Kanpur: The Tragic Fall of India’s Manchester | Kanpur History | Kissa Ep 184

Kanpur was once called the "Manchester of the East". In this episode of Kissa, Bhupendra Soni tells the story of how a small village on the banks of the Ganga, Kanhpur, became the East India Company's biggest military cantonment in North India after the British defeated the Nawab of Awadh and the Marathas near Jajmau in 1765. The city then became the scene of one of the bloodiest chapters of 1857: the siege of Wheeler's Entrenchment, the Satichaura Ghat massacre, the killings at Bibighar, and the brutal British revenge that followed. After 1857, the British turned Kanpur into an industrial powerhouse to supply their army. The Government Harness and Saddlery Factory, Elgin Mills, Muir Mills and the Cawnpore Woollen Mills, better known as Lal Imli, filled the city with chimneys and migrant workers. Those workers lived in cramped "ahatas" around the mills, and the ahatas gave Kanpur its famous dialect, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi's newspaper "Pratap", and a revolutionary network that sheltered Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh. The episode then follows the decline of the mills after Independence, from nationalisation and the police firing at Swadeshi Cotton Mills on 6 December 1977 to the silence of Lal Imli. It looks at how leather, Pan Parag and a new generation of businesses kept the city alive, who Kanpur's richest families are according to the Hurun India Rich List 2026, and how the city's politics moved from red-flag trade unionism to the BJP-SP contest ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 6 December 1977: Firing at Swadeshi Cotton Mills 03:04 Sandhi: How Kanhpur became Cawnpore 08:36 Sabse Badi Bagawat: 1857, Satichaura Ghat and Bibighar 15:37 Manchester: The rise of the mills and Lal Imli 19:53 Ahata: Life in the workers' colonies 22:11 Ek Aur Bagawat: Pratap, Vidyarthi and Bhagat Singh 24:56 Audyogik Kabristan: How the mills died 29:48 Phoenix: Leather, Pan Parag and Kanpur's richest families 35:01 Siyasat: Kanpur politics ahead of UP Election 2027 Books referred to in this episode: The British Conquest and Dominion of India (Sir Penderel Moon), Traders and Nabobs: The British in Cawnpore 1765-1857 (Zoë Yalland), Cawnpore: A Gazetteer (H.R. Nevill), Eighteen Fifty-Seven (S.N. Sen), Our Bones Are Scattered (Andrew Ward), The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (Christopher Hibbert), The Story of Cawnpore (Mowbray Thomson), Manchester of the East: The Rise and Fall of Industry in Kanpur (S.P. Mehra), Lost Worlds (Chitra Joshi), The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-Century India (Nandini Gooptu). Script & Research: Mayank | Host: Bhupendra Soni | Video Editors: Sandeep Narayan, Rahul Pal | Camera: Taufeeq Ansari | Production: Divya Garg, Priyansh Ranjan | Thumbnail: Ratnesh Chaudhary #Kanpur #KanpurHistory #LalImli #Kissa #KhabarGaon #1857 #UPElection2027 ================================================== Khabargaon is a modern-day digital platform that helps you travel through current affairs, explainers, ground reports, interviews and unique video shows. Stay tuned for more and more! Khabargaon holds the copyright to this video. Use by others is not allowed without written consent. For permission, email digital@khabargaon.com Website: https://khabargaon.com/ Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications to get the latest:    / @khabargaon   Connect us on Facebook:   / khabargaon   Instagram:   / khabargaon   Twitter: https://x.com/khabar_gaon WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vatc...