Causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
Encyclopedia
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes.
The sepoy
s, a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army
, had their own list of grievances against the Company Raj, mainly caused by the ethnic gulf between the British officers and their Indian troops. The British had issued new gunpowder cartridges that were widely believed to be greased with cow or pig fat, which insulted both Hindus and Muslims. Other than Indian units of the British East India Company
's army, much of the resistance came from the old aristocracy, who were seeing their power steadily eroded under the British.
) to Christianity
. The British religious fashion of the time was Evangelism
, and many East India Company
officers took it upon themselves to try to convert their sepoys. This was strongly discouraged by the Company, which was aware of the potential for religion to become a flashpoint.
The Doctrine of Lapse
, part of the British policy of expansionism, was also greatly resented. If a feudal ruler did not leave a male heir through natural process, i.e. his own child, not an adopted one, the land became the property of the British East India Company
. In eight years, Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General of India
, annexed many kingdoms including Jhansi
, Awadh
or Oudh, Satara
, Nagpur
and Sambalpur
, adding up to a quarter of a million square miles (650,000 km²) of land to the Company's territory. Nobility, feudal landholders, and royal armies found themselves unemployed and humiliated. Even the jewels of the royal family of Nagpur
were publicly auctioned in Calcutta, a move that was seen as a sign of abject disrespect by the remnants of the Indian aristocracy. In addition the Bengal army of the East India Company drew many recruits from Awadh
; they could not remain unaffected by the discontent back home.
Indians were unhappy with the draconian rule of the British which had embarked on a project of rather rapid expansion and westernisation, that were imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. Changes introduced by the British, such as outlawing Sati
(the ritual burning of widow
s) and child marriage, were accompanied with prohibitions on Indian religious customs, seen as steps towards a forced conversion to Christianity.
Historian William Dalrymple asserts that the rebels were motivated primarily by resistance against a move by the East India Company, which was perceived as an attempt to impose Christianity and Christian laws in India. For instance, when Mughal
Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on 11 May 1857, he was told: "We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith." They later stood in Chandni Chowk
, the main square, and asked the people gathered there, "Brothers, are you with those of the faith?" Those British men and women who had previously converted to Islam
such as the defectors, Sergeant-Major Gordon, and Abdullah Beg, a former Company soldier, were spared. On the contrary, foreign Christians such as Revd Midgeley John Jennings, as well as Indian converts to Christianity such as one of Zafar's personal physicians, Dr. Chaman Lal, were killed outright.
Dalrymple further points out that as late as 6 September, when calling the inhabitants of Delhi
to rally against the upcoming British assault, Zafar issued a proclamation stating that this was a religious war being prosecuted on behalf of 'the faith', and that all Muslim and Hindu residents of the imperial city, or of the countryside were encouraged to stay true to their faith and creeds. As further evidence, he observes that the Urdu sources of the pre and post-rebellion periods usually refer to the British not as angrez (the English), goras (whites) or firangis (foreigners), but as kafir
(infidels) and nasrani (Christians).
The justice system was considered inherently unfair to the Indians. In 1853, the British Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen
opened the Indian Civil Service to native Indians; however, this was viewed by some of educated India as an insufficient reform. The official Blue Books — entitled East India (Torture) 1855–1857 — that were laid before the House of Commons
during the sessions of 1856 and 1857 revealed that Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians. The Company also practised financial extortion through heavy taxation. Failure to pay these taxes almost invariably resulted in appropriation of property.
Some historians have suggested that the impact of these reforms has been greatly exaggerated, as the British did not have the resources to enforce them, meaning that away from Calcutta their effect was negligible.
This was not the view taken by the British themselves after 1857: instead they scaled down their programme of reform, increased the racial distance between Europeans and native Indians, and also sought to appease the gentry and princely families, especially Muslim, who had been major instigators of the 1857 revolt. After 1857, Zamindari (regional feudal officials) became more oppressive, the caste
system became more pronounced, and the communal divide between Hindus and Muslims became marked and visible, which some historians argue was due in great part to a British tactic of divide and rule
.
Another important reason for the rebellion was the attitude towards Bahadur Shah Zafar. Lord Dalhousie
, the governor-general of India at the time, had insulted the Emperor by asking him and his successors to leave the Red Fort, the palace in Delhi
. Later, Lord Canning, the next governor-general of India, announced in 1856 that Bahadur Shah's successors would not even be allowed to use the title of Sultan
. Such discourtesies were resented by many of the people and the Indian rulers.
(self-immolation by widow
s) and child marriage, which to some appeared to be a precursor to an imposition of Christianity, has also been put forward as a reason for the revolt.
was a massive export company that was the force behind much of the colonization of India. The power of the Company took nearly 150 years to build. As early as 1693, the annual expenditure in political "gifts" to men in power reached nearly 90,000 pounds. In bribing the Government, the Company was allowed to operate in overseas markets despite the fact that the cheap imports of South Asian silk, cotton, and other products hurt domestic business. By 1767, the Company was forced into an agreement to pay 400,000 pounds into the National Exchequer
annually.
