James, Helen
(2009)
The Assassination Of Lord Mayo:
The 'first' Jihad?
International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS), 5 (2).
pp. 1-19.
ISSN ISSN: 1823-6243
Abstract
In February 1872, Lord Mayo, Governor-General of India, was assassinated at
the penal settlement of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands whilst paying a viceregal visit to the Province of British Burma. His assassin, a Pathan from North
West India who had been in the Peshawar police, made no attempt to escape. He
had been serving a life sentence for murder, a murder of which he had declared
himself 'Not Guilty'. The manuscripts and papers relating to the thorough
investigation that was immediately launched into the death of the Viceroy use the
word jihad ('struggle for the Faith') to explain the motivation for the
assassination. However, intriguing unanswered questions remain that this paper
will attempt to highlight. Was the alleged assassin a mere tool in a larger game
of world politics? Was Lord Mayo's security detail deliberately slack in
performing its duties? Based on the manuscript collections in the Cambridge
University Library, this paper scrutinises the evidence and frames it within the
colonial history of the loss of Burmese independence in three wars with Britain
from 1824 to 1885.
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