AT THE height of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, Brigadier General John Nicholson stormed into the officers’ mess several hours late for dinner.

“I am sorry, gentlemen,” he said. “I have been hanging your cooks.” The entrance was typical of the Irishman who crushed the Mutiny, earning a reputation as one of the most brilliant but brutal figures of the British Raj.

Hailed at the time as the “Hero of Delhi”, he was more recently described as an “imperial psychopath” by the author William Dalrymple.

Yet as India prepares for the 150th anniversary of the Mutiny next year, the British Government has backed a project to renovate the Nicholson Cemetery in Delhi, where he was buried.

The renovation has drawn attention to the dire state of Indian historical monuments, 35 of which have simply disappeared because of unregulated property development.

But it has also highlighted the conflicting British and Indian attitudes towards the colonial era and in particular the Mutiny — which India calls the First War of Independence.

The British High Commission did not fund the renovation, which was undertaken by Group 4 Securicor (G4S), a British-based security company.

It did, however, support the project officially and Sir Michael Arthur, the British High Commissioner, re-opened the cemetery last month, prompting angry responses in the Indian media.

“The renovation of the Nicholson Cemetery by the British Government is an insult to those Indians who died fighting for the country in 1857,” Kavita Punjabi wrote in a letter to The Telegraph, a newspaper based in Calcutta.

“The British are trying to prove that their patriotism is superior to ours, and we, by allowing such renovations, are accepting their view.”

A spokesman for the High Commission said that he was aware of the “mixed reactions”, but played down the controversy. “It’s just a project undertaken by British business to restore a part of Delhi’s heritage,” he said. “We’re happy to support that.”

G4S said that it decided to fund the project after descendants of those buried in the nine-acre (3.5 hectare) cemetery complained about its dilapidated state.

Neglected for decades by the Indian authorities, the cemetery had become a hangout for drunks, drug addicts and monkeys, and most of its gravestones, including Nicholson’s, had been vandalised.

“It’s named after Nicholson but there are lots of other graves there,” a spokeswoman for G4S said.

“Yes, his grave is there. Yes, he led the assault on Delhi. But that is part of our heritage too.”

Many historians and preservationists welcomed the idea of private companies renovating historical monuments. But some questioned the decision to choose the Nicholson Cemetery first.

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, said that two other British graveyards in Delhi were in a far worse condition.

The Indian Government says that 35 historical monuments have disappeared in recent years because of uncontrolled urbanisation. “I’m a little baffled about why they are valourising Nicholson now,” said Narayani Gupta, a historian, consultant to the Indian National Trust and author of Delhi between Two Empires. “He doesn’t come out well in the Mutiny, especially in his attitude toward Indians.”

Nicholson, who died aged 34 leading the assault on Delhi that ended the Mutiny, treated Indians with notorious brutality. Mr Dalrymple’s book The Last Mughal describes how he had a cookboy beaten to death for straying across his path.

During the Mutiny, Nicholson wrote a letter saying: “I would inflict the most excruciating tortures I could think of on them [Indians] with a perfectly easy conscience.”

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