Indian Rebellion of 1857
Indian Rebellion of 1857 | |||||||||
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A 1912 map of Northern India, showing the centres of the rebellion. | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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The Earl Canning
Dhir Shamsher Rana[1] Randhir Singh Sir Yusef Ali Khan | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
6,000 British killed, including civilians[a][2] Based on a rough comparison of the sketchy pre-1857 regional demographic data and the first1871 Census of India, probably 800,000 Indians were killed, and very likely more, both in the rebellion and in the famines and epidemics of disease that were caused as a result in its immediate aftermath.[2] |
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown.[4][5] The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi. It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India,[b][6][c][7] though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east.[d][8] The rebellion posed a military threat to British power in that region,[e][9] and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858.[10] On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859.
The name of the revolt is contested, and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, and the First War of Independence.[f][11]
The Indian rebellion was fed by resentments born of diverse perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh land taxes, summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes,[12][13] and scepticism about the improvements brought about by British rule.[g][14] Many Indians rose against the British; however, many also fought for the British, and the majority remained seemingly compliant to British rule.[h][14] Violence, which sometimes betrayed exceptional cruelty, was inflicted on both sides, on British officers, and civilians, including women and children, by the rebels, and on the rebels, and their supporters, including sometimes entire villages, by British reprisals; the cities of Delhi and Lucknow were laid waste in the fighting and the British retaliation.[i][14]
After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels quickly reached Delhi, whose 81-year-old
In some regions, most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British oppression.[16] However, the rebel leaders proclaimed no articles of faith that presaged a new political system.[l][17] Even so, the rebellion proved to be an important watershed in Indian and British Empire history.[m][11][18] It led to the dissolution of the East India Company, and forced the British to reorganize the army, the financial system, and the administration in India, through passage of the Government of India Act 1858.[19] India was thereafter administered directly by the British government in the new British Raj.[15] On 1 November 1858, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation to Indians, which while lacking the authority of a constitutional provision,[n][20] promised rights similar to those of other British subjects.[o][p][21] In the following decades, when admission to these rights was not always forthcoming, Indians were to pointedly refer to the Queen's proclamation in growing avowals of a new nationalism.[q][r][23]
East India Company's expansion in India
Although the
In 1806, the
After the turn of the 19th century, Governor-General
Causes of the rebellion
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred as the result of an accumulation of factors over time, rather than any single event.
The sepoys were Indian soldiers who were recruited into the company's army. Just before the rebellion, there were over 300,000 sepoys in the army, compared to about 50,000 British. The East India Company's forces were divided into three presidency armies: Bombay, Madras, and Bengal. The Bengal Army recruited higher castes, such as Brahmins, Rajputs and Bhumihar, mostly from the Awadh and Bihar regions, and even restricted the enlistment of lower castes in 1855.[29] In contrast, the Madras Army and Bombay Army were "more localized, caste-neutral armies" that "did not prefer high-caste men".[30] The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for initial mutinies that led to the rebellion.
In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed Fort William's first Governor-General, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the company's army. Since the sepoys from Bengal – many of whom had fought against the Company in the Battles of Plassey and Buxar – were now suspect in British eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the high-caste rural Rajputs and Bhumihar of Awadh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years. However, in order to forestall any social friction, the company also took action to adapt its military practices to the requirements of their religious rituals. Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not required of them, and the army soon came officially to recognise Hindu festivals. "This encouragement of high caste ritual status, however, left the government vulnerable to protest, even mutiny, whenever the sepoys detected infringement of their prerogatives."[31] Stokes argues that "The British scrupulously avoided interference with the social structure of the village community which remained largely intact."[32]
After the annexation of Oudh (Awadh) by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry, in the Oudh courts, and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might bring about.[33] Other historians have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers, interpreting the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were convinced that the company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity.[34] Although earlier in the 1830s, evangelicals such as William Carey and William Wilberforce had successfully clamoured for the passage of social reform, such as the abolition of sati and allowing the remarriage of Hindu widows, there is little evidence that the sepoys' allegiance was affected by this.[33]
However, changes in the terms of their professional service may have created resentment. As the extent of the East India Company's jurisdiction expanded with victories in wars or annexation, the soldiers were now expected not only to serve in less familiar regions, such as in
A major cause of resentment that arose ten months prior to the outbreak of the rebellion was the General Service Enlistment Act of 25 July 1856. As noted above, men of the Bengal Army had been exempted from overseas service. Specifically, they were enlisted only for service in territories to which they could march. Governor-General Lord Dalhousie saw this as an anomaly, since all sepoys of the Madras and Bombay Armies and the six "General Service" battalions of the Bengal Army had accepted an obligation to serve overseas if required. As a result, the burden of providing contingents for active service in Burma, readily accessible only by sea, and China had fallen disproportionately on the two smaller Presidency Armies. As signed into effect by Lord Canning, Dalhousie's successor as Governor-General, the act required only new recruits to the Bengal Army to accept a commitment for general service. However, serving high-caste sepoys were fearful that it would be eventually extended to them, as well as preventing sons following fathers into an army with a strong tradition of family service.[36]: 261
There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority. This, as well as the increasing number of British officers in the battalions,
The Enfield rifle
The final spark was provided by the ammunition for the new Enfield Pattern 1853 rifled musket.[39] These rifles, which fired Minié balls, had a tighter fit than the earlier muskets, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.[40] The grease used on these cartridges was rumoured to include tallow derived from beef, which would be offensive to Hindus,[41] and lard derived from pork, which would be offensive to Muslims. At least one Company official pointed out the difficulties this might cause:
unless it be proven that the grease employed in these cartridges is not of a nature to offend or interfere with the prejudices of religion, it will be expedient not to issue them for test to Native corps.[42]
However, in August 1856, greased cartridge production was initiated at
Company officers became aware of the rumours through reports of an altercation between a high-caste sepoy and a low-caste labourer at Dum Dum.[44] The labourer had taunted the sepoy that by biting the cartridge, he had himself lost caste, although at this time such cartridges had been issued only at Meerut and not at Dum Dum.[45] There had been rumours that the British sought to destroy the religions of the Indian people, and forcing the native soldiers to break their sacred code would have certainly added to this rumour, as it apparently did. The company was quick to reverse the effects of this policy in hopes that the unrest would be quelled.[46][47]
On 27 January, Colonel Richard Birch, the Military Secretary, ordered that all cartridges issued from depots were to be free from grease, and that sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever mixture "they may prefer".[48] A modification was also made to the drill for loading so that the cartridge was torn with the hands and not bitten. This, however, merely caused many sepoys to be convinced that the rumours were true and that their fears were justified. Additional rumours started that the paper in the new cartridges, which was glazed and stiffer than the previously used paper, was impregnated with grease.[49] In February, a court of inquiry was held at Barrackpore to get to the bottom of these rumours. Native soldiers called as witnesses complained of the paper "being stiff and like cloth in the mode of tearing", said that when the paper was burned it smelled of grease, and announced that the suspicion that the paper itself contained grease could not be removed from their minds.[50]
Civilian disquiet
Civilian rebellion was more multifarious. The rebels consisted of three groups: the feudal nobility, rural landlords called
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Charles Canning, the Governor-General of India during the rebellion.
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Doctrine of Lapse.
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Doctrine of Lapse.
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Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor, crowned Emperor of India, by the Indian troops, he was deposed by the British, and died in exile in Burma
"
The justice system was considered to be inherently unfair to the Indians. The official Blue Books, East India (Torture) 1855–1857, laid before the
The economic policies of the East India Company were also resented by many Indians.[63]
The Bengal Army
Each of the three "Presidencies" into which the East India Company divided India for administrative purposes maintained their own armies. Of these, the Army of the Bengal Presidency was the largest. Unlike the other two, it recruited heavily from among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims. The Muslims formed a larger percentage of the 18 irregular cavalry units
The sepoys also gradually became dissatisfied with various other aspects of army life. Their pay was relatively low and after
Onset of the rebellion
Several months of increasing tensions coupled with various incidents preceded the actual rebellion. On 26 February 1857 the 19th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment became concerned that new cartridges they had been issued were wrapped in paper greased with cow and pig fat, which had to be opened by mouth thus affecting their religious sensibilities. Their Colonel confronted them supported by artillery and cavalry on the parade ground, but after some negotiation withdrew the artillery, and cancelled the next morning's parade.[68]
Mangal Pandey
On 29 March 1857 at the
General
After failing to incite his comrades into an open and active rebellion, Mangal Pandey tried to take his own life, by placing his musket to his chest and pulling the trigger with his toe. He managed only to wound himself. He was court-martialled on 6 April and hanged two days later.
