razed to the ground and it was declared ‘ghair chiragi’ – a place where no lamp would ever be lit again. The village’s name was wiped from the pages of history forever. The Manorama River, which flowed alongside Mahua Dabar and witnessed the massacre, still flows silently, bearing testimony to the horror.

When the flames of the 1857 revolt rose in Meerut, they engulfed the entire country. A large contingent of the 17th Native Infantry was stationed to guard the opium and treasury house at Basti tehsil of Gorakhpur district. The headquarters of this unit was in Azamgarh. On 5 June, the rebellion broke out in Azamgarh, and by 6 June, the soldiers refused to obey orders.

On 7 June, while trying to escape from jail, 20 prisoners were killed. In Gorakhpur, on 8 June, the soldiers tried to loot the treasury, and Captain Steel’s cavalry was forced to retreat. Soldiers from Faizabad and Gonda also joined the uprising. On 8 June, the rebels captured Faizabad cantonment. The next day, soldiers of the 17th Native Infantry stationed in Azamgarh marched to Faizabad to eliminate the British officers. The British intercepted them at Begumganj near the Ghaghra River, 18 miles east of Faizabad, and opened fire from the river’s right bank around 1:30 pm. As a result, Faizabad’s superintendent commissioner Colonel Goldney, Major Mill, and six other officers were killed or went missing. The remaining officers fled and hid in the riverside forests.

At midnight, these officers were helped towards Amodha via Basti by a local zamindar. The tehsildar of Amodha gave them money, guards, and two mules for Lieutenant Ritchie and Lieutenant Caulty. They reached Captanganj, intending to go to Basti, but the local landlords advised against it and suggested they head to Gayaghat, as the 17th Native Infantry soldiers, marching with their treasury along the Basti-Faizabad road, had camped in Basti.

On 10 June 1857, the British officers’ party and their security contingent left Captanganj for Gayaghat. After travelling eight miles, they reached near Mahua Dabar, about 15 km south of then-Basti tehsil in Gorakhpur district. Mahua Dabar was an international centre for ‘chintz’ textile production. Its nearly 5,000 residents were engaged in weaving, dyeing, and printing fabrics. The village boasted single and double-storey houses, markets for brass utensils, a grain mandi, schools, and mosques with tall minarets.

As the British crossed the Manorama River, they were attacked by freedom fighters from Mahua Dabar, Amilha, Muhammadpur, Nakha, and neighbouring villages – valiant men like Gulab Khan, Amir Khan, Pirai Khan, Wazir Khan, Zafar Ali, and their companions, who had launched a people’s war against colonial rule. In this guerrilla attack, Lieutenant English, Lindsay, Thomas, Caulty, Ensign Ritchie, and Sergeant Edward were killed. The injured Sergeant Buscher was taken hostage by the zamindar of Kalwari, Babu Balli Singh.

The British government was enraged by the Mahua Dabar attack. Judge W. Winard and Collector W. Peterson appointed William Peppe, the zamindar of Birdpur, as deputy magistrate of Basti and ordered him to crush the rebellion immediately.

After ten days in captivity, Sergeant Buscher was released. On 20 June, martial law was imposed in Basti. Then, on 3 July, Collector Peppe Williams, with his cavalry, surrounded Mahua Dabar from all sides, burned it down, and declared it ‘ghair chiragi’. Surviving villagers were beheaded, their properties confiscated and deposited in the royal treasury. Revolutionaries like Gulam Khan, Gulzar Khan, Nehal Khan, and Ghisa Khan were hanged on 18 February 1858. Mahipat Singh, who betrayed the revolutionaries, was rewarded with land yielding an annual revenue of three thousand rupees.

News of Mahua Dabar’s horrific suppression was spread across India as a warning: anyone who dared defy the British Empire would be annihilated. For destroying Mahua Dabar, William Peppe was rewarded by the East India Company with vast lands near Birdpur, making him a wealthy landowner.

On 21 May 1858, revolutionaries attacked Peppe Williams’ base, killing 17 people. On 12 June 1859, Peppe survived another attack but lost a finger. Judicial proceedings documented in the ‘Mahua Dabar Proceedings’ of 6 October 1860 revealed contradictions, missing witnesses, and incomplete records. Mehrban Khan was hanged, and two employees were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Andamans.

Zamindar Zafar Ali, one of Mahua Dabar’s heroic revolutionaries, went to Mecca, returned to join the struggle again, and was eventually captured at Tanda Ghat after twelve years. He was tried in Basti and executed.

Thus began the conspiracy to erase Mahua Dabar’s existence forever. The survivors who had escaped the massacre eventually died, and a cunning plan was carried out – another village named Mahua Dabar was resettled nearly 50 km away on the Basti-Gonda border near Gaur, masquerading as rehabilitation. In 1907, while compiling the Basti Gazetteer, H.R. Nevill identified Mahua Dabar with this resettled village on page 158. But the question arises: if the original Mahua Dabar was declared ‘ghair chiragi’ – where no one could ever live – how did British records claim continuity? Such lies raise serious questions about the colonial narrative.

In independent India, historians twisted and presented only the resettled Mahua Dabar’s story, neglecting justice for the original site’s victims. An annihilation of this scale, where an entire population was buried under the soil, is rarely seen in history. It seems that after independence, India’s power-hungry elites simply forgave British atrocities, but Mahua Dabar’s cries still echo in the winds.

In 1999, the Mahua Dabar Museum was established to preserve documents, coins, tools, artefacts, and newspapers related to the village and the freedom struggle so that future generations may learn the true history. Excavations at Mahua Dabar were carried out from 11 June to 1 July 2010 under the supervision of Associate Professor Anil Kumar of Lucknow University’s archaeology department. The dig unearthed lakhori brick walls, wells, drains running in various directions, charred wooden fragments, ash, earthenware, craft tools, vases, ancient coins, and mica pieces. All findings were sent to the Archaeological Survey of India.

Thanks to the efforts of Dr Shah Alam Rana, revolutionary descendant and director of Mahua Dabar Museum, the site has been included in Uttar Pradesh Tourism Policy’s ‘Freedom Struggle Circuit’ in 2022. Since 10 June 2025, the revolutionaries of Mahua Dabar have been honoured with ceremonial gun salutes by the administration. Dr Rana emphasises that long before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Mahua Dabar witnessed an atrocity many times greater, yet it remains shrouded in silence. At Jallianwala Bagh, Queen Elizabeth II paid homage to the victims in 1997. In 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron called it a shameful episode in British history, and in its centenary year in 2019, Prime Minister Theresa May expressed regret in Parliament, calling it a dark stain on Britain’s past. But the true Mahua Dabar still lies buried in its ashes, awaiting revival as a national memorial. ( The writer is a researcher and activist based in Chambal, Uttar Pradesh)