By 1848, however, the Company's financial difficulties had reached a point where expanding revenue required expanding British territories in South Asia
massively. The Company began to set aside adoption rights of native princes and began the process of annexation of more than a dozen independent Raja
s between 1848 and 1854. In an article published in The New York Daily Tribune
on July 28, 1857, Karl Marx
notes that "... in 1854 the Raj of Berar
, which comprise 80000 square miles (207,199 km²) of land, a population from four to five million, and enormous treasures, was forcibly seized".
By 1857, the last vestiges of independent Indian states had disappeared and the Company exported untold quantities of gold
, jewels, silver
, silk
, cotton
, and a host of other precious materials back to England every year. This extraordinary quantity of wealth, much of it collected as 'taxes', was absolutely critical in expanding public and private infrastructure in Britain and in financing British expansionism elsewhere in Asia and Africa. In no uncertain terms, this very wealth funded, in large part, the Industrial Revolution
.
The land was reorganised under the comparatively harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes. In certain areas farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute
, coffee
and tea
. This resulted in hardship to the farmers and increases in food prices.
Local industry, specifically the famous weavers of Bengal
and elsewhere, also suffered under British rule. Import tariffs were kept low, according to traditional British free-market sentiments, and thus the Indian market was flooded with cheap clothing from Britain. Master weavers had their fingers cut off to prevent them from weaving. Ancient India's Contribution to World Culture > Production Technology and Mechanical Engineering Indigenous industry simply could not compete, and where once India had produced much of England's luxury cloth, the country was now reduced to growing cotton which was shipped to Britain to be manufactured into clothing, which was subsequently shipped back to India to be purchased by Indians.
The Indians felt that the British were levying very heavy taxation on the locals. This included an increase in the taxation on land.
This seems to have been the most important reason, keeping in view the speed at which the conflagration spread to the villages where farmers rushed to get back their unfairly grabbed title deeds.
An article by Dr. Hardiman.
s (native Indian soldiers, called Sowar
s in cavalry units), commanded by British officers. The presidencies of Bombay, Madras and Bengal
maintained their own army each with its own commander-in-chief
. Together, they fielded more troops than the official army of the British Empire
.
During the late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the armies of the East India Company, in particular those of the Bengal Presidency, were victorious and indomitable - the term "high noon of the sepoy army" has been used by a military historian. The British had an unbroken series of victories in India, against the Marathas, Mysore, north Indian states, and the Gurkhas, later against the Sikhs, and abroad in Egypt, China, Burma and elsewhere. The British had perfected a military organisation where fealty of the sepoys to the Company was considered the height of "izzat" or honour, where the British officers replaced the village headman in battalions and units peopled by soldiers closely related or belonging to the same caste, community or hamlet and became benevolent figures of authority to the sepoys.
Unlike the Bombay
and Madras
Armies, which were far more diverse, the Bengal Army
recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Bhumihar Brahmin
s and Rajput
s of the Ganges Valley. Though paid marginally less than the Bombay and Madras Presidency troops, there was implicit trust between the soldiery and the establishment - the soldiers felt needed and that the company would care for their welfare. The soldiers performed splendidly on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honour
s in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule.
There was a feeling of invincibility, especially amongst the Indian population and the sepoys, about the iqbal or continued good fortune of the East India Company. During the mid-eighteenth century, events disturbed these beliefs of the soldiery, all of which contributed to the escalation of events in 1857. The belief of invinciblilty of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War
where poor political judgement and inept British leadership led to the massacre
of Elphinstone's army while retreating from Kabul. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British, like everyone else, were not invincible.
Caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army were not merely tolerated but encouraged in the early years of the Company's Rule. Partly owing to this, Bengal Sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the British soldiers. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. If the caste of high caste sepoys caste was considered to be "polluted", they would have to expend considerable sums of money on ritual purification before being accepted back into society.
There were many indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company in the form of mutinies by company troops. As early as 1806, concerns that the sepoys' caste may be polluted had led to the Vellore Mutiny
, which was brutally suppressed. In 1824, there was another mutiny by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots. Eleven of the sepoys were executed and hundreds more sentenced to hard labour. In 1851-2 sepoys who were required to serve in the Second Anglo-Burmese War
also refused to move, but were merely sent to serve elsewhere.