The Jemadar Ishwari Prasad was sentenced to death and hanged on 21 April. The regiment was disbanded and stripped of its uniforms because it was felt that it harboured ill-feelings towards its superiors, particularly after this incident. Shaikh Paltu was promoted to the rank of havildar in the Bengal Army but was murdered shortly before the 34th BNI dispersed.[72]
Sepoys in other regiments thought these punishments were harsh. The demonstration of disgrace during the formal disbanding helped foment the rebellion in view of some historians. Disgruntled ex-sepoys returned home to Awadh with a desire for revenge.
Unrest during April 1857
During April, there was unrest and fires at
Although there was no open revolt at Ambala, there was widespread arson during late April. Barrack buildings (especially those belonging to soldiers who had used the Enfield cartridges) and British officers' bungalows were set on fire.[73]
Meerut
At Meerut, a large military cantonment, 2,357 Indian sepoys and 2,038 British soldiers were stationed along with 12 British-manned guns. The station held one of the largest concentrations of British troops in India and this was later to be cited as evidence that the original rising was a spontaneous outbreak rather than a pre-planned plot.[36]: 278
Although the state of unrest within the Bengal Army was well known, on 24 April Lieutenant Colonel George Carmichael-Smyth, the unsympathetic commanding officer of the
The next day was Sunday. Some Indian soldiers warned off-duty junior British officers that plans were afoot to release the imprisoned soldiers by force, but the senior officers to whom this was reported took no action. There was also unrest in the city of Meerut itself, with angry protests in the bazaar and some buildings being set on fire. In the evening, most British officers were preparing to attend church, while many of the British soldiers were off duty and had gone into canteens or into the bazaar in Meerut. The Indian troops, led by the 3rd Cavalry, broke into revolt. British junior officers who attempted to quell the first outbreaks were killed by the rebels. British officers' and civilians' quarters were attacked, and four civilian men, eight women and eight children were killed. Crowds in the bazaar attacked off-duty soldiers there. About 50 Indian civilians, some of them officers' servants who tried to defend or conceal their employers, were killed by the sepoys.
Some sepoys (especially from the 11th Bengal Native Infantry) escorted trusted British officers and women and children to safety before joining the revolt.[77] Some officers and their families escaped to Rampur, where they found refuge with the Nawab.
The British historian Philip Mason notes that it was inevitable that most of the sepoys and sowars from Meerut should have made for Delhi on the night of 10 May. It was a strong walled city located only forty miles away, it was the ancient capital and present seat of the nominal Mughal Emperor and finally there were no British troops in garrison there in contrast to Meerut.[36]: 278 No effort was made to pursue them.
Delhi
Early on 11 May, the first parties of the 3rd Cavalry reached Delhi. From beneath the windows of the King's apartments in the palace, they called on
There were three battalion-sized regiments of Bengal Native Infantry stationed in or near the city. Some detachments quickly joined the rebellion, while others held back but also refused to obey orders to take action against the rebels. In the afternoon, a violent explosion in the city was heard for several miles. Fearing that the arsenal, which contained large stocks of arms and ammunition, would fall intact into rebel hands, the nine British Ordnance officers there had opened fire on the sepoys, including the men of their own guard. When resistance appeared hopeless, they blew up the arsenal. Six of the nine officers survived, but the blast killed many in the streets and nearby houses and other buildings.[79] The news of these events finally tipped the sepoys stationed around Delhi into open rebellion. The sepoys were later able to salvage at least some arms from the arsenal, and a magazine two miles (3 km) outside Delhi, containing up to 3,000 barrels of gunpowder, was captured without resistance.
Many fugitive British officers and civilians had congregated at the Flagstaff Tower on the ridge north of Delhi, where telegraph operators were sending news of the events to other British stations. When it became clear that the help expected from Meerut was not coming, they made their way in carriages to Karnal. Those who became separated from the main body or who could not reach the Flagstaff Tower also set out for Karnal on foot. Some were helped by villagers on the way; others were killed.
The next day, Bahadur Shah held his first formal court for many years. It was attended by many excited sepoys. The King was alarmed by the turn events had taken, but eventually accepted the sepoys' allegiance and agreed to give his countenance to the rebellion. On 16 May, up to 50 British who had been held prisoner in the palace or had been discovered hiding in the city were killed by some of the King's servants under a
Supporters and opposition
The news of the events at Meerut and Delhi spread rapidly, provoking uprisings among sepoys and disturbances in many districts. In many cases, it was the behaviour of British military and civilian authorities themselves which precipitated disorder. Learning of the fall of Delhi, many Company administrators hastened to remove themselves, their families and servants to places of safety. At Agra, 160 miles (260 km) from Delhi, no fewer than 6,000 assorted non-combatants converged on the Fort.[82]
The military authorities also reacted in disjointed manner. Some officers trusted their sepoys, but others tried to disarm them to forestall potential uprisings. At
In 1857, the Bengal Army had 86,000 men, of which 12,000 were British, 16,000 Sikh and 1,500 Gurkha. There were 311,000 native soldiers in India altogether, 40,160 British soldiers (including units of the British Army) and 5,362 officers.[84] Fifty-four of the Bengal Army's 74 regular Native Infantry Regiments mutinied, but some were immediately destroyed or broke up, with their sepoys drifting away to their homes. A number of the remaining 20 regiments were disarmed or disbanded to prevent or forestall mutiny. Only twelve of the original Bengal Native Infantry regiments survived to pass into the new Indian Army.[85] All ten of the Bengal Light Cavalry regiments mutinied.
The Bengal Army also contained 29 irregular cavalry and 42 irregular infantry regiments. Of these, a substantial contingent from the recently annexed state of Awadh mutinied en masse. Another large contingent from
On 1 April 1858, the number of Indian soldiers in the Bengal army loyal to the company was 80,053.[88][89] However large numbers were hastily raised in the Punjab and North-West Frontier after the outbreak of the Rebellion.
The Bombay army had three mutinies in its 29 regiments, whilst the Madras army had none at all, although elements of one of its 52 regiments refused to volunteer for service in Bengal.
Although most of the mutinous sepoys in Delhi were Hindus, a significant proportion of the insurgents were Muslims. The proportion of
The
The varied groups in the support and opposing of the uprising is seen as a major cause of its failure.
The revolt
Initial stages
Initially, the Indian rebels were able to push back Company forces, and captured several important towns in Haryana, Bihar, the Central Provinces and the United Provinces. When British troops were reinforced and began to counterattack, the mutineers were especially handicapped by their lack of centralized command and control. Although the rebels produced some natural leaders such as Bakht Khan, whom the Emperor later nominated as commander-in-chief after his son Mirza Mughal proved ineffectual, for the most part they were forced to look for leadership to rajahs and princes. Some of these were to prove dedicated leaders, but others were self-interested or inept.
In the countryside around Meerut, a general
Mufti Nizamuddin, a renowned scholar of Lahore, issued a Fatwa against the British forces and called upon the local population to support the forces of Rao Tula Ram. Casualties were high at the subsequent engagement at Narnaul (Nasibpur). After the defeat of Rao Tula Ram on 16 November 1857, Mufti Nizamuddin was arrested, and his brother Mufti Yaqinuddin and brother-in-law Abdur Rahman (alias Nabi Baksh) were arrested in Tijara. They were taken to Delhi and hanged.[104]
Siege of Delhi
The British were slow to strike back at first. It took time for troops stationed in Britain to make their way to India by sea, although some regiments moved overland through Persia from the Crimean War, and some regiments already en route for China were diverted to India.
It took time to organise the British troops already in India into field forces, but eventually two columns left Meerut and Simla. They proceeded slowly towards Delhi and fought, killed, and hanged numerous Indians along the way. Two months after the first outbreak of rebellion at Meerut, the two forces met near Karnal. The combined force, including two Gurkha units serving in the Bengal Army under contract from the Kingdom of Nepal, fought the rebels' main army at Badli-ke-Serai and drove them back to Delhi.
