Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. The ratio of British to Indian troops was fixed at roughly 1:2 instead of 1:5one British and two Indian battalions were formed into brigades so that no sizable station should be without British troops. The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge. To "the cow reverencing Hindu and the pig paranoid Muslims" having to bite this was repellent, defiling and deadly to their religious prospects. The first sepoy who rebelled by aiming his loaded weapon at a British officer was Mangal Pandey who was later executed.[25]. In contrast, foreign Christians such as Revd Midgeley, John Jennings, and Indian converts to Christianity such as one of Zafar's personal physicians, Dr. Chaman Lal, were killed. In sum, this combination of factors produced, besides the normal tensions endemic in India, an uneasy, fearful, suspicious, and resentful frame of mind and a wind of unrest ready to fan the flame of any actual physical outbreak. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. Along with the previously mentioned illustration in Ballou's Pictorial, numerous American newspapers published accounts of the violence in India. 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. Fighting in some places continued well into 1858, but the British were ultimately able to establish control. Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. Kanpur 24 October 2009. Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). Measures of prevention of future crises naturally began with the army, which was completely reorganized. A. Lands were confiscated from the landlords and auctioned. This allowed different meanings an interpretations to be attributed to them, and the chapattis became an index of peoples thoughts and worries. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010);Andrew Ward. Advertising Notice "useRatesEcommerce": false It is however also possible to enclose within the paper container the bullet as well as the powder and the cartridge then becomes a balled cartridge. The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal Sepoy regiment of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the Sepoy as a breach of faith by the company. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally. [6]. The chupatty movement first came to British attention early in February 1857. Your Privacy Rights 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. The grotesque executions by cannon became even became widely known in America. "[4] Those European men and women who had previously converted to Islam such as Sergeant-Major Gordon, and Abdullah Beg, a former Company soldier, were spared. 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. The revolt of 1857 was one of the greatest & most significant developments in the history of the 19th century. Pandey rebelled by shooting a British sergeant-major and a lieutenant. The signal spread in all directions with wonderful celerity. Ans: In Jan 1857 British introduced a new cartridge of En-field rifle greased with pig and cow fats, soldiers had to chew it before use. 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. The resumption of tax-free land and confiscation of jagirs (the grant or right to locally control land revenue) caused discontent among the jagirdars and zamindars. Match the following: Answer: [22], The Bengal Army also contained three "European" regiments of infantry and many artillery units manned by white personnel. Politically, many princes of India had retired into seclusion after their final defeat in 1818. In the event, the chapattis were not harbingers of a coming storm. They were what people made them into, and the significance attributed to them was a symptom of the pervasive distrust and general consternation amongst the Indian population during the early months of 1857. Coconuts had passed at great speed from village to village in central India in 1818, at a time when the mofussil was being ravaged by large bands of merciless looters known as the Pindaris. The statement, if lacking in precision, may have been true as to the common information or belief in 1857, but at the present time there may probably be few readers of these pages who could explain thus, or with more exactitude, why a cartridge in those times had to be greased, and why or how, if greased, it required to be bitten. The uprising was officially declared over on July 8, 1859. 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. 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. To load both the old musket and the new rifle, soldiers had to bite the cartridge open and pour the gunpowder it contained into the rifle's muzzle, then stuff the paper cartridge (overlaid with a thin mixture of beeswax and mutton tallow for waterproofing) into the musket as wadding, the ball being secured to the top of the cartridge and guided into place for ramming down the muzzle. One thing did not change in this new weapon the loading process, which did not improve significantly until the introduction of breech loaders and metallic, one-piece cartridges a few decades later. Thereafter he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Oman. The greased cartridge - what was it all about? The campaign then settled down to British attempts to take Delhi and relieve Lucknow. There has been much controversy over its nature and causes. [20], In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regular regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. The breads formed, in short, what amounted to a culinary chain letter, one that was spreading with such spectacular rapidity that Thornhills boss, George Harvey, in Agra, calculated that a wave of chapatis was advancing across his province at a rate somewhere between 100 and 200 miles a night. It was no secret that the Companys armies had been making preparations for the introduction of a new sort of ammunition for a new model of Enfield rifle. Narasimha Rao, The BJP becomes the largest party in the Lok Sabha, BJP reelection bids and tensions in Kashmir, Addressing COVID-19 and its economic impact. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Mopping-up operations followed, lasting until the British capture of rebel leader Tantia Topi in April 1859. was the rumour that the newly issued rie cartridges would be greased either with tallow, derived from beef and thereby oensive to Hindus, or lard, derived from pork and thereby oensive to Muslims. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. 