The pay of the sepoy was relatively low and after Awadh
and the Punjab
were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay (batta or bhatta) for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions". Since the batta made the difference between service being munificient or harsh, troops repeatedly opposed inconsiderate unilateral changes in pay and batta ordered by the Military Audit department. In the past, the refusal to proceed on service until pay issues were resolved was considered a legitimate form of displaying grievance by Indian troops serving with Indian rulers and as such was considered a legitimate tactic by the sepoys also, being repeated every time such issues arose. The British considered such refusal at times as treachery of the highest order and crushed these refusals brutally, at other times the Company directly or indirectly conceded the legitimacy of the sepoy's demands, as when troops of the Bengal and Madras armies refused to serve in Sindh without batta after its conquest.
The varying stances of the British government, the reduction of allowances and harsh punishments contributed to a feeling of the troops that the Company no longer cared for them. Certain actions of the government, such as increased recruitment of Sikhs and Gurkhas, peoples considered by the Bengal sepoys to be inferior in caste to them, increased the distrust of the sepoys who thought that this was a sign of their services not being needed any more. The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal sepoy battalion of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the sepoys as a breach of faith by the Company.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, British officers were intimately involved with the troops, speaking indian languages fluently, partcipating in the culture of the times even to the extent of having native spouses. Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. Sympathetic rulers, such as Lord William Bentick were replaced by arrogant aristocrats such as Lord Dalhousie who despised the troops and the populace. As time passed, the powers of the commanding officers reduced and the government became more unfeeling or distant from the concerns of the sepoys.
Finally, officers of an evangelical persuasion in the Company's Army (such as Herbert Edwardes and Colonel S.G. Wheler of the 34th Bengal Infantry) had taken to preaching to their Sepoys in the hope of converting them to Christianity. The controversy over the new Enfield Rifle, in the eyes of many Sepoys, added substance to the alarming rumours circulating about their imminent forced conversion to Christianity.
In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. All the cavalry units and 45 of the infantry units rebelled at some point; and all but 5 of the infantry units which did not rebel (or were disarmed before they could do so) had to be disbanded. Once the first rebellions took place, it was clear to most British commanders that the grievances which led to them were felt throughout the Bengal army and no Indian unit could wholly be trusted, although many officers continued to vouch for their men's loyalty, even in the face of captured correspondence indicating their intention to rebel. Whether a unit mutinied or not mainly depended on opportunity.
The Bengal Army also administered, sometimes loosely, 29 regiments of irregular horse and 42 of irregular infantry. Some of these units belonged to states allied to the British or recently absorbed into British-administered territory, and of these, two large contingents from the states of Awadh and Gwalior readily joined the growing rebellion. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assam
ese or Pakhtuns to maintain order locally. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force
) actively participated on the British side.
The Bengal Army also contained three "European" regiments of infantry, and many artillery units manned by white personnel. Due to the need for technical specialists, the artillery units generally had a higher proportion of British personnel. Although the armies of many Rajas or states which rebelled contained large numbers of guns, the British superiority in artillery was to be decisive in a number of engagements.
There were also a number of units from the British Army (referred to in India as "Queen's troops") stationed in India, but in 1857 several of these had been withdrawn to take part in the Crimean War
or the Anglo-Persian War
of 1856. The moment at which the sepoys' grievances led them openly to defy British authority also happened to be the most favourable opportunity to do so.
rifled
musket
- a more powerful and accurate weapon than the old smoothbore
Brown Bess
they had been using for the previous decades. The rifling inside the musket barrel ensured accuracy at much greater distances than was possible with old muskets. One thing did not change in this new weapon - the loading process, which did not improve significantly until the introduction of breech loaders and metallic, one-piece cartridges a few decades later.
To load both the old musket and the new rifle, soldiers had to bite the cartridge
open and pour the gunpowder
it contained into the rifle's muzzle, then stuff the cartridge case, which was typically paper coated with some kind of grease to make it waterproof, into the musket as wadding
, before loading it with a ball.
It was believed that the cartridges that were standard issue with this rifle were greased with lard
(pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow
(beef fat), regarded as sacred to Hindus. A Hindu who ate cows' flesh would lose caste
, with dreadful consequences both in the present life and the next. The sepoys' British officers dismissed these claims as rumours, and suggested that the sepoys make a batch of fresh cartridges, and grease these with beeswax or mutton fat. This reinforced the belief that the original issue cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow.
Another suggestion they put forward was to introduce a new drill, in which the cartridge was not bitten with the teeth but torn open with the hand. The sepoys rejected this, pointing out that they might very well forget and bite the cartridge, not surprising given the extensive drilling that allowed 19th century British troops to fire three to four rounds per minute. An integral part of the loading procedure involved biting off the bullet from the cartridge so that one hand could hold the musket steady whilst the other hand poured the charge of powder into the barrel. This meant that biting a musket cartridge was second nature to the Sepoys, some of whom had decades of service in the Company's army, and who had been doing Musket drill for every day of their service.