The company's army established a base on the Delhi ridge to the north of the city and the
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The Jantar Mantar observatory in Delhi in 1858, damaged in the fighting
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Mortar damage toKashmiri Gate, Delhi, 1858
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Hindu Rao's house in Delhi, now a hospital, was extensively damaged in the fighting.
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The Bank of Delhi was attacked by mortar and gunfire.
An eagerly awaited heavy siege train joined the besieging force, and from 7 September, the siege guns battered breaches in the walls and silenced the rebels' artillery.
The troops of the besieging force proceeded to loot and pillage the city. A large number of citizens were killed in retaliation for the British and Indian civilians that had been slaughtered by the rebels. During the street fighting, artillery was set up in the city's main mosque. Neighbourhoods within range were bombarded; the homes of the Muslim nobility that housed innumerable cultural, artistic, literary and monetary riches were destroyed.
The British soon arrested Bahadur Shah Zafar, and the next day the British agent
Cawnpore (Kanpur)
In June, sepoys under General
The besieged endured three weeks of the
During his trial, Tatya Tope denied the existence of any such plan and described the incident in the following terms: the British had already boarded the boats and Tatya Tope raised his right hand to signal their departure. That very moment someone from the crowd blew a loud bugle, which created disorder and in the ongoing bewilderment, the boatmen jumped off the boats. The rebels started shooting indiscriminately. Nana Sahib, who was staying in Savada Kothi (Bungalow) nearby, was informed about what was happening and immediately came to stop it.[114] Some British histories allow that it might well have been the result of accident or error; someone accidentally or maliciously fired a shot, the panic-stricken British opened fire, and it became impossible to stop the massacre.[83]: 56
The surviving women and children were taken to Nana Sahib and then confined first to the Savada Kothi and then to the home of the local magistrate's clerk (the Bibighar)[115] where they were joined by refugees from Fatehgarh. Overall, five men and 206 women and children were confined in the Bibigarh for about two weeks. In one week 25 were brought out, dead from dysentery and cholera.[111] Meanwhile, a Company relief force that had advanced from Allahabad defeated the Indians and by 15 July it was clear that Nana Sahib would not be able to hold Cawnpore and a decision was made by Nana Sahib and other leading rebels that the hostages must be killed. After the sepoys refused to carry out this order, two Muslim butchers, two Hindu peasants and one of Nana's bodyguards went into the Bibigarh. Armed with knives and hatchets, they murdered the women and children.[116] After the massacre, the walls were covered in bloody handprints, and the floor littered with parts of human limbs.[117] The dead and the dying were thrown down a nearby well. When the 50-foot (15 m) deep well was filled with remains to within 6 feet (1.8 m) of the top,[118] the remainder were thrown into the Ganges.[119]
Historians have given many reasons for this act of cruelty. With Company forces approaching Cawnpore, some believed that they would not advance if there were no hostages to save. Or perhaps it was to ensure that no information was leaked after the fall of Cawnpore. Other historians have suggested that the killings were an attempt to undermine Nana Sahib's relationship with the British.[116] Perhaps it was due to fear, the fear of being recognised by some of the prisoners for having taken part in the earlier firings.[113]
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Photograph entitled, "The Hospital in General Wheeler's entrenchment, Cawnpore". (1858) The hospital was the site of the first major loss of British lives in Cawnpore
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1858 picture of Sati Chaura Ghat on the banks of the Ganges River, where on 27 June 1857 many British men lost their lives and the surviving women and children were taken prisoner by the rebels.
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Bibigarh house where British women and children were killed and the well where their bodies were found, 1858.
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The Bibighar Well site where a memorial had been built. Samuel Bourne, 1860.
The killing of the women and children hardened British attitudes against the sepoys. The British public was aghast, and the anti-Imperial and pro-Indian proponents lost all of their support. Cawnpore became a war cry for the British and their allies for the rest of the conflict. Nana Sahib disappeared near the end of the rebellion, and it is not known what happened to him.
Other British accounts
Neill was killed in action at Lucknow on 26 September and was never called to account for his punitive measures, though contemporary British sources lionised him and his "gallant blue caps".[s] When the British retook Cawnpore, the soldiers took their sepoy prisoners to the Bibighar and forced them to lick the bloodstains from the walls and floor.[123] They then hanged or "blew from the cannon", the traditional Mughal punishment for mutiny, the majority of the sepoy prisoners. Although some claimed the sepoys took no actual part in the killings themselves, they did not act to stop it and this was acknowledged by Captain Thompson after the British departed Cawnpore for a second time.
Lucknow
Very soon after the events at
On 25 September, a relief column under the command of
In March 1858, Campbell once again advanced on Lucknow with a large army, meeting up with the force at Alambagh, this time seeking to suppress the rebellion in Awadh. He was aided by a large
Jhansi
By the end of June 1857, the company had lost control of much of Bundelkhand and eastern Rajasthan. The Bengal Army units in the area, having rebelled, marched to take part in the battles for Delhi and Cawnpore. The many princely states that made up this area began warring amongst themselves. In September and October 1857, the Rani led the successful defence of Jhansi against the invading armies of the neighbouring rajas of Datia and Orchha.
On 3 February, Sir Hugh Rose broke the 3-month siege of Saugor. Thousands of local villagers welcomed him as a liberator, freeing them from rebel occupation.[126]
In March 1858, the Central India Field Force, led by Sir Hugh Rose, advanced on and laid siege to Jhansi. The Company forces captured the city, but the Rani fled in disguise.
After being driven from Jhansi and
Indore
Colonel Henry Marion Durand, the then-Company resident at Indore, had brushed away any possibility of uprising in Indore.[128] However, on 1 July, sepoys in Holkar's army revolted and opened fire on the cavalry pickets of the Bhopal Contingent (a locally raised force with British officers). When Colonel Travers rode forward to charge, the Bhopal Cavalry refused to follow. The Bhopal Infantry also refused orders and instead levelled their guns at British sergeants and officers. Since all possibility of mounting an effective deterrent was lost, Durand decided to gather up all the British residents and escape, although 39 British residents of Indore were killed.[129]
Bihar
The rebellion in Bihar was mainly concentrated in the Western regions of the state; however, there were also some outbreaks of plundering and looting in Gaya district.[130] One of the central figures was
On 25 July, mutiny erupted in the garrisons of Danapur. Mutinying sepoys from the 7th, 8th and 40th regiments of Bengal Native Infantry quickly moved towards the city of Arrah and were joined by Kunwar Singh and his men.[133] Mr. Boyle, a British railway engineer in Arrah, had already prepared an outbuilding on his property for defence against such attacks.[134] As the rebels approached Arrah, all British residents took refuge at Mr. Boyle's house.[135] A siege soon ensued – eighteen civilians and 50 loyal sepoys from the Bengal Military Police Battalion under the command of Herwald Wake, the local magistrate, defended the house against artillery and musketry fire from an estimated 2000 to 3000 mutineers and rebels.[136]
On 29 July 400 men were sent out from Danapur to relieve Arrah, but this force was ambushed by the rebels around a mile away from the siege house, severely defeated, and driven back. On 30 July, Major Vincent Eyre, who was going up the river with his troops and guns, reached Buxar and heard about the siege. He immediately disembarked his guns and troops (the 5th Fusiliers) and started marching towards Arrah, disregarding direct orders not to do so.[137] On 2 August, some 6 miles (9.7 km) short of Arrah, the Major was ambushed by the mutineers and rebels. After an intense fight, the 5th Fusiliers charged and stormed the rebel positions successfully.[136] On 3 August, Major Eyre and his men reached the siege house and successfully ended the siege.[138][139]
After receiving reinforcements, Major Eyre pursued Kunwar Singh to his palace in Jagdispur; however, Singh had left by the time Eyre's forces arrived. Eyre then proceeded to destroy the palace and the homes of Singh's brothers.[136]
In addition to Kunwar Singh's efforts, there were also rebellions carried out by Hussain Baksh Khan, Ghulam Ali Khan and Fateh Singh among others in Gaya, Nawada and Jehanabad districts.[140]
In
Other regions
Punjab and Afghan Frontier
What was then referred to by the British as the Punjab was a very large administrative division, centred on Lahore. It included not only the present-day Indian and Pakistani Punjabi regions but also the North West Frontier districts bordering Afghanistan.
