The 1857 Revolt

It was the 11th of May, 1857. The city of Delhi had not yet awoken when a band of Sepoys from Meerut crossed the Jamuna, set fire to the toll house, and marched to the Red Fort, having defied and killed the European officers the day before. They entered the Red Fort through the Raj Ghat gate, accompanied by an ecstatic crowd, to petition Bahadur Shah II.

 

•    Bahadur Shah II, the Moghul Emperor — a pensioner of the British East India Company who had nothing but the name of the mighty Mughals — to become their leader and thus give legitimacy to their cause.

 

•    Bahadur Shah hesitated because he was unsure of both the sepoys' intentions and his own ability to play an effective role. He was persuaded, if not coerced, to submit and was given the title of Shahenshah-e-Hindustan.

 

•    The sepoys then set out to conquer and control Delhi, the imperial capital. The Political Agent, Simon Fraser, and several other Englishmen were killed, and the government offices were either occupied or destroyed. 

 

•    The Revolt had begun, an unsuccessful but valiant attempt to overthrow foreign rule. The conquest of Delhi and the proclamation of Bahadur Shah as Emperor of Hindustan gave the revolt a positive political meaning and served as a rallying point for the rebels by recalling the imperial city's past glory.

 

•    The sepoy mutiny at Meerut and the capture of Delhi sparked widespread sepoy mutiny and rebellion across North India, as well as Central and Western India. 

 

•    South India was unaffected, and Punjab and Bengal were only slightly impacted. Almost half of the Company's sepoy strength of 2, 32,224 chose to abandon their regimental colours and defeat the army's ideology, which had been painstakingly built over time through training and discipline.

 

•    There were rumblings of resentment in various cantonments even before the Meerut incident. The 19th Native Infantry at Berhampur was disbanded in March 1857 after refusing to use the newly introduced Enfield rifle.

 

•    Mangal Pande, a young sepoy in the 34th Native Infantry, went a step further and fired at his regiment's Sergeant Major. He was defeated and executed, and his regiment was disbanded as well. A similar fate befell the 7th Oudh regiment, which defied its officers.

 

Within a month of the Revolt's beginning in Delhi, it had spread to Kanpur, Lucknow, Benares, Allahabad, Bareilly, Jagdishpur, and Jhansi. The rebel activity was characterised by strong anti-British sentiments, and the government was invariably overthrown. In the absence of any leaders among their own ranks, the insurgents turned to Indian society's traditional leaders: territorial aristocrats and feudal chiefs who had suffered at the hands of the British.

 

1.    Nana Saheb, the adopted son of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was the natural choice in Kanpur. He had refused the family title and was living near Kanpur after being expelled from Poona.

 

2.    Begum Hazrat Mahal ascended to the throne in the face of overwhelming public support for the deposed Nawab. Her son, Birjis Qadir, was named Nawab, and a regular government was established, with important positions shared equally by Muslims and Hindus

 

3.    Khan Bahadur, a descendant of Rohilkhand's former ruler, was placed in command at Barielly. He was not enthusiastic about this, as he was living on a British pension, and had even warned the Commissioner of the impending mutiny. However, when the Revolt erupted, he took command, organised a force of 40,000 soldiers, and stood firm against the British

 

4.    Kunwar Singh, the zamindar of Jagdishpur, a 70-year-old man on the verge of bankruptcy, led the revolt in Bihar. He was enraged by the British and held a grudge against them. They had taken his estates away from him, and his repeated requests to be entrusted with their management had fallen on deaf ears. He joined the sepoys without hesitation when they arrived in Arrah from Dinapore, despite the fact that he had not planned an uprising.

 

5.    Rani Lakshmibai, who assumed command of the sepoys at Jhansi, was the most notable leader of the Revolt.

 

•    After her husband died, Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General, refused to allow her adopted son to succeed to the throne and annexed the state using the Doctrine of Lapse. 

•    The Rani had done everything she could to overturn the decision. She even offered to keep Jhansi'safe' for the British if they agreed to her demands. 

•    When it became clear that nothing was working, she joined the sepoys and eventually became one of the British's most formidable foes. 

 

The immediate cause, according to a proclamation issued in Delhi, is: ‘it is well known that in these days all the English have entertained these evil designs — first, to destroy the religion of the whole Hindustani Army, and then to make the people by compulsion Chris¬tians. Therefore, we, solely on account of our religion, have combined with the people, and have not spared alive one infidel, and have re-established the Delhi dynasty on these terms’. 

 

•    It is true that the Company's army and cantonments' conditions of service increasingly clashed with the sepoys' religious beliefs and prejudices, who were mostly drawn from the upper caste Hindus of the North Western Provinces and Oudh. 

 

•    Initially, the administration tried to accommodate the sepoys' demands by providing them with facilities to live according to their caste and religion's dictates. 

 

•    However, with the Army's operation now extending not only to various parts of India, but also to countries outside of India, this was no longer possible. Furthermore, caste distinctions and segregation within a regiment were not conducive to a fighting unit's cohesiveness. 

 

•    To begin, the administration devised a simple solution: discourage Brahmin recruitment. This, however, did not work, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, the upper castes dominated the Bengal Army, for example.

 

•    When the 47th Regiment at Barrackpur was ordered to go to Burma in 1824, the sepoys' discontent first surfaced. Crossing the sea meant losing one's caste to the religious Hindu. As a result, the sepoys refused to comply. The regiment was disbanded, and the opposition leaders were hanged. 