The Commander in Chief in India, General George Anson reacted to this crisis by saying, "I'll never give in to their beastly prejudices", and despite the pleas of his junior officers he did not compromise.
's rule would end after a hundred years. Their rule in India had begun with the Battle of Plassey
in 1757.
Before the rebellion, there were reports that "holy men" were mysteriously circulating chapati
s and lotus
flowers among the sepoys.Leader of the British Conservative Party
and future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli argued these objects were signs to rebel and evidence of a conspiracy, and the press echoed this belief. Along with the chapatis and flowers, the famous line "Sub lal hogea hai." (Everything has become red.) was said. These three were a symbol of the prophecy and a sign of the coming revolt.
There was also a rumour that the British were contaminating the sepoys flour with ground up pig and cow bones (despite the fact that it was produced by native contractors).
After the rebellion, there was rumour in Britain that Russia
was responsible.
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes.
The sepoy
Sepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
s, a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army
Bengal Army
The Bengal Army was the army of the Presidency of Bengal, one of the three Presidencies of British India, in South Asia. Although based in Bengal in eastern India, the presidency stretched across northern India and the Himalayas all the way to the North West Frontier Province...
, had their own list of grievances against the Company Raj, mainly caused by the ethnic gulf between the British officers and their Indian troops. The British had issued new gunpowder cartridges that were widely believed to be greased with cow or pig fat, which insulted both Hindus and Muslims. Other than Indian units of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's army, much of the resistance came from the old aristocracy, who were seeing their power steadily eroded under the British.
Frictions
Some Indians came to believe that the British intended to convert them either by force or by deception (for example by causing them to lose casteCaste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
) to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. The British religious fashion of the time was Evangelism
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....
, and many East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
officers took it upon themselves to try to convert their sepoys. This was strongly discouraged by the Company, which was aware of the potential for religion to become a flashpoint.
The Doctrine of Lapse
Doctrine of lapse
The Doctrine of Lapse was an annexation policy purportedly devised by Lord Dalhousie, who was the Governor General for the British in India between 1848 and 1856...
, part of the British policy of expansionism, was also greatly resented. If a feudal ruler did not leave a male heir through natural process, i.e. his own child, not an adopted one, the land became the property of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
. In eight years, Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor-General of India
Governor-General
A Governor-General, is a vice-regal person of a monarch in an independent realm or a major colonial circonscription. Depending on the political arrangement of the territory, a Governor General can be a governor of high rank, or a principal governor ranking above "ordinary" governors.- Current uses...
, annexed many kingdoms including Jhansi
Jhansi
Jhansi Hindi:झाँसी, , Marathi: झाशी, is a historical city of India. Jhansi is the administrative headquarters of Jhansi District and Jhansi Division. The original walled city grew up around its stone fort, which crowns a neighboring rock. This district is on the bank of river Betwa.The National...
, Awadh
Awadh
Awadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
or Oudh, Satara
Satara
Satara is a city located in the Satara District of Maharashtra state of India. The town is 2320 ft. above sea-level, near the confluence of the Krishna and its tributary river Venna. The city was the capital of the Maratha empire in the 17th century, hence one of the the historical cities of...
, Nagpur
Nagpur
Nāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...
and Sambalpur
Sambalpur
Sambalpur is a city in Sambalpur district in the Indian state of Orissa.It lies at a distance of 321 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar. In the year 1876, Sambalpur was established as a municipality. It is currently the headquarters and the largest city of Sambalpur district. It is also...
, adding up to a quarter of a million square miles (650,000 km²) of land to the Company's territory. Nobility, feudal landholders, and royal armies found themselves unemployed and humiliated. Even the jewels of the royal family of Nagpur
Nagpur
Nāgpur is a city and winter capital of the state of Maharashtra, the largest city in central India and third largest city in Maharashtra after Mumbai and Pune...
were publicly auctioned in Calcutta, a move that was seen as a sign of abject disrespect by the remnants of the Indian aristocracy. In addition the Bengal army of the East India Company drew many recruits from Awadh
Awadh
Awadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
; they could not remain unaffected by the discontent back home.
Indians were unhappy with the draconian rule of the British which had embarked on a project of rather rapid expansion and westernisation, that were imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. Changes introduced by the British, such as outlawing Sati
Sati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
(the ritual burning of widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
s) and child marriage, were accompanied with prohibitions on Indian religious customs, seen as steps towards a forced conversion to Christianity.
Historian William Dalrymple asserts that the rebels were motivated primarily by resistance against a move by the East India Company, which was perceived as an attempt to impose Christianity and Christian laws in India. For instance, when Mughal
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on 11 May 1857, he was told: "We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith." They later stood in Chandni Chowk
Chandni Chowk
Chandni Chowk , originally meaning moonlit square or market, is one of the oldest and busiest markets in Old Delhi, now in central north Delhi, India...