Much of the region had been the Sikh Empire, ruled by Ranjit Singh until his death in 1839. The kingdom had then fallen into disorder, with court factions and the Khalsa (the Sikh army) contending for power at the Lahore Durbar (court). After two Anglo-Sikh Wars, the entire region was annexed by the East India Company in 1849. In 1857, the region still contained the highest numbers of both British and Indian troops.
The inhabitants of the Punjab were not as sympathetic to the sepoys as they were elsewhere in India, which limited many of the outbreaks in the Punjab to disjointed uprisings by regiments of sepoys isolated from each other. In some garrisons, notably
The final large-scale military uprising in the Punjab took place on 9 July, when most of a brigade of sepoys at
The British had been recruiting irregular units from
At one stage, faced with the need to send troops to reinforce the besiegers of Delhi, the Commissioner of the Punjab (Sir John Lawrence) suggested handing the coveted prize of Peshawar to Dost Mohammad Khan of Afghanistan in return for a pledge of friendship. The British Agents in Peshawar and the adjacent districts were horrified. Referring to the massacre of a retreating British army in 1842, Herbert Edwardes wrote, "Dost Mahomed would not be a mortal Afghan ... if he did not assume our day to be gone in India and follow after us as an enemy. British cannot retreat – Kabul would come again."[142]: 283 In the event Lord Canning insisted on Peshawar being held, and Dost Mohammad, whose relations with Britain had been equivocal for over 20 years, remained neutral.
In September 1858
Bengal and Tripura
In September 1857, sepoys took control of the treasury in
The interior areas of Bengal proper were already experiencing growing resistance to Company rule due to the Muslim Faraizi movement.[145]
Gujarat
In central and north Gujarat, the rebellion was sustained by landowner Jagirdars, Talukdars and
Orissa
During the rebellion,
British Empire
The authorities in British colonies with an Indian population, sepoy or civilian, took measures to secure themselves against copycat uprisings. In the
Consequences
Death toll and atrocities
Both sides committed atrocities against civilians.[t][14]
In Oudh alone, some estimates put the toll at 150,000 Indians killed during the war, with 100,000 of them being civilians. The capture of Delhi, Allahabad, Kanpur and Lucknow by British forces were followed by general massacres.[155]
Another notable atrocity was carried out by General Neill who massacred thousands of Indian mutineers and Indian civilians suspected of supporting the rebellion.[156]
The rebels' murder of British women, children and wounded soldiers (including sepoys who sided with the British) at Cawnpore, and the subsequent printing of the events in the British papers, left many British soldiers outraged and seeking revenge. Aside from hanging mutineers, the British had some "blown from cannon", (an old Mughal punishment adopted many years before in India), in which sentenced rebels were tied over the mouths of cannons and blown to pieces when the cannons were fired.[157][158] A particular act of cruelty on behalf of the British troops at Cawnpore included forcing many Muslim or Hindu rebels to eat pork or beef, as well as licking buildings freshly stained with blood of the dead before subsequent public hangings.[158]
Practices of torture included "searing with hot irons...dipping in wells and rivers till the victim is half suffocated... squeezing the testicles...putting pepper and red chillies in the eyes or introducing them into the private parts of men and women...prevention of sleep...nipping the flesh with pinners...suspension from the branches of a tree...imprisonment in a room used for storing lime..."[159]
British soldiers also committed sexual violence against Indian women as a form of retaliation against the rebellion.[160][161] As towns and cities were captured from the sepoys, the British soldiers took their revenge on Indian civilians by committing atrocities and rapes against Indian women.[162][163][164][165][166]
Most of the British press, outraged by the stories of alleged rape committed by the rebels against British women, as well as the killings of British civilians and wounded British soldiers, did not advocate clemency of any kind towards the Indian population.[167] Governor General Canning ordered moderation in dealing with native sensibilities and earned the scornful sobriquet "Clemency Canning" from the press[168] and later parts of the British public.
In terms of sheer numbers, the casualties were much higher on the Indian side. A letter published after the fall of Delhi in the Bombay Telegraph and reproduced in the British press testified to the scale of the Indian casualties:
.... All the city's people found within the walls of the city of Delhi when our troops entered were bayoneted on the spot, and the number was considerable, as you may suppose, when I tell you that in some houses forty and fifty people were hiding. These were not mutineers but residents of the city, who trusted to our well-known mild rule for pardon. I am glad to say they were disappointed.[169]
From the end of 1857, the British had begun to gain ground again. Lucknow was retaken in March 1858. On 8 July 1858, a peace treaty was signed, and the rebellion ended. The last rebels were defeated in
Edward Vibart, a 19-year-old officer whose parents, younger brothers, and two of his sisters had died in the Cawnpore massacre,[170] recorded his experience:
The orders went out to shoot every soul.... It was literally murder... I have seen many bloody and awful sights lately but such a one as I witnessed yesterday I pray I never see again. The women were all spared but their screams on seeing their husbands and sons butchered, were most painful... Heaven knows I feel no pity, but when some old grey bearded man is brought and shot before your very eyes, hard must be that man's heart I think who can look on with indifference ...[171]
Some British troops adopted a policy of "no prisoners". One officer, Thomas Lowe, remembered how on one occasion his unit had taken 76 prisoners – they were just too tired to carry on killing and needed a rest, he recalled. Later, after a quick trial, the prisoners were lined up with a British soldier standing a couple of yards in front of them. On the order "fire", they were all simultaneously shot, "swept... from their earthly existence".
The aftermath of the rebellion has been the focus of new work using Indian sources and population studies. In
Approximately 6,000 of the 40,000 British living in India were killed.[2]
Reaction in Britain
The scale of the punishments handed out by the British "Army of Retribution" was considered largely appropriate and justified in a Britain shocked by embellished reports of atrocities carried out against British troops and civilians by the rebels.[173] Accounts of the time frequently reach the "hyperbolic register", according to Christopher Herbert, especially in the often-repeated claim that the "Red Year" of 1857 marked "a terrible break" in British experience.[169] Such was the atmosphere – a national "mood of retribution and despair" that led to "almost universal approval" of the measures taken to pacify the revolt.[174]: 87
Incidents of rape allegedly committed by Indian rebels against British women and girls appalled the British public. These atrocities were often used to justify the British reaction to the rebellion. British newspapers printed various eyewitness accounts of the rape of English women and girls. One such account was published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10 had been raped by Indian rebels in Delhi. Karl Marx criticized this story as false propaganda, and pointed out that the story was written by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion, with no evidence to support his allegation.[175] Individual incidents captured the public's interest and were heavily reported by the press. One such incident was that of General Wheeler's daughter Margaret being forced to live as her captor's concubine, though this was reported to the Victorian public as Margaret killing her rapist then herself.[176] Another version of the story suggested that Margaret had been killed after her abductor had argued with his wife over her.[177]
During the aftermath of the rebellion, a series of exhaustive investigations were carried out by British police and intelligence officials into reports that British women prisoners had been "dishonoured" at the Bibighar and elsewhere. One such detailed enquiry was at the direction of Lord Canning. The consensus was that there was no convincing evidence of such crimes having been committed, although numbers of British women and children had been killed outright.[178]
The term 'Sepoy' or 'Sepoyism' became a derogatory term for nationalists, especially in Ireland.[179]
Reorganisation
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2017) |
Bahadur Shah was arrested at Humanyun's tomb and
The rebellion saw the end of the
Essentially the old East India Company bureaucracy remained, though there was a major shift in attitudes. In looking for the causes of the Rebellion the authorities alighted on two things: religion and the economy. On religion it was felt that there had been too much interference with indigenous traditions, both Hindu and Muslim. On the economy it was now believed that the previous attempts by the company to introduce free market competition had undermined traditional power structures and bonds of loyalty placing the peasantry at the mercy of merchants and moneylenders. In consequence the new British Raj was constructed in part around a conservative agenda, based on a preservation of tradition and hierarchy.
