Indian Rebellion of 1857:
In this series we try to give a comprehensive study of “Revolt of 1857”.
Our first post is about “Causes Of The Indian Rebellion Of 1857”
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company’s army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region.The rebellion posed a considerable threat to Company power in that region and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858. The rebellion is also known as the India’s First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion, and the Sepoy Mutiny.
Causes Of The Indian Rebellion Of 1857:
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred as the result of an accumulation of factors over time, rather than any single event.
The sepoys were local soldiers, the majority Hindu or Muslim, that were recruited into the Company’s army. Just before the Rebellion there were over 200,000 sepoys in the army, compared to about 50,000 British. The forces were divided into three presidency armies: Bombay, Madras, and Bengal. The Bengal Army recruited higher castes, such as “Rajputs and Brahmins”, mostly from the Awadh (near Lucknow) and Bihar regions and even restricted the enlistment of lower castes in 1855. In contrast, the Madras Army and Bombay Army were “more localized, caste-neutral armies” that “did not prefer high-caste men."The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for initial mutinies that led to the rebellion. In fact, the role of castes had become so important that men were no longer "selected on account of the most important qualities in a soldier, i.e., physical fitness, willingness and strength, docility and courage, but because he belonged to a certain caste or sect”.
In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed India’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 Brahmins of Awadh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years.
It has been suggested that after the annexation of Oudh 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.Others have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers, reading 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.
Financial grievance stemmed from the general service act, which denied retired sepoys a pension. Also the Bengal Army was paid less than the Madras and Bombay Armies, which compounded the fears over pensions.
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. Men of the Bengal Army had been exempted from overseas service. There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority. This, as well as the increasing number of European officers in the battalions,made promotion a slow progress, and many Indian officers did not reach commissioned rank until they were too old to be effective.
Tallow-greased cartridges:
The final spark was provided by the ammunition for new Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle.These rifles had a tighter fit, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.The grease used on these cartridges included tallow derived from beef; which was offensive to Hindus,or lard derived from pork; which was offensive to Muslims. In August 1856, greased cartridge production was initiated at Fort William, Calcutta, following a British design.The Indians were therefore convinced that the British had desire of degrading the Indian religions
Civilian disquiet:
The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three groups: the feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which refused to recognize the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the Company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group;In other areas of central India, such as Indore and Sagar, where such loss of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the Company even in areas where the sepoys had rebelled.The second group, the taluqdars, had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom joined the rebellion, to the great dismay of the British.It has also been suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the Company, were particular objects of the rebels’ animosity.The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control.
The company had annexed several states under the Doctrine of Lapse, according to which land belonging to a feudal ruler became the property of the East India Company if on his death, the ruler did not leave a male heir through natural process. Such discourtesies were resented by the deposed Indian rulers.
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References:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857
2.http://www.preservearticles.com/201012271730/causes-of-revolt-of-1857-in-india.html
3.http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A5%A7%E0%A5%AE%E0%A5%AB%E0%A5%AD_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%AE_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AE