Though the freedom struggle of 1857 was started by the sepoys, people from all walks of life took part in the war. Some scholars bade goodbye to their pens and wielded swords to participate in the struggle for the independence of India. Maulvi Liaqat Ali was one of them. He was born on 5 October 1817 in a weavers family in Mahgaon village of Chayil Tahsil of Allahabad district, Uttar Pradesh.
His mother was Aminabi and his father was Syed Mehar Ali. He acquired religious knowledge and developed an anti-British attitude right from his childhood. He joined the British army and started indoctrinating anti-British ideas into the minds of Indian soldiers. East India Company officers sensed this and expelled him from the army.
These 85 Indian soldiers started the 1857 Revolt
Maulvi Liaqat Ali resumed his activities from his native village Mahagao giving religious guidance to the people on one hand and exhorting them to wage a righteous war against the British to secure our lawful rights and to reinstall native rule on the other. He started uniting anti-British groups in Allahabad. As his efforts yielded some result, he entered with his force Allahabad town, drove away East India Company force and officers and took control of the town.
Maulvi Liaqat Ali and Peyam-e-Amal
Maulvi Liaqat Ali declared himself as the representative of Delhi Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and ran the administration of the town from Kouserbagh as his headquarters. He wrote a song ‘Peyam-e-Amal’ exposing the misdeeds of British rule and seeking Hindu-Muslim-Sikh unity besides inspiring patriotism among countrymen particularly Indian soldiers in the British army.
Maulvi Ahmad Shah (Hero of 1857): A Chapter from Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Book
It was published in ‘Payam-e-Azadi’ an Urdu periodical edited by another freedom fighter Azeemullah Khan. General Neill of East India Company mobilized necessary forces and attacked Maulvi Liaqat Ali’s headquarters on 11 June 1857. Moulvi fought the battle valiantly till the end but left the battlefield on 17 June under adverse circumstances.
The company officers announced a huge reward on his head. Maulvi Liaqat Ali evaded capture for 14 years. Later on, on a tip-off from a traitor, he was captured by the British forces. In the trial that followed, he categorically declared that he had taken up arms only to emancipate his motherland from the yoke of the British. After the trial, Maulvi Liaqat Ali was sentenced to life imprisonment and was extradited to Andamans, where he breathed his last on 17 May 1892.
