The Royal Enfield Bullet That Killed An Indian

What does the Indian youth's favourite bike today and the Indian freedom struggle have in common?

Ask any Indian boy or a self-proclaimed Indian gentleman from yester-years what his dream bike is, and he will tell you, 'The Royal Enfield Bullet,' with an air of pride gushing at his irrevocable matter of choice. It is a great bike, no disappointment in that, no matter what the model; people take pride to flash the acronym that reads 'RE', the emblem of the gun and the logo that reads, 'Made like a gun, flies like a bullet.' Girls like it too and often subconsciously connect a man riding a Bullet bike to masculinity.

Capitalizing on this craze and trend, this bike company has catapulted its sales volume and sells more than a million bikes a year at a price set understandably high from a pure economic perspective - more the demand, higher the price in today's market situation. Simple and wonderful!

Now lets go back a bit into some rotting pages of History. To make it more specific and even dustier; lets get back to a dark chapter of Indian History. The year was 1857, must have been a year of frustrations I believe, by this time, Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse, an annexation policy of the British Empire was at its full swing - which basically said that the Brits would take over kingdoms that did not have a heir to the throne while refusing to accept prospective adopted children as legal heirs, this lapse of heirs, infuriated a few like Rani Lekshmi Bai of Jhansi who felt her adopted son, Damodar Rao would not reach the throne and also Nana Sahib a Maratha Peshwa who was earlier refused pension by the East India Company was now at the verge of losing the chances of inheriting a kingdom as well, as he too was adopted.
We (Indians) already had over 3, 00, 000 (Three Lakhs) sepoys serving as loyal British troops while the actual white Brit soldiers stationed here (in India) stood a head-count of only 50, 000 (Fifty Thousand Only) - a 6:1 ratio which tilted the scales for the Indian sepoys who in turn felt that they could demand better working conditions and could have their way - the thug way - with a mere display of majority in power. Sounds familiar isn't it?

Trouble was reported to be brewing in barracks and brothels visited by the soldiers and it only intensified and reached its brim when the Brits introduced the "Bullets" that were supposedly smothered in pig and cow fat that came straight from His/Her Majesty's "Royal" Empire that had to be bit (by the predominantly Hindu and Muslim sepoys who found it religiously insensitive to be asked to do something like that) before being loaded into the "Enfield" rifles. Rings a bell now? Yep, it is the same company that made those rifles and bullets that erupted the sepoy mutiny then that makes those much favoured bikes today.

The sepoy mutiny resulted in the death of over 2, 392 Brits and over 1, 00, 000 Indian sepoys and resulted in only a more oppressive rule and in the creation of an equally paranoid society - both ways - rather than any whiff of freedom for the Indian side. Each side demonstrated its barbaric side and there began a silently silenced holocaust at our side of the map. And to think that it all erupted because of the Royal Enfield Bullets...

Now you know why the word "Royal Enfield Bullet" that we feel so proud to possess today in our lapels and bikes and everything connected therewith, would not have appealed to our first freedom fighters and nationalists a few decades ago - no matter how subtly they announce where it is made, who makes it or how it is expected to fly.  Have we betrayed history or is this a historic betrayal by not knowing this fact?
Meanwhile, when an array of the Royal Enfield Bullet thumps its way past me with riders flashing their grin moving those wasted miles on the road - perhaps a symbolic representation of an equally purposeless and wasted life they have, each thump reminds me of a bullet from the white man's gun that shattered the counted and discounted Indians who laid down their lives for refusing to use the Royal Enfield and Bullets that day. Perhaps at the end of the day, for many, this sentiment is invalid and the bike is more important today. Well, ride on...