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. The greased cartridges thus posed precisely the same threat to observant sepoys as would flour adulterated with the blood of pigs and cows, and though the British recognized the problem early on, and never issued a single greased cartridge to any Indian troops, fear that the Company was plotting to defile them took hold among the men of many Indian regiments and resulted in the outbreak of rebellion in the cantonment of Meerut in April 1857. To facilitate its passage, the cartridges were greased with tallow, which, in the U.K., was made of beef and pork fat. This event and Pandey's subsequent punishment led to more resentment among the sepoys of the Bengal Army ultimately aiding in the Revolt of 1857.. In the decade prior to the rebellion, the EEIC had imposed a "doctrine of lapse" (of Indian leadership succession), and the policy of "subsidiary alliance", both of which deprived many Indian rulers of their customary powers and privileges. ThoughtCo. Match the Country with Its Hemisphere Quiz, Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi. The revolt was sparked by a number of reasons, including economic exploitation, cultural repression, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers. The system was subject to abuse, and the company used it to annex territories in a questionable manner. Partly owing to this, Bengal sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the European soldiers. 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. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. Yet discreet inquiries soon revealed that many hundreds of chapatis were passing through his district, and through other parts of India as welleverywhere from the Narmada river in the south to the border with Nepal several hundred miles to the north. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-58 (London, 3 vols. 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. The mysterious appearance of chapatisloaves of an Indian unleavened breadspooked the British administrators of the Raj shortly before the outbreak of rebellion in 1857. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. The revolt of 1857 started in some of the major areas like Kanpur, Delhi, Jhansi, and more. 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. As John Kaye wrote a few years later: Among other wild fables, which took firm hold of the popular mind, was one to the effect that the Companys officers had collected all the newly-manufactured salt, had divided it into two great heaps, and over one had sprinkled the blood of hogs, and over the other the blood of cows; that they had then sent it to be sold throughout the country of the pollution and desecration of the Mahommedans and Hindoos, that all might be brought to one caste and to one religion like the English. Scottish Highlanders charge during the suppression of the rebellion of 1857. Numerous explanations were considered. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. What are the oldest known civilizations of India? "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. They shot the British officers and made for Delhi, 40 miles (65 km) distant, where there were no British troops. From Delhi the revolt spread in June to Kanpur (Cawnpore) and Lucknow. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. All the people in the palace wondered what it could mean. Further, the British were becoming increasingly hostile toward traditional survivals and contemptuous of most things Indian. Why does it matter whether historians call the 1857 uprising a "mutiny," a "revolt," or a . Mason, Philip (1974), page 190 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. The mutiny and great revolt of 1857-59. 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). Following the disarming and disbandment of an additional seventeen Bengal Native Infantry regiments, which were suspected of planning mutiny, only twelve survived to serve in the new post-mutiny army. I had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the object. A New Type of Rifle Cartridge Caused Problems, The Indian Revolt of 1857 Brought the End of the East India Company. 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. Is the sending of such articles about the country a custom among the Hindoos or Mussulmans; and would the meaning be at once understood without any accompanying explanation? Prior to the outbreak of the Revolt, Bahadur Shah Zafar lived in Delhi as a Pensioner of the British. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. He survived and was put on trial and hanged on April 8, 1857. It is not surprising that one of the many subsidiary rumors that accompanied the chupatty movement was that the breads were being carried and distributed, the eventual trial of the King of Delhi noted, by the hands of the very lowest caste men that can be found; and the natives say that it is intended by Government to force or bribe the headmen to eat the bread, and thus loose their caste. Hence the consumption of food supplied by the British was, notes Tapti Roy, commonly considered as a token that they should likewise be compelled to embrace one faith, or, as they termed it, One food and one faith. . There at a stroke was an army, a cause, and a national leaderthe only Muslim who appealed to both Hindus and Muslims. With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. They later stood in Chandni Chowk, the main square, and asked the people gathered there, "Brothers, are you with those of the faith? Certain actions of the government, such as increased recruitment of Sikhs and Gurkhas, peoples considered by the Bengal sepoys to be inferior in caste to them, increased the distrust of the sepoys who thought that this was a sign of their services not being needed any more. Cookie Policy By the time the British came to examine the causes of the rebellion, therefore, the chupatty movement had assumed a fresh significance. The next phase was the central Indian campaign of Sir Hugh Rose. [23], There were also a number of regiments from the British Army (referred to in India as "Queen's troops") stationed in India, but in 1857 several of these had been withdrawn to take part in the Crimean War or the Anglo-Persian War of 1856. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. It was against this backdrop of uneasiness in which the mutiny erupted in 1857. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857-58 against the rule of the British East India Company, . Pandey, it should be noted, is considered a hero in India, and has been portrayed as a freedom fighter in films and even on an Indian postage stamp. } This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored diversities of the Great Rebellion Rich people like the merchants and moneylenders were, therefore, able to speculate in British land sales and drive out the most vulnerable peasant farmers. By origin, a cartridge is a container, usually of paper, designed to hold enough powder for one discharge of the weapon. In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames of rebellion. There was also a general feeling that English officers were losing touch with the Indian troops under them. It was generally believed, in retrospect, that the circulation of the breads had been a warning of trouble ahead, and that the wave of chapatis must have been set in motion by a cunning group of determined conspirators who had begun plotting the rising months, if not years, in advance. 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. A private company which first entered India to trade in the 1600s, the East India Company had eventually transformed into a diplomatic and military operation. 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