Henry Havelock's great-great grandson on 'Mutiny Tourism' trip in UP

Lucknow, Sep 6 (UNI) Sir Mark Havelock Allan, great-great grandson of Major General Sir Henry Havelock, who led the British army in the first war of independence in 1857, would be visiting Uttar Pradesh later this month.

Sir Allan will visit Lucknow, Allahabad and Kanpur in the last week of this month to connect himself with his great-great grandfather's fighting during 1857 uprising .

Havelock would be the key tourist in a group of 20 British visitors to India this month as a part of the Mutiny Tourism, a new kind of tourism based on the uprising of 1857 in which the British tourists have been visiting India in search of their relatives' graves.

Mark Havelock Allan, in his fiftees, who will be visiting the route of the 1857 uprising in India has spoken to a group of journalists here on his expectations from the visit in an e-mail interview.

''I have been to Lucknow and Delhi twice in the past, but without historical guides. I have never been to Kanpur or Allahabad. I look forward to following the route (in reverse) which my great-great grandfather's small army took in 1857,'' Mark Havelock-Allan said.

''The tour will end in Kolkata , where the British tourists shall be spending 3 days,'' Sir Mark added.

Sir Henry Havelock, a born British soldier was called to put down mutiny in North India, he fought valiantly in Cawnpur (now Kanpur) and Lucknow before dying in Lucknow on November, 24, 1857, of dysentery, which was a result of anxieties and fatigues due to prolonged warfare.

There is a statue of Havelock in Trafalgar Square, London while in Lucknow there is a road named after Havelock. The British government has also bestowed the honour of baronet to his family members.

''I shall also visit my great-great-grandfather's grave at Alambagh and attend a service of commemoration at the Residency in the state capital for all those(on both sides) who died in the First and Second Relief of the Residency,'' Sir Mark Havelock said.

Getting little nostalgic about his great-great grandfather, Mark says, ''He was a rather austere disciplinarian and a very devout Christian. He never drank alcohol and his troops were renowned for never being drunk and disorder. He spent all his career (from 1823) in India or Afghanistan.

Mark hastens to add, ''but by modern standards we would regard him as rather formidable and forbidding. Nevertheless he loved India and the Indian troops he commanded. This was especially so of the contingent of Sikhs in his small army, whom he regarded as the bravest native troops he ever led.'' Sir Mark Havelock plans to enrich the historical resources of India by stating that he would donate some of his prints and books to the Museum in Lucknow's Residency. ''I intend to donate some prints to the Museum at The Residency and to lay a wreath on the grave of my great-great grandfather. I have a library of over 300 volumes on the Indian Mutiny, especially the campaign in and around Lucknow, but I have insufficient time to read them,'' he said.

The rush from Britons to see cemeteries of their forefathers dating back to the British Raj began in March this year coinciding with 150 years of the 'Sepoy Mutiny of 1857'. British tour operators have geared up to send them here. The revolt and the massacres that followed led to many burials in British garrisons, cantonments and towns in northern India.

The British Association of Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA), the organisation which preserves records of cemeteries in India functionary said that they receive inquiries from people about cemeteries of their forefathers in India almost everyday.

''Even people from Australia, US and Canada are contacting us.

They are eager to see the remains and memorials of ancestors whose mortal remains never returned to the land of their origin,'' they said.

UNI