On a political level it was also felt that the previous lack of consultation between rulers and ruled had been another significant factor in contributing to the uprising. In consequence, Indians were drawn into government at a local level. Though this was on a limited scale a crucial precedent had been set, with the creation of a new 'white collar' Indian elite, further stimulated by the opening of universities at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, a result of the Indian Universities Act. So, alongside the values of traditional and ancient India, a new professional middle class was starting to arise, in no way bound by the values of the past. Their ambition can only have been stimulated by Queen Victoria's Proclamation of November 1858, in which it is expressly stated, "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to our other subjects...it is our further will that... our subjects of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability and integrity, duly to discharge."
Acting on these sentiments, Lord Ripon, viceroy from 1880 to 1885, extended the powers of local self-government and sought to remove racial practices in the law courts by the Ilbert Bill. But a policy at once liberal and progressive at one turn was reactionary and backward at the next, creating new elites and confirming old attitudes. The Ilbert Bill had the effect only of causing a white mutiny and the end of the prospect of perfect equality before the law. In 1886 measures were adopted to restrict Indian entry into the civil service.
Military reorganisation
The Bengal army dominated the Indian army before 1857 and a direct result after the rebellion was the scaling back of the size of the Bengali contingent in the army.[182] The Brahmin presence in the Bengal Army was reduced because of their perceived primary role as mutineers. The British looked for increased recruitment in the Punjab for the Bengal army as a result of the apparent discontent that resulted in the Sepoy conflict.[183]
The rebellion transformed both the native and British armies of British India. Of the 74 regular Bengal Native Infantry regiments in existence at the beginning of 1857, only twelve escaped mutiny or disbandment.
The inefficiencies of the old organisation, which had estranged sepoys from their British officers, were addressed, and the post-1857 units were mainly organised on the "irregular" system. From 1797 until the rebellion of 1857, each regular Bengal Native Infantry regiment had had 22 or 23 British officers,[36]: 238 who held every position of authority down to the second-in-command of each company. In irregular units there were fewer British officers, but they associated themselves far more closely with their soldiers, while more responsibility was given to the Indian officers.
The British increased the ratio of British to Indian soldiers within India. From 1861 Indian artillery was replaced by British units, except for a few mountain batteries.[36]: 319 The post-rebellion changes formed the basis of the military organisation of British India until the early 20th century.
Awards
Medals were awarded to members of the British Armed Forces and the British Indian Army during the rebellion. The 182 recipients of the Victoria Cross are listed here.
290,000 Indian Mutiny Medals were awarded. Clasps were awarded for the siege of Delhi and the siege and relief of Lucknow.[185]
A military and civilian decoration of British India, the
Nomenclature
There is no universally agreed name for the events of this period.
In India and Pakistan, it has been termed as the "War of Independence of 1857" or "First War of Indian Independence" as belittling the importance of what happened and therefore reflecting an imperialistic attitude. Others dispute this interpretation.
In the UK and parts of the Commonwealth it is commonly called the "Indian Mutiny", but terms such as "Great Indian Mutiny", the "Sepoy Mutiny", the "Sepoy Rebellion", the "Sepoy War", the "Great Mutiny", the "Rebellion of 1857", "the Uprising", the "Mahomedan Rebellion", and the "Revolt of 1857" have also been used.[193][194][195] "The Indian Insurrection" was a name used in the press of the UK and British colonies at the time.[196]
Historiography
Michael Adas (1971) examines the historiography with emphasis on the four major approaches: the Indian nationalist view; the Marxist analysis; the view of the Rebellion as a traditionalist rebellion; and intensive studies of local uprisings.[197] Many of the key primary and secondary sources appear in Biswamoy Pati, ed. 1857 Rebellion.[198][199]
Thomas R. Metcalf has stressed the importance of the work by Cambridge professor Eric Stokes (1924–1981), especially Stokes' The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (1978). Metcalf says Stokes undermines the assumption that 1857 was a response to general causes emanating from entire classes of people. Instead, Stokes argues that 1) those Indians who suffered the greatest relative deprivation rebelled and that 2) the decisive factor in precipitating a revolt was the presence of prosperous magnates who supported British rule. Stokes also explores issues of economic development, the nature of privileged landholding, the role of moneylenders, the usefulness of classical rent theory, and, especially, the notion of the "rich peasant".[200]
To Kim A. Wagner, who has conducted the most recent survey of the literature, modern Indian historiography is yet to move beyond responding to the "prejudice" of colonial accounts. Wagner sees no reason why atrocities committed by Indians should be understated or inflated merely because these things "offend our post-colonial sensibilities".[201]
Wagner also stresses the importance of
Almost from the moment the first sepoys mutinied in Meerut, the nature and the scope of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 has been contested and argued over. Speaking in the
- A united India did not exist at that time in political, cultural, or ethnic terms;
- The rebellion was put down with the help of other Indian soldiers drawn from the Madras Army, the Bombay Army and the Sikh regiments; 80% of the East India Company forces were Indian;[209]
- Many of the local rulers fought amongst themselves rather than uniting against the British;
- Many rebel Sepoy regiments disbanded and went home rather than fight;
- Not all of the rebels accepted the return of the Mughals;
- The King of Delhi had no real control over the mutineers;[210]
- The revolt was largely limited to north and central India. Whilst risings occurred elsewhere they had little impact because of their limited nature;
- A number of revolts occurred in areas not under British rule, and against native rulers, often as a result of local internal politics;
- "The revolt was fractured along religious, ethnic and regional lines.[211]
A second school of thought while acknowledging the validity of the above-mentioned arguments opines that this rebellion may indeed be called a war of India's independence. The reasons advanced are:
- Even though the rebellion had various causes, most of the rebel sepoys who were able to do so, made their way to Delhi to revive the old Mughal empirethat signified national unity for even the Hindus amongst them;
- There was a widespread popular revolt in many areas such as Awadh, Bundelkhand and Rohilkhand. The rebellion was therefore more than just a military rebellion, and it spanned more than one region;
- The sepoys did not seek to revive small kingdoms in their regions, instead they repeatedly proclaimed a "country-wide rule" of the Mughals and vowed to drive out the British from "India", as they knew it then. (The sepoys ignored local princes and proclaimed in cities they took over: Khalq Khuda Ki, Mulk Badshah Ka, Hukm Subahdar Sipahi Bahadur Ka – "the people belong to God, the country to the Emperor and authority to the Sepoy Commandant"). The objective of driving out "foreigners" from not only one's own area but from their conception of the entirety of "India", signifies a nationalist sentiment;
- The mutineers, although some were recruited from outside Oudah, displayed a common purpose.[212]
150th anniversary
The Government of India celebrated the year 2007 as the 150th anniversary of "India's First War of Independence". Several books written by Indian authors were released in the anniversary year including Amresh Mishra's "War of Civilizations", a controversial history of the Rebellion of 1857, and "Recalcitrance" by Anurag Kumar, one of the few novels written in English by an Indian based on the events of 1857.
In 2007, a group of retired British soldiers and civilians, some of them descendants of British soldiers who died in the conflict, attempted to visit the site of the Siege of Lucknow. However, fears of violence by Indian demonstrators, supported by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, prevented the British visitors from visiting the site.[213] Despite the protests, Sir Mark Havelock was able to make his way past police to visit the grave of his ancestor, General Henry Havelock.[214]
In popular culture
Films
- Light of India – A 1929 short American silent film directed by Elmer Clifton and filmed in Technicolor, depicts the rebellion.
- Bengal Brigade – A 1954 film: at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. A British officer, Captain Claybourne (Hudson), is cashiered from his regiment over a charge of disobeying orders, but finds that his duty to his men is far from over
- Maniram Dewan – A 1964 Assamese film by Sarbeswar Chakraborty, depicting the life and times of Maniram Dewan who led the revolt in Assam.[215]
- Shatranj Ke Khilari – A 1977 Indian film directed by Satyajit Ray, chronicling the events just before the onset of the Revolt of 1857. The focus is on the British annexation of Oudh, and the detachment of the nobility from the political sphere in 19th-century India.
- Junoon (1978 film) – Directed by Shyam Benegal, it is a critically acclaimed film about the love affair between a Pathan feudal chief and a British girl sheltered by his family during the revolt.
- Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005) – Ketan Mehta's Hindi film chronicles the life of Mangal Pandey.
- The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) features a sequence inspired by the massacre at Cawnpore.