, the main square, and asked the people gathered there, "Brothers, are you with those of the faith?" Those British men and women who had previously converted to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
such as the defectors, Sergeant-Major Gordon, and Abdullah Beg, a former Company soldier, were spared. On the contrary, foreign Christians such as Revd Midgeley John Jennings, as well as Indian converts to Christianity such as one of Zafar's personal physicians, Dr. Chaman Lal, were killed outright.
Dalrymple further points out that as late as 6 September, when calling the inhabitants of Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
to rally against the upcoming British assault, Zafar issued a proclamation stating that this was a religious war being prosecuted on behalf of 'the faith', and that all Muslim and Hindu residents of the imperial city, or of the countryside were encouraged to stay true to their faith and creeds. As further evidence, he observes that the Urdu sources of the pre and post-rebellion periods usually refer to the British not as angrez (the English), goras (whites) or firangis (foreigners), but as kafir
Kafir
Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...
(infidels) and nasrani (Christians).
The justice system was considered inherently unfair to the Indians. In 1853, the British Prime Minister Lord Aberdeen
George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen
George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen KG, KT, FRS, PC , styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a Scottish politician, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852 until 1855.-Early life:Born in Edinburgh on 28 January 1784, he...
opened the Indian Civil Service to native Indians; however, this was viewed by some of educated India as an insufficient reform. The official Blue Books — entitled East India (Torture) 1855–1857 — that were laid before the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
during the sessions of 1856 and 1857 revealed that Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians. The Company also practised financial extortion through heavy taxation. Failure to pay these taxes almost invariably resulted in appropriation of property.
Some historians have suggested that the impact of these reforms has been greatly exaggerated, as the British did not have the resources to enforce them, meaning that away from Calcutta their effect was negligible.
This was not the view taken by the British themselves after 1857: instead they scaled down their programme of reform, increased the racial distance between Europeans and native Indians, and also sought to appease the gentry and princely families, especially Muslim, who had been major instigators of the 1857 revolt. After 1857, Zamindari (regional feudal officials) became more oppressive, the caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
system became more pronounced, and the communal divide between Hindus and Muslims became marked and visible, which some historians argue was due in great part to a British tactic of divide and rule
Divide and rule
In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy...
.
Another important reason for the rebellion was the attitude towards Bahadur Shah Zafar. Lord Dalhousie
James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie
James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
, the governor-general of India at the time, had insulted the Emperor by asking him and his successors to leave the Red Fort, the palace in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
. Later, Lord Canning, the next governor-general of India, announced in 1856 that Bahadur Shah's successors would not even be allowed to use the title of Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
. Such discourtesies were resented by many of the people and the Indian rulers.
Anger due to social reform by the British
Some Indians were unhappy with the rule of the British and perceived a project of westernisation to be taking place, that, however well-meaning they may have been, they believed were imposed without any regard for Indian tradition or culture. The outlawing of SatiSati (practice)
For other uses, see Sati .Satī was a religious funeral practice among some Indian communities in which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force and coercion would have immolated herself on her husband’s funeral pyre...
(self-immolation by widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
s) and child marriage, which to some appeared to be a precursor to an imposition of Christianity, has also been put forward as a reason for the revolt.
Economics
The British East India CompanyBritish East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
was a massive export company that was the force behind much of the colonization of India. The power of the Company took nearly 150 years to build. As early as 1693, the annual expenditure in political "gifts" to men in power reached nearly 90,000 pounds. In bribing the Government, the Company was allowed to operate in overseas markets despite the fact that the cheap imports of South Asian silk, cotton, and other products hurt domestic business. By 1767, the Company was forced into an agreement to pay 400,000 pounds into the National Exchequer
Exchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
annually.
By 1848, however, the Company's financial difficulties had reached a point where expanding revenue required expanding British territories in South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
massively. The Company began to set aside adoption rights of native princes and began the process of annexation of more than a dozen independent Raja
Raja
Raja is an Indian term for a monarch, or princely ruler of the Kshatriya varna...
s between 1848 and 1854. In an article published in The New York Daily Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
on July 28, 1857, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
notes that "... in 1854 the Raj of Berar
Berar Province
Berar Province, known also as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, was a province of British India. The province, formerly ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, was administered by the British after 1853, although the Nizam retained formal sovereignty over the province...
, which comprise 80000 square miles (207,199 km²) of land, a population from four to five million, and enormous treasures, was forcibly seized".
By 1857, the last vestiges of independent Indian states had disappeared and the Company exported untold quantities of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
, jewels, silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, and a host of other precious materials back to England every year. This extraordinary quantity of wealth, much of it collected as 'taxes', was absolutely critical in expanding public and private infrastructure in Britain and in financing British expansionism elsewhere in Asia and Africa. In no uncertain terms, this very wealth funded, in large part, the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
.
