The Siege of Krishnapur is a fictional account of an epic siege during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, sourcing a number of contemporary accounts, but particularly those associated with the Siege of Lucknow. Winning the Booker Prize in 1973, it forms part of a trilogy looking at the decline of the British Empire, the others being Troubles and The Singapore Grip, looking respectively at the Irish independence struggle and the Japanese conquest of Singapore.
Sieges make gripping reading: the inexorable advance of the attacking force, the increasing privations of the defenders, and the desperate struggles for the ramparts all make for high drama. Farrell’s novel brings in elements peculiar to this ruthless struggle: the close proximity of soldiers’ wives and children, the sudden conversion of untrained civilians to armed defenders, and above all the elemental fear of massacre in the event of failure. Paradoxically, the book is distinguished by its many moments of high comedy, chiefly at the expense of the British Empire, with its illusions of grandeur.
Trouble brewing
The leader of the defence is the Collector, whose title reflects both his role as the senior colonial tax and administrative official, and his hobby of collecting artefacts from the Great Exhibition, the famous Victorian display of technology, civilisation, and ‘progress’. Ironically, most of these objects get blown up, embedded in barricades, or fired as projectiles during the siege. The Collector is the first to sense that trouble is brewing, observing mysterious piles of chapatis appearing round the cantonment and neighbouring city. Rightly seeing this as some sort of code, he orders the construction of earthworks round the Residency compound, arousing ridicule from the complacent colonists.