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – During the dinner scene at the fictional Pankot Palace, Indiana Jones mentions that Captain Blumburtt was telling him about the role which the palace played in "the mutiny" and Chattar Lal complains, "It seems the British never forget the Mutiny of 1857".
- The Last Cartridge, an Incident of the Sepoy Rebellion in India (1908) – A fictionalized account of a British fort besieged during the Rebellion.
- Victoria & Abdul (2017) – Queen Victoria embarrasses herself by recounting to the court the one-sided account of the Indian Mutiny that Abdul had told her, Victoria's faith and trust in him are shaken and she decides he must go home. But soon after, she changes her mind and asks him to stay.[216]
- Rani Lakshmi Bai.
Theatre
- 1857: Ek Safarnama – A play by Javed Siddiqui, set during the Rebellion of 1857 and staged at Purana Qila, Delhi.[217]
Literature
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- Malcolm X's autobiography The Autobiography of Malcolm X details his first encounters with atrocities in the non-British world and his reaction to the rebellion and massacres in 1857.
- John Masters's novel Nightrunners of Bengal, first published by Michael Joseph in 1951 and dedicated to the Sepoy of India, is a fictionalised account of the Rebellion as seen through the eyes of a British Captain in the Bengal Native Infantry who was based in Bhowani, itself a fictionalised version of the town of Jhansi. Captain Savage and his turbulent relationship with the Rani of Kishanpur form an analogous interrelationship of the Indian people and the British and sepoy regiments at that time.
- J. G. Farrell's 1973 novel The Siege of Krishnapur details the siege of the fictional Indian town of Krishnapur during the Rebellion.
- George MacDonald Fraser's 1975 novel Flashman in the Great Game deals with the events leading up to and during the Rebellion.
- Two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, The Sign of the Four and "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", feature events that took place during the Rebellion.
- Michael Crichton's 1975 novel The Great Train Robbery mentions the Rebellion and briefly details the events of the Siege of Cawnpore, as the Rebellion was happening in tandem with the trial of Edward Pierce.[218]
- The majority of M. M. Kaye's novel Shadow of the Moon is set between 1856 and 1858, and the Rebellion is shown to greatly affect the lives of the main characters, who were inhabitants of the Residency at Lunjore (a fictional town in north India). The early chapters of her novel The Far Pavilions take place during the Rebellion, which leads to the protagonist, a child of British ancestry, being raised as a Hindu.
- Indian writer Ruskin Bond's fictional novella A Flight of Pigeons is set around the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It is from this story that the film Junoon was later adapted in 1978 by Shyam Benegal.
- The 1880 novel The Steam House by Jules Verne takes place in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
- Jules Verne's famous character Captain Nemo, originally an Indian prince, fought on the side of the rebels during the rebellion (as stated in Verne's later novel The Mysterious Island).
- E. M. Forster's 1924 novel A Passage to India alludes several times to the Mutiny.
- Flora Annie Steel's novel On the Face of the Waters (1896) describes incidents of the Mutiny.
- The plot of Uller Uprisingis based on the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
- Rujub, the juggler and In Times of Peril: A tale of India by G.A. Henty are each based on the Indian Rebellion of 1857[citation needed]
- Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's book The Indian War of Independence (1909) describes incidents of the Mutiny.
Folk music
- Various folk songs in Assam, called Maniram Dewanor Geet were composed in the memory of Maniram Dewan, highlighting his role in the tea industry and the rebellion.[219]
See also
- Political warfare in British colonial India
- Barrackpore Mutiny of 1824
Notes
- ^ "It has been roughly estimated that 6,000 of the approximately 40,000 Europeans then in India were killed."[2] White or British were labelled European in the 19th-century Censuses of India.[3]
- ^ "The 1857 rebellion was by and large confined to northern Indian Gangetic Plain and central India."[6]
- ^ "The revolt was confined to the northern Gangetic plain and central India."[7]
- ^ Although the majority of the violence occurred in the northern Indian Gangetic plain and central India, recent scholarship has suggested that the rebellion also reached parts of the east and north."[8]
- ^ "What distinguished the events of 1857 was their scale and the fact that for a short time they posed a military threat to British dominance in the Ganges Plain."[9]
- ^ "The events of 1857–58 in India (are) known variously as a mutiny, a revolt, a rebellion and the first war of independence (the debates over which only confirm just how contested imperial history can become) ... "[11]
- ^ "Indian soldiers and the rural population over a large part of northern India showed their mistrust of their rulers and their alienation from them. ... For all their talk of improvement, the new rulers were as yet able to offer very little in the way of positive inducements for Indians to acquiesce in the rule."[14]
- ^ "Many Indians took up arms against the British, if for very diverse reasons. On the other hand, a very large number actually fought for the British, while the majority remained apparently acquiescent. Explanations have therefore to concentrate on the motives of those who actually rebelled."[14]
- ^ The cost of the rebellion in terms of human suffering was immense. Two great cities, Delhi and Lucknow, were devastated by fighting and by the plundering of the victorious British. Where the countryside resisted, as in parts of Awadh, villages were burnt. Mutineers and their supporters were often killed out of hand. British civilians, including women and children, were murdered as well as the British officers of the sepoy regiments."[14]
- ^ "The south, Bengal, and the Punjab remained unscathed, ..."[7]
- ^ "... it was the support from the Sikhs, carefully cultivated by the British since the end of the Anglo-Sikh wars, and the disinclination of the Bengali intelligentsia to throw in their lot with what they considered a backward Zamindar revolt, that proved decisive in the course of the struggle.[7]
- ^ "(they) generated no coherent ideology or programme on which to build a new order."[17]
- ^ "The events of 1857–58 in India, ... marked a major watershed not only in the history of British India but also of British imperialism as a whole."[11]
- ^ "Queen Victoria's Proclamation of 1858 laid the foundation for Indian secularism and established the semi-legal framework that would govern the politics of religion in colonial India for the next century. ... It promised civil equality for Indians regardless of their religious affiliation, and state non-interference in Indians' religious affairs. Although the Proclamation lacked the legal authority of a constitution, generations of Indians cited the Queen's proclamation in order to claim, and to defend, their right to religious freedom."[20]
- ^ The proclamation to the "Princes, Chiefs, and People of India", issued by Queen Victoria on 1 November 1858. "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligation of duty which bind us to all our other subjects." [p. 2]
- ^ "When the governance of India was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown in 1858, she (Queen Victoria) and Prince Albert intervened in an unprecedented fashion to turn the proclamation of the transfer of power into a document of tolerance and clemency. ... They ... insisted on the clause that stated that the people of India would enjoy the same protection as all subjects of Britain. Over time, this royal intervention led to the Proclamation of 1858 becoming known in the Indian subcontinent as 'the Magna Carta of Indian liberties', a phrase which Indian nationalists such as Gandhi later took up as they sought to test equality under imperial law"[21]
- ^ "In purely legal terms, (the proclamation) kept faith with the principles of liberal imperialism and appeared to hold out the promise that British rule would benefit Indians and Britons alike. But as is too often the case with noble statements of faith, reality fell far short of theory, and the failure on the part of the British to live up to the wording of the proclamation would later be used by Indian nationalists as proof of the hollowness of imperial principles."[22]
- ^ "Ignoring ...the conciliatory proclamation of Queen Victoria in 1858, Britishers in India saw little reason to grant Indians a greater control over their own affairs. Under these circumstances, it was not long before the seed-idea of nationalism implanted by their reading of Western books began to take root in the minds of intelligent and energetic Indians."[23]
- ^ Units of the Army of the Madras Presidency wore blue rather than black shakoes or forage caps
- ^ The cost of the rebellion in terms of human suffering was immense. Two great cities, Delhi and Lucknow, were devastated by fighting and by the plundering of the victorious British. Where the countryside resisted, as in parts of Awadh, villages were burnt. Mutineers and their supporters were often killed out of hand. British civilians, including women and children, were murdered as well as the British officers of the sepoy regiments."[14]
Citations
- ^ a b Tyagi, Sushila (1974). Indo-Nepalese Relations: (1858–1914). India: Concept Publishing Company. Archived from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d Peers 2013, p. 64.
- S2CID 145297044,
Colonial-era sources most commonly referred to individuals whom scholars today often describe as 'white' or 'British' as 'European' or 'English'.
