Congress founder diary on sale

A diary kept by Indian National Congress founder Allan Octavian Hume during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 will be auctioned at Bonhams’ next month.

A diary kept by Indian National Congress founder Allan Octavian Hume during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 will be auctioned at Bonhams’ next month. The dairy which will feature in the ‘India and Beyond, Travel and Photographs’ sale of April 13 has an estimate of £15,000-20,000.

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As magistrate and collector of Etawah district in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, Hume led an irregular force of 650 Indian troops in defence of the area and kept a daily record of skirmishes with the mutineers.

Blaming the uprising on the British government’s political ineptitude, Hume sympathised strongly with the plight of ordinary Indians unwittingly caught up in the action.