 

•    The religious sensibilities of the sepoys who fought in Afghanistan were particularly harmed. The fleeing sepoys were forced to eat and drink whatever came their way during the arduous and disastrous campaigns. When they returned to India, those at home correctly assumed that they could not have followed caste rules and were hesitant to welcome them back into the biradiri (caste fraternity). Sitaram, who had enlisted in the Afghan army, was shunned not only in his village, but also in his barracks. 

 

•    The prestige of working for the company was insufficient to maintain his social standing; religion and caste proved to be more powerful.

 

•    Rumours about the government's covert plans to promote Christian conversions enraged the sepoys even more. The official-missionary connection backed up the rumour. Missionaries were allowed to preach openly in some cantonments, and their diatribes against other religions enraged the sepoys. 

 

•    The sepoys' growing dissatisfaction with the government was exacerbated by reports of bone dust being mixed into atta and the introduction of the Enfield rifle. The new rifle's cartridges had to be bitten off before being loaded, and the grease was said to be made of beef and pig fat. 

 

•    The army administration did nothing to assuage the sepoys' fears, and they believed their religion was in grave jeopardy.

 

•    The sepoys' dissatisfaction was not limited to religion. They were both dissatisfied with their pay. A month's pay for a sepoy in the infantry was seven rupees.

 

•    A sawar in the cavalry was paid Rs. 27, but he had to pay for his own uniform, food, and maintenance of his mount, leaving him with only a rupee or two. What was even more vexing was his sense of deprivation in comparison to his British peers. At every turn, he was made to feel like a second-class citizen, and he was treated unfairly in terms of racial discrimination, promotion, and privileges.

 

•    The sepoys' discontent was not limited to military matters; they shared a general dissatisfaction with and opposition to British rule. In fact, the sepoy was a peasant in uniform, with a consciousness that was not dissociated from that of the rural populace. 

 

•    Almost every agricultural family in Oudh had a member of the army; the city had 75,000 men. Whatever happened there concerned the sepoy right away. His well-being was harmed by the new land revenue system implemented after the annexation and confiscation of lands belonging to charitable institutions. That accounted for the 14,000 petitions received from sepoys complaining about the revenue system's hardships.

 

•    The Delhi rebels issued a proclamation that reflected the sepoys' awareness of the misery brought about by British rule. As a result, the mutiny was a political act as well as a revolt against the British. The mutiny's character was given by the sepoys' shared interests with the general population.

 

•    The sepoy uprising was accompanied by a civil uprising, particularly in the North Western Provinces and Oudh, the two areas from which the Bengal army's sepoys were recruited.

 

•    Civil rebellion followed the Sepoy Revolt, with the exception of Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur.

 

•    The sepoys' actions liberated the rural population from the fear of the state and the administration's control. Their long-held grievances were quickly expressed, and they rose in force to voice their opposition to British rule. 

 

•    The civil uprising had a broad social base, with territorial magnates, peasants, artisans, religious mendicants and priests, civil servants, shopkeepers, and boatmen all taking part. As a result of the sepoys' revolt, a popular uprising erupted. 

 

•    The cause of this massive uprising must be traced back to the nature of British rule, which harmed the interests of almost everyone in society. The peasantry became increasingly indebted and impoverished as a result of excessive taxes. 

 

•    The Company's sole goal was to generate maximum revenue with the least amount of effort. As a result, settlements were hurriedly carried out, often without regard for the land's resources.

 

•    The authorities had not considered that such a large and abrupt increase would have disastrous consequences for the cultivators. Normally, revenue could not be collected without coercion and torture: between 1848 and 1856, there were 2, 37,388 coercive collections in Rohilkhand. 

 

•    Regardless of the circumstances, the government was eager to collect revenue. Remissions were rarely granted, even in the direst of circumstances. 

 

•    A collector who complained about not being able to collect revenue from an estate because only grass was grown there was told that grass was a very good produce that should be sold to generate revenue! The traditional landed aristocracy was no less affected. 

 

•    The taluqdars lost all power and privileges in Oudh, which was the epicentre of the Revolt. About 21,000 taluqdars whose estates were confiscated found themselves suddenly without a source of income, unable to work, ashamed to beg, and condemned to penury.

 

•    Dispossessed taluqdars, enraged by the humiliation they had suffered, took advantage of the Sepoy Revolt to oppose the British and reclaim what they had lost. 

 

•    The artisans and handicraftsmen suffered under British rule as well. The Company's annexation of Indian states cut off their main source of revenue. Furthermore, British policy discouraged Indian handicrafts while emphasising British goods. Because the destruction of Indian handicrafts was not accompanied by the development of modern industries, highly skilled Indian craftsmen were deprived of their source of income and forced to look for alternate sources of employment that were scarce.

 

•    Orthodox Hindus and Muslims feared that the British were attempting to destroy their religion and culture through social legislation. 

 

•    Furthermore, they believed that legislation was enacted to assist missionaries in their evangelization efforts. As a result, the orthodox and religious formed a coalition against the British. Several rebel proclamations made it clear that they were concerned about cultural issues. 

 

•    The 1857 movement was a once-in-a-generation popular uprising, thanks to the alliance of the sepoys' revolt and the civil population's.