- ^ Marshall 2007, p. 197
- ^ David 2003, p. 9
- ^ a b Bose & Jalal 2004, pp. 72–73
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84779-061-3
- ^ ISBN 978-1-316-48345-9
- ^ a b Bayly 1987, p. 170
- ^ a b c d e Bandyopadhyay 2004, pp. 169–172, Brown 1994, pp. 85–87, and Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100–106
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4051-5679-0
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, pp. 100–103.
- ^ Brown 1994, pp. 85–86.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-00254-7
- ^ a b Spear 1990, pp. 147–148
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 177, Bayly 2000, p. 357
- ^ a b Brown 1994, p. 94
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 179
- ^ Bayly 1987, pp. 194–197
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-999543-1
- ^ ISBN 978-1-5261-0088-7, archivedfrom the original on 19 September 2023, retrieved 30 March 2017
- ^ Peers 2013, p. 76.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-231-06414-9, archivedfrom the original on 19 September 2023, retrieved 19 September 2023
- ^ "Internet History Sourcebooks Project". Sourcebooks.fordham.edu. Archived from the original on 18 August 2014. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
- ISBN 978-0-02-561169-6.
- ^ Markovitz, Claude. A History of Modern India, 1480–1950. Anthem Press. p. 271.
- ^ "When the Vellore sepoys rebelled". The Hindu. 6 August 2006. Archived from the original on 15 August 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
- ^ Ludden 2002, p. 133
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-087023-2. Archivedfrom the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
- ISBN 978-81-7824-059-6
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 61
- JSTOR 650259.
- ^ a b Brown 1994, p. 88
- ^ Metcalf 1964, p. 48
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 171, Bose & Jalal 2004, pp. 70–72
- ^ ISBN 0-333-41837-9
- ^ Essential histories, The Indian Rebellion 1857–1858, Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Osprey 2007, p. 25.
- ISBN 0-333-45672-6, p. 172.
- ^ Luscombe, Stephen. "Indian Mutiny". Britishempire.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 January 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
- ^ Hyam, R (2002) Britain's Imperial Century, 1815–1914 Third Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, p. 135.
- ^ Headrick, Daniel R. "The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century". Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 88.
- ISBN 978-1-906165-27-7The only troops to be armed with the Enfield rifle, and hence the greased cartridges, were the British HM 60th Rifles stationed at Meerut.
- ^ Sir John William Kaye; George Bruce Malleson (1888), Kaye's and Malleson's history of the Indian mutiny of 1857–8, London: W. H. Allen & Co, p. 381, archived from the original on 19 September 2023, retrieved 12 November 2020
- ^ Hibbert 1980, p. 63
- ^ David 2003, p. 53
- ^ David 2007, p. 292
- ISBN 0-351-15997-5.
- ^ David 2003, p. 54
- ^ David 2007, p. 293
- ^ G. W. Forrest, Selections from the letters, despatches and other state papers preserved in the Military department of the government of India, 1857–58 (1893), pp. 8–12, available at archive.org
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172, Bose & Jalal 2004, pp. 72–73, Brown 1994, p. 92
- ^ Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 172
- ^ Metcalf 1964, p. 299: "Rajput Taluqdars provided the bulk of leadership in Oudh, Kunwar Singh a Rajput Zamindar was the moving spirit of uprising in Bihar"
- ^ Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 102
- ^ Bose & Jalal 2004, p. 72, Metcalf 1964, pp. 63–64, Bandyopadhyay 2004, p. 173
- ^ Brown 1994, p. 92
- .
- ISBN 978-0-8142-0948-6
- ^ Rudolph, L. I.; Rudolph, S. H. (1997), "Occidentalism and Orientalism: Perspectives on Legal Pluralism", Cultures of Scholarship
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-07625-8
- ISBN 978-1-84603-209-7
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-66360-1
- ^ » Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 Postcolonial Studies @ Emory Archived 14 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine. English.emory.edu (23 March 1998). Retrieved on 12 July 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-7137-1074-8.
- ^ Aijaz Ahmad (2021). Uprising of 1857: Some Facts about Failure of Indian war of Independence. K.K. Publications. p. 158. Archived from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
- ^ Seema Alavi The Sepoys and the Company (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 1998, p. 5.
- ^ David 2003, p. 24.
- ^ Memorandum from Lieutenant-Colonel W. St. L. Mitchell (CO of the 19th BNI) to Major A. H. Ross about his troop's refusal to accept the Enfield cartridges, 27 February 1857, Archives of Project South Asia, South Dakota State University and Missouri Southern State University Archived 18 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ David 2003, p. 69
- ^ a b "The Indian Mutiny of 1857", Col. G. B. Malleson, reprint 2005, Rupa & Co. Publishers, New Delhi.
- ^ Durendra Nath Sen, p. 50 Eighteen Fifty-Seven, The Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, May 1957.
- ISBN 978-93-81406-34-2.
- ^ Hibbert 1980, pp. 73–75
- ^ Ikram ul-Majeed Sehgal (2002). Defence Journal: Volume 5, Issues 9–12. University of Michigan. p. 37. Archived from the original on 11 April 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
- ^ David 2003, p. 93
- ^ Hibbert 1980, pp. 80–85
- ^ Sir John Kaye & G. B. Malleson: The Indian Mutiny of 1857, (Delhi: Rupa & Co.) reprint 2005, p. 49.
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- ^ In the light of the available evidence, we are forced to the conclusion that the uprising of 1857 was not the result of careful planning, nor were there any master-minds behind it. As I read about the events of 1857, I am forced to the conclusion that the Indian national character had sunk very low. The leaders of the revolt could never agree. They were mutually jealous and continually intrigued against one another. ... In fact these personal jealousies and intrigues were largely responsible for the Indian defeat.Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Surendranath Sen: Eighteen Fifty-seven (Appx. X & Appx. XV).
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Modern Indian historiography on 1857 still seems, at least in part, to be responding to the prejudice of colonial accounts ... I see no reason to downplay, or to exaggerate, the atrocities carried out by Indians simply because such events seem to offend our post-colonial sensibilities.
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- ^ The communal hatred led to ugly communal riots in many parts of U.P. The green flag was hoisted and Muslims in Bareilly, Bijnor, Moradabad, and other places the Muslims shouted for the revival of Muslim kingdom." R. C. Majumdar: Sepoy Mutiny and Revolt of 1857 (pp. 2303–2331).
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Further reading
Text-books and academic monographs
- Alavi, Seema (1996), The Sepoys and the Company: Tradition and Transition 1770–1830, Oxford University Press, p. 340, ISBN 978-0-19-563484-6.
- Anderson, Clare (2007), Indian Uprising of 1857–8: Prisons, Prisoners and Rebellion, New York: Anthem Press, p. 217, ISBN 978-1-84331-249-9.
- ISBN 978-0-521-57085-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7509-5685-7.
- Jain, Meenakshi (2010), Parallel Pathways: Essays On Hindu-Muslim Relations (1707–1857), Delhi: Konark, ISBN 978-8122007831.
- Keene, Henry George (1883), Fifty-Seven. Some account of the administration of Indian Districts during the revolt of the Bengal Army, London: W.H. Allen, p. 145.
- Kulke, Hermann; Rothermund, Dietmar (2004), A History of India (4th ed.), London: Routledge, xii, 448, ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0.
- ISBN 978-0-02-034200-7, archived from the originalon 1 February 2020, retrieved 8 January 2012.
- Majumdar, R.C.; Raychaudhuri, H.C.; Datta, Kalikinkar (1967), An Advanced History of India (3rd ed.), London: Macmillan, p. 1126.
- Markovits, Claude, ed. (2004), A History of Modern India 1480–1950, London: Anthem, p. 607, ISBN 978-1-84331-152-2.
- Metcalf, Thomas R. (1997), Ideologies of the Raj, Cambridge University Press, p. 256, ISBN 978-0-521-58937-6.
- Mukherjee, Rudrangshu (2002), Awadh in Revolt 1857–1858: A Study of Popular Resistance (2nd ed.), London: Anthem, ISBN 978-1-84331-075-4.
- Palmer, Julian A.B. (1966), The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857, Cambridge University Press, p. 175, ISBN 978-0-521-05901-5.