The land was reorganised under the comparatively harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes. In certain areas farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute
Jute
Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which has been classified in the family Tiliaceae, or more recently in Malvaceae....
, coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
and tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
. This resulted in hardship to the farmers and increases in food prices.
Local industry, specifically the famous weavers of Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and elsewhere, also suffered under British rule. Import tariffs were kept low, according to traditional British free-market sentiments, and thus the Indian market was flooded with cheap clothing from Britain. Master weavers had their fingers cut off to prevent them from weaving. Ancient India's Contribution to World Culture > Production Technology and Mechanical Engineering Indigenous industry simply could not compete, and where once India had produced much of England's luxury cloth, the country was now reduced to growing cotton which was shipped to Britain to be manufactured into clothing, which was subsequently shipped back to India to be purchased by Indians.
The Indians felt that the British were levying very heavy taxation on the locals. This included an increase in the taxation on land.
This seems to have been the most important reason, keeping in view the speed at which the conflagration spread to the villages where farmers rushed to get back their unfairly grabbed title deeds.
An article by Dr. Hardiman.
Sepoys
In order to consolidate and control British territory, the East India Company maintained a well-established army of 257,000 SepoySepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
s (native Indian soldiers, called Sowar
Sowar
Sowar , meaning 'The one who rides' in Persian, was originally a rank during the Mughal period. Later during the British Raj it was the name in Anglo-Indian usage for a horse-soldier belonging to the cavalry troops of the native armies of British India and the feudal states...
s in cavalry units), commanded by British officers. The presidencies of Bombay, Madras and Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
maintained their own army each with its own commander-in-chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
. Together, they fielded more troops than the official army of the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
.
During the late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the armies of the East India Company, in particular those of the Bengal Presidency, were victorious and indomitable - the term "high noon of the sepoy army" has been used by a military historian. The British had an unbroken series of victories in India, against the Marathas, Mysore, north Indian states, and the Gurkhas, later against the Sikhs, and abroad in Egypt, China, Burma and elsewhere. The British had perfected a military organisation where fealty of the sepoys to the Company was considered the height of "izzat" or honour, where the British officers replaced the village headman in battalions and units peopled by soldiers closely related or belonging to the same caste, community or hamlet and became benevolent figures of authority to the sepoys.
Unlike the Bombay
Bombay Presidency
The Bombay Presidency was a province of British India. It was established in the 17th century as a trading post for the English East India Company, but later grew to encompass much of western and central India, as well as parts of post-partition Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula.At its greatest...
and Madras
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
Armies, which were far more diverse, the Bengal Army
Bengal Army
The Bengal Army was the army of the Presidency of Bengal, one of the three Presidencies of British India, in South Asia. Although based in Bengal in eastern India, the presidency stretched across northern India and the Himalayas all the way to the North West Frontier Province...
recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Bhumihar Brahmin
Bhumihar
Bhumihar or Babhan or Bhuin-har is a Brahmin Hindu community mainly found in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh.- Varna status :...
s and Rajput
Rajput
A Rajput is a member of one of the patrilineal clans of western, central, northern India and in some parts of Pakistan. Rajputs are descendants of one of the major ruling warrior classes in the Indian subcontinent, particularly North India...
s of the Ganges Valley. Though paid marginally less than the Bombay and Madras Presidency troops, there was implicit trust between the soldiery and the establishment - the soldiers felt needed and that the company would care for their welfare. The soldiers performed splendidly on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honour
Battle honour
A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags , uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible....
s in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule.
There was a feeling of invincibility, especially amongst the Indian population and the sepoys, about the iqbal or continued good fortune of the East India Company. During the mid-eighteenth century, events disturbed these beliefs of the soldiery, all of which contributed to the escalation of events in 1857. The belief of invinciblilty of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War
First Anglo-Afghan War
The First Anglo-Afghan War was fought between British India and Afghanistan from 1839 to 1842. It was one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Central Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia, and also marked one of the worst...
where poor political judgement and inept British leadership led to the massacre
Massacre of Elphinstone's Army
The Massacre of Elphinstone's Army was the destruction by Afghan forces, led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, of a combined British and Indian force of the British East India Company, led by Major General William Elphinstone, in January 1842....
of Elphinstone's army while retreating from Kabul. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British, like everyone else, were not invincible.
Caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army were not merely tolerated but encouraged in the early years of the Company's Rule. Partly owing to this, Bengal Sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the British soldiers. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. If the caste of high caste sepoys caste was considered to be "polluted", they would have to expend considerable sums of money on ritual purification before being accepted back into society.
