What was the issue of cartridges? But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. Before the rebellion, there were reports that "holy men" were mysteriously circulating chapatis and lotus flowers among the sepoys. To these points may be added the fact that the British garrison in Bengal had been reduced at this time to 23,000 men because of troop withdrawals for the Crimean and Persian wars. There is reason to believe that this was originated by some intriguers of the old Court of Lucknow. The lack of planning after the outbreak rules out these two explanations, while the degree of popular support argues more than a purely military outbreak. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. The mutineers, on the other hand, lacked good leadership until nearly the end, and they had no confidence in themselves and suffered the guilt feelings of rebels without a cause, making them frantic and fearful by turns. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. Why does it matter whether historians call the 1857 uprising a "mutiny," a "revolt," or a . McNamara, Robert. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new enfield rifles . On March 29, 1857, on the parade ground at Barrackpore, a sepoy named Mangal Pandey fired the first shot of the uprising. Mason, Philip (1974), page 226 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Seen from a distance of 150 years, the chupatty movement can appear a quaint anomaly, a strange and colorful rumor of interest mostly to historians and psychologists. 1857 revolt started firstly on 29th March 1857 from Bairakpur (West Bengal) by Mangal Pandey. A rumor that spread like wildfire among the sepoys (Indian soldiers) stationed at cantonments throughout the north of the country was that the British had come up with yet another diabolical contrivance for breaking their caste and defiling their bodies: the greased cartridge. ThoughtCo, Jul. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. [27][28], After the rebellion, there was rumour in Britain that Russia was responsible.[28]. [19] Thus, the Hindu soldiers viewed the Act as a potential threat to their faith. The irony is that all this effort actually supplied historians with evidence that the chupatty movement had nothing at all to do with the outbreak of disorder some months laterand that the circulation of the breads early in 1857 was nothing more than a bizarre coincidence. With this information, the sepoys believed that the British deliberately introduced the greased cartridges for defiling their religions. Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. The Revolt ended the rule of the English East India Company. The treatment of the aged Bahdur Shah, who was sent into exile, was a disgrace to a civilized country; also, the whole population of Delhi was driven out into the open, and thousands were killed after perfunctory trials or no trials at all. A cartridge for the new Enfield rifle. When Muslim and Hindu troops learned that the tip of the Enfield cartridge had to be bitten off to prepare it for firing, a number of troops refused, for religious reasons, to accept the ammunition. Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that signicantly challenged imperialism in India. the Sepoy Mutiny (by British Historians) The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge. The rani found a soldiers death, and Tantia Topi became a fugitive. At other times however, the Company directly or indirectly conceded the legitimacy of the sepoy's demands, such as when troops of the Bengal and Madras armies refused to serve in Sindh without batta after its conquest. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean (Haram) by Muslims. "useRatesEcommerce": false The serving high-caste sepoys were fearful that this requirement would be eventually extended to them, violating observance of the kala pani prohibition on sea travel. Some currents simply ran cold, while others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing. The revolt of 1857, which the British call the Indian Mutiny but many Indians prefer to think of as the First War of Independence, was the defining event in British imperial history. [15], The varying stances of the British government, the reduction of allowances, and harsh punishments, contributed to a feeling amongst the troops that the Company no longer cared for them. The immediate cause of the Revolt was the issue of the greased cartridges. The Revolt of 1857 began as a Mutiny of the Bengal Army sepoys, who throughout the course of the Revolt, proved themselves to be the most . the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. Several events happened that led to the Sepoys revolting and was called the Indian Revolt of 1857. The army became an efficient professional body, drawn largely from the northwest and aloof from the national life. Queen Victoria, at the prompting of Benjamin Disraeli, announced to Parliament that her Indian subjects were "happy under My rule and loyal to My throne.". You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Author Pramod Nayar points out that by 1851 there were nineteen Protestant religious societies operating in India whose goal was the conversion of Indians to Christianity. Render date: 2023-03-01T21:49:14.745Z Many sepoys believed that the victory was the destruction of cartridges that were standard issue with the new rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims and tallow (cow fat) which angered the Hindus as cows were equal to a goddess to them. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. In some districts like Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur, Bose and Jalal argue that "the revolt took on a distinctly millenarian flavor. In the Punjab were some 10,000 British troops, which made it possible to disarm the Indian regiments; and the recently defeated Sikhs were so hostile to the Muslims that they supported the British against the Mughal restoration in Delhi. Further, the British were becoming increasingly hostile toward traditional survivals and contemptuous of most things Indian. In Britain and in the West, it was almost always portrayed as a series of unreasonable and bloodthirsty uprisings spurred by falsehoods about religious insensitivity. Mopping-up operations followed, lasting until the British capture of rebel leader Tantia Topi in April 1859. Rumors spread with great rapidity before and during the mutinynot least because of the large number of British women and children at the mercy of the rebels in towns such as Delhi and Kanpur. And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. By the 1850s the East India Company controlled much of India. Large numbers of native soldiers, known as sepoys, were employed by the company to maintain order and defend trading centers. This took the form of Muslim millenarianism, with preachers in Lucknow foretelling the end of the raj. Jaiwant Paul "The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58" In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames o. Your Privacy Rights Tall tales, panic and misapprehension spread readily in such a climate, and plenty of people felt a certain disquiet in the early months of 1857. There was thus a suppressed tension in the countryside, ready to break out whenever governmental pressure might be reduced. The restoration of peace was hindered by British cries for vengeance, often leading to indiscriminate reprisals. 