- Ray, Rajat Kanta (2002), The Felt Community: Commonality and Mentality before the Emergence of Indian Nationalism, Oxford University Press, p. 596, ISBN 978-0-19-565863-7.
- Robb, Peter (2002), A History of India, Basingstoke: Palgrave, p. 344, ISBN 978-0-333-69129-8.
- Roy, Tapti (1994), The politics of a popular uprising: Bundelkhand 1857, Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 291, ISBN 978-0-19-563612-3.
- Stanley, Peter (1998), White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India, 1825–1875, London: Hurst, p. 314, ISBN 978-1-85065-330-1.
- Stein, Burton (2001), A History of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 432, ISBN 978-0-19-565446-2.
- Stokes, Eric (1980), The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, p. 316, ISBN 978-0-521-29770-7.
- Stokes, Eric; Bayly, C.A. (1986), The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857, Oxford: Clarendon, p. 280, ISBN 978-0-19-821570-7.
- Taylor, P.J.O. (1997), What really happened during the mutiny: a day-by-day account of the major events of 1857–1859 in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 323, ISBN 978-0-19-564182-0.
- ISBN 978-0-19-516678-1.
Articles in journals and collections
- Alam Khan, Iqtidar (May–June 2013), "The Wahabis in the 1857 Revolt: A Brief Reappraisal of Their Role", Social Scientist, 41 (5/6): 15–23, JSTOR 23611115
- Alavi, Seema (February 1993), "The Company Army and Rural Society: The Invalid Thanah 1780–1830", Modern Asian Studies, 27 (1), Cambridge University Press: 147–178, S2CID 143566845
- Baker, David (1991), "Colonial Beginnings and the Indian Response: The Revolt of 1857–58 in Madhya Pradesh", Modern Asian Studies, 25 (3): 511–543, S2CID 146482671
- Blunt, Alison (July 2000), "Embodying war: British women and domestic defilement in the Indian "Mutiny", 1857–8", Journal of Historical Geography, 26 (3): 403–428,
- Dutta, Sunasir; Rao, Hayagreeva (July 2015). "Infectious diseases, contamination rumours and ethnic violence: Regimental mutinies in the Bengal Native Army in 1857 India". Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 129: 36–47. S2CID 141583862.
- English, Barbara (February 1994), "The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857", Past & Present, 142 (1), Oxford University Press: 169–178, JSTOR 651200
- Klein, Ira (July 2000), "Materialism, Mutiny and Modernization in British India", Modern Asian Studies, 34 (3), Cambridge University Press: 545–580, S2CID 143348610
- S2CID 159530372
- JSTOR 651010
- JSTOR 651201
- Rao, Parimala V. (3 March 2016). "Modern education and the revolt of 1857 in India". Paedagogica Historica. 52 (1–2): 25–42. S2CID 146864929.
- Roy, Tapti (February 1993), "Visions of the Rebels: A Study of 1857 in Bundelkhand", Modern Asian Studies, 27 (1), Cambridge University Press: 205–228 (Special Issue: How Social, Political and Cultural Information Is Collected, Defined, Used and Analyzed), S2CID 144558490
- Singh, Hira. (2013) "Class, Caste, Colonial Rule, and Resistance: The Revolt of 1857 in India", in Marxism and Social Movements (Brill, 2013). 299–316.
- S2CID 159820559
- Washbrook, D. A. (2001), "India, 1818–1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism", in Porter, Andrew (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 395–421, ISBN 978-0-19-924678-6
Historiography and memory
- Bates, Crispin, ed. Mutiny at the Margins: New Perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 (5 vol. Sage Publications India, 2013–14). online guide Archived 16 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine; With illustrations, maps, selected text and more.
- Chakravarty, Gautam. The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- Deshpande, Prachi. "The Making of an Indian Nationalist Archive: Lakshmibai, Jhansi, and 1857". journal of Asian studies 67#3 (2008): 855–879.
- Erll, Astrid (2006). "Re-writing as re-visioning: Modes of representing the 'Indian Mutiny' in British novels, 1857 to 2000" (PDF). European Journal of English Studies. 10 (2): 163–185. S2CID 141659712.
- Frykenberg, Robert E. (2001), "India to 1858", in Winks, Robin (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire: Historiography, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 194–213, ISBN 978-0-19-924680-9
- Pati, Biswamoy (12–18 May 2007). "Historians and Historiography: Situating 1857". Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (19): 1686–1691. JSTOR 4419570.
- Perusek, Darshan (Spring 1992). "Subaltern Consciousness and the Historiography of the Indian Rebellion of 1857". Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 25 (3). Duke University Press: 286–301. JSTOR 1345889.
- Wagner, Kim A. (October 2011). "The Marginal Mutiny: The New Historiography of the Indian Uprising of 1857". History Compass. 9 (10): 760–766. .
Other histories
- Mishra, Amaresh. 2007. War of Civilisations: The Long Revolution (India AD 1857, 2 Vols.), ISBN 978-81-291-1282-8
- Ward, Andrew. Our Bones Are Scattered. New York: Holt & Co., 1996.
First person accounts and classic histories
- Parag Tope, "Tatya Tope's Operation Red Lotus", Publisher: Rupa Publications India
- Barter, Captain Richard The Siege of Delhi. Mutiny memories of an old officer, London, The Folio Society, 1984.
- Campbell, Sir Colin. Narrative of the Indian Revolt. London: George Vickers, 1858.
- Collier, Richard. The Great Indian Mutiny. New York: Dutton, 1964.
- Forrest, George W. A History of the Indian Mutiny, William Blackwood and Sons, London, 1904. (4 vols)
- Fitchett, W. H., B.A., LL.D., A Tale of the Great Mutiny, Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1911.
- Hodson, William Stephen Raikes. 12 Years of a Soldier's Life In India. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860.
- Inglis, Julia Selina, Lady, 1833–1904, The Siege of Lucknow: a Diary, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1892. Online at A Celebration of Women Writers.
- Innes, Lt. General McLeod: The Sepoy Revolt, A.D. Innes & Co., London, 1897.
- Kaye, John William. A History of the Sepoy War In India (3 vols). London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1878.
- Kaye, Sir John & Malleson, G. B.: The Indian Mutiny of 1857, Rupa & Co., Delhi, (1st edition 1890) reprint 2005.
- Allahabad, 1873
- Malleson, Colonel G. B. The Indian Mutiny of 1857. New York: Scribner & Sons, 1891.
- Marx, Karl & Freidrich Engels. The First Indian War of Independence 1857–1859. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1959.
- Pandey, Sita Ram, From Sepoy to Subedar, Being the Life and Adventures of Subedar Sita Ram, a Native Officer of the Bengal Native Army, Written and Related by Himself, trans. Lt. Col. Norgate, (Lahore: Bengal Staff Corps, 1873), ed. James Lunt, (Delhi: Vikas Publications, 1970).
- Raikes, Charles: Notes on the Revolt in the North-Western Provinces of India, Longman, London, 1858.
- Roberts, Field Marshal Lord, Forty-one Years in India, Richard Bentley, London, 1897
- Forty-one years in India at Project Gutenberg
- Russell, William Howard, My Diary in India in the years 1858–9, Routledge, London, 1860, (2 vols.)
- Thomson, Mowbray (Capt.), The Story of Cawnpore, Richard Bentley, London, 1859.
- Trevelyan, Sir George Otto, Cawnpore, Indus, Delhi, (first edition 1865), reprint 2002.
- Wilberforce, Reginald G, An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny, Being the Personal Reminiscences of Reginald G. Wilberforce, Late 52nd Infantry, Compiled from a Diary and Letters Written on the Spot London: John Murray 1884, facsimile reprint: Gurgaon: The Academic Press, 1976.
Tertiary sources
- "Indian Mutiny". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Online. Indian Mutiny | History, Causes, Effects, Summary, & Facts | Britannica. 23 March 1998.
External links
- Detailed Map: The revolt of 1857–1859, Historical Atlas of South Asia, Digital South Asia Library, hosted by the University of Chicago
- Development of Situation-January to July 1857 – Maj (Retd) Agha Humayun Amin from Washington, DC defencejounal.com
- The Indian Mutiny BritishEmpire.co.uk
- Karl Marx, New York Tribune, 1853–1858, The Revolt in India marxists.org