There were many indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company in the form of mutinies by company troops. As early as 1806, concerns that the sepoys' caste may be polluted had led to the Vellore Mutiny
Vellore Mutiny
The Vellore Mutiny on 10 July 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion of 1857 by half a century...
, which was brutally suppressed. In 1824, there was another mutiny by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots. Eleven of the sepoys were executed and hundreds more sentenced to hard labour. In 1851-2 sepoys who were required to serve in the Second Anglo-Burmese War
Second Anglo-Burmese War
The Second Anglo-Burmese War was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese and the British Empire during the 19th century, with the outcome of the gradual extinction of Burmese sovereignty and independence....
also refused to move, but were merely sent to serve elsewhere.
The pay of the sepoy was relatively low and after Awadh
Awadh
Awadh , also known in various British historical texts as Oudh or Oude derived from Ayodhya, is a region in the centre of the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh...
and the Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay (batta or bhatta) for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions". Since the batta made the difference between service being munificient or harsh, troops repeatedly opposed inconsiderate unilateral changes in pay and batta ordered by the Military Audit department. In the past, the refusal to proceed on service until pay issues were resolved was considered a legitimate form of displaying grievance by Indian troops serving with Indian rulers and as such was considered a legitimate tactic by the sepoys also, being repeated every time such issues arose. The British considered such refusal at times as treachery of the highest order and crushed these refusals brutally, at other times the Company directly or indirectly conceded the legitimacy of the sepoy's demands, as when troops of the Bengal and Madras armies refused to serve in Sindh without batta after its conquest.
The varying stances of the British government, the reduction of allowances and harsh punishments contributed to a feeling of the troops that the Company no longer cared for them. Certain actions of the government, such as increased recruitment of Sikhs and Gurkhas, peoples considered by the Bengal sepoys to be inferior in caste to them, increased the distrust of the sepoys who thought that this was a sign of their services not being needed any more. The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal sepoy battalion of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the sepoys as a breach of faith by the Company.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, British officers were intimately involved with the troops, speaking indian languages fluently, partcipating in the culture of the times even to the extent of having native spouses. Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. Sympathetic rulers, such as Lord William Bentick were replaced by arrogant aristocrats such as Lord Dalhousie who despised the troops and the populace. As time passed, the powers of the commanding officers reduced and the government became more unfeeling or distant from the concerns of the sepoys.
Finally, officers of an evangelical persuasion in the Company's Army (such as Herbert Edwardes and Colonel S.G. Wheler of the 34th Bengal Infantry) had taken to preaching to their Sepoys in the hope of converting them to Christianity. The controversy over the new Enfield Rifle, in the eyes of many Sepoys, added substance to the alarming rumours circulating about their imminent forced conversion to Christianity.
In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. All the cavalry units and 45 of the infantry units rebelled at some point; and all but 5 of the infantry units which did not rebel (or were disarmed before they could do so) had to be disbanded. Once the first rebellions took place, it was clear to most British commanders that the grievances which led to them were felt throughout the Bengal army and no Indian unit could wholly be trusted, although many officers continued to vouch for their men's loyalty, even in the face of captured correspondence indicating their intention to rebel. Whether a unit mutinied or not mainly depended on opportunity.
The Bengal Army also administered, sometimes loosely, 29 regiments of irregular horse and 42 of irregular infantry. Some of these units belonged to states allied to the British or recently absorbed into British-administered territory, and of these, two large contingents from the states of Awadh and Gwalior readily joined the growing rebellion. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assam
Assam
Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...
ese or Pakhtuns to maintain order locally. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force
Punjab Irregular Force
The Punjab Irregular Force was created in 1851, to protect the NW frontier of British India. It was termed "Irregular" because it was outside the control of the Regular British armies of the 3 Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay or Madras, but was under the control of the British chief magistrate of...
) actively participated on the British side.
The Bengal Army also contained three "European" regiments of infantry, and many artillery units manned by white personnel. Due to the need for technical specialists, the artillery units generally had a higher proportion of British personnel. Although the armies of many Rajas or states which rebelled contained large numbers of guns, the British superiority in artillery was to be decisive in a number of engagements.
There were also a number of units from the British Army (referred to in India as "Queen's troops") stationed in India, but in 1857 several of these had been withdrawn to take part in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
or the Anglo-Persian War
Anglo-Persian War
The Anglo-Persian War lasted between November 1, 1856 and April 4, 1857, and was fought between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Persia . In the war, the British opposed an attempt by Persia to reacquire the city of Herat...
of 1856. The moment at which the sepoys' grievances led them openly to defy British authority also happened to be the most favourable opportunity to do so.