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. That, combined with a declining number of British officers who understood India, spoke Indian languages fluently or had any real sympathy for the people whom they ruled, meant that the colonial hierarchy remained perpetually jittery. History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-58 (London, 3 vols. Many Indians felt that the company was asking for heavy tax from the locals. Prior to the period of British rule, any refusal to proceed on service until pay issues were resolved was considered a legitimate form of displaying grievance by Indian troops serving under Indian rulers. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally. In one sense, this was not surprising; since India had a large and settled British population, there were more women and children around for the rebels to kill. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. [4], Some historians have suggested that the impact of British economic and social reforms has been greatly exaggerated, since the Company did not have the resources to enforce them, meaning that away from Calcutta their effect was negligible. This seems to have been a very important reason for the spread of the rebellion, keeping in view the speed at which they ignited in many villages in northern India where farmers rushed to get back their unfairly grabbed title deeds. They shot the British officers and made for Delhi, 40 miles (65 km) distant, where there were no British troops. Under a British policy called the "doctrine of lapse," the East India Company would take control of Indian states in which a local ruler had died without an heir. It is also known by other names: the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. Some Indians were upset with the draconian rule of the Company who had embarked on a project of territorial expansion and westernization that was imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. The Revolt of 1857 in India eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. Click to view in higher resolution. Numerous explanations were considered. It was against this backdrop of uneasiness in which the mutiny erupted in 1857. Furthermore, the superstitious impulse that still encourages the transmission of chain letters clearly applied in 1857: Although the original specific meaning of the chapattis had been lost early in the distribution, the dire consequences of breaking the chain of transmission remained, and thus ensured their successful circulation over an immense area. This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India company. Sepoys throughout India were issued with a new rifle, the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musketa more powerful and accurate weapon than the old but smoothbore Brown Bess they had been using for the previous decades. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. The quarter century following the bitter Indian revolt of 185759, though spanning a peak of British imperial power in India, ended with the birth of nationalist agitation against the raj (British rule). [9], Until the 1840s there had been a widespread belief amongst the Bengal sepoys in the Iqbal or continued good fortune of the East India Company. It is no surprise, the historian Kim Wagner notes, that, faced with such a plethora of portents, the British regarded with deep suspicion, bordering on paranoia, any type of communication in India which they could not understand. The colonial administration well understood that rumors, however unfounded, could have serious consequences, and there were plenty of notably more dangerous urban legends about. India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the Indus civilization, The earliest agriculturalists and pastoralists, Neolithic agriculture in the Indus valley and Baluchistan, Extent and chronology of Early Harappan culture, Language and scripts, weights and measures, The Post-Urban Period in northwestern India, The late 2nd millennium and the reemergence of urbanism, Peninsular India in the aftermath of the Indus civilization (c. 20001000, The development of Indian civilization from c. 1500, Traditional approaches to Indian historiography, The beginning of the historical period, c. 500150, North India under Muslim hegemony, c. 12001526, Taxation and distribution of revenue resources, The Muslim states of southern India, c. 13501680, Extension and consolidation of the empire, Central, provincial, and local government, Organization of the nobility and the army, The emperor, the nobility, and the provinces, The Afghan-Maratha struggle for northern India, Political and economic decentralization during the Mughal decline, The Afghan factor in northern India, 174772, Cultural aspects of the late precolonial order, India and European expansion, c. 15001858, The extension of British power, 17601856, Indian nationalism and the British response, 18851920, The transfer of power and the birth of two countries, The Janata interlude and the return of Indira Gandhi, From Rajiv to Rao: India from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, V.P. This made them more accurate and gave them a longer range. Cookie Policy Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. By the time of the chupatty movement, no more than a handful of aged India hands could remember such long-ago events as the Vellore Mutiny. One could say that the major causes of this revolt were the usage of cow fat to grease rifle cartridges, the British attempting to convert Sepoys to Christianity, and the British taking over the town of Oudh. Mangal Pandey was an Indian soldier who played an important role in incidents prior to the uprising of 1857, known by different names like the 'Indian Rebellion of 1857,' the 'Sepoy Mutiny' and 'India's First War of Independence.'. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014. KoboE. 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. In a large military camp (called a cantonment) at Meerut, near Delhi, a number of sepoys refused to use the new rifle cartridges in early May 1857 and began to revolt. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. Wild stories circulated freely in the panic-stricken atmosphere of 1857, and there were enough real massacres and murders to make almost anything seem possible. The uprising was put down, but the methods employed by the British were so harsh that many in the western world were offended. From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. Indian soldiers in the East India Company's armies believed they risked defilement because the new rounds were being issued greased with the fat of pigs and cowsuntrue, but sufficient to spark the most dangerous uprising against British imperial rule since the American Revolution. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. The grotesque executions by cannon became even became widely known in America. [20], In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regular regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The revolt of 1857 was one of the greatest & most significant developments in the history of the 19th century. 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