The Enfield Rifle
The rebellion was, literally, started over a gun. Sepoys throughout India were issued with a new rifle, the Pattern 1853 EnfieldPattern 1853 Enfield
The Enfield Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifle-musket, used by the British Empire from 1853 to 1867, after which many Enfield 1853 Rifle-Muskets were converted to the cartridge-loaded Snider-Enfield rifle.-History &...
rifled
Rifling
Rifling is the process of making helical grooves in the barrel of a gun or firearm, which imparts a spin to a projectile around its long axis...
musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
- a more powerful and accurate weapon than the old smoothbore
Smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...
Brown Bess
Brown Bess
Brown Bess is a nickname of uncertain origin for the British Army's Land Pattern Musket and its derivatives. This musket was used in the era of the expansion of the British Empire and acquired symbolic importance at least as significant as its physical importance. It was in use for over a hundred...
they had been using for the previous decades. The rifling inside the musket barrel ensured accuracy at much greater distances than was possible with old muskets. One thing did not change in this new weapon - the loading process, which did not improve significantly until the introduction of breech loaders and metallic, one-piece cartridges a few decades later.
To load both the old musket and the new rifle, soldiers had to bite the cartridge
Bite the cartridge
Refusing to "bite the cartridge" was a turn of phrase used by the British in India of Native Indian soldiers who had mutinied in 1857.It derives from the act of biting open a paper cartridge containing gunpowder in order to load contemporary rifles....
open and pour the gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
it contained into the rifle's muzzle, then stuff the cartridge case, which was typically paper coated with some kind of grease to make it waterproof, into the musket as wadding
Wadding
Wadding is a disc of material used in guns to seal gas behind a projectile or to separate powder from shot.Wadding can be crucial to a gun's efficiency, since any gas that leaks past a projectile as it is being fired is wasted. A harder or more carefully designed item which serves this purpose is...
, before loading it with a ball.
It was believed that the cartridges that were standard issue with this rifle were greased with lard
Lard
Lard is pig fat in both its rendered and unrendered forms. Lard was commonly used in many cuisines as a cooking fat or shortening, or as a spread similar to butter. Its use in contemporary cuisine has diminished because of health concerns posed by its saturated-fat content and its often negative...
(pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow
Tallow
Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation.In industry,...
(beef fat), regarded as sacred to Hindus. A Hindu who ate cows' flesh would lose caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
, with dreadful consequences both in the present life and the next. The sepoys' British officers dismissed these claims as rumours, and suggested that the sepoys make a batch of fresh cartridges, and grease these with beeswax or mutton fat. This reinforced the belief that the original issue cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow.
Another suggestion they put forward was to introduce a new drill, in which the cartridge was not bitten with the teeth but torn open with the hand. The sepoys rejected this, pointing out that they might very well forget and bite the cartridge, not surprising given the extensive drilling that allowed 19th century British troops to fire three to four rounds per minute. An integral part of the loading procedure involved biting off the bullet from the cartridge so that one hand could hold the musket steady whilst the other hand poured the charge of powder into the barrel. This meant that biting a musket cartridge was second nature to the Sepoys, some of whom had decades of service in the Company's army, and who had been doing Musket drill for every day of their service.
The Commander in Chief in India, General George Anson reacted to this crisis by saying, "I'll never give in to their beastly prejudices", and despite the pleas of his junior officers he did not compromise.
Prophecies, omens, signs and rumours
There was rumour about an old prophecy that the CompanyBritish East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
's rule would end after a hundred years. Their rule in India had begun with the Battle of Plassey
Battle of Plassey
The Battle of Plassey , 23 June 1757, was a decisive British East India Company victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, establishing Company rule in South Asia which expanded over much of the Indies for the next hundred years...
in 1757.
Before the rebellion, there were reports that "holy men" were mysteriously circulating chapati
Chapati
Chapati or Chapatti or Chapathi is an unleavened flatbread from the Indian subcontinent. Versions of it are found in Turkmenistan and in East African countries Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania...
s and lotus
Nelumbo nucifera
Nelumbo nucifera, known by a number of names including Indian Lotus, Sacred Lotus, Bean of India, or simply Lotus, is a plant in the monogeneric family Nelumbonaceae...
flowers among the sepoys.Leader of the British Conservative Party
Leaders of the Conservative Party
The Leader of the Conservative Party is the most senior politician within the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. The post is currently held by David Cameron, who s eeded Michael Howard in 2005, and who since 2010 is also the serving Prime Minister....
and future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli argued these objects were signs to rebel and evidence of a conspiracy, and the press echoed this belief. Along with the chapatis and flowers, the famous line "Sub lal hogea hai." (Everything has become red.) was said. These three were a symbol of the prophecy and a sign of the coming revolt.
There was also a rumour that the British were contaminating the sepoys flour with ground up pig and cow bones (despite the fact that it was produced by native contractors).
After the rebellion, there was rumour in Britain that Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
was responsible.