Mason, Philip (1974), page 225 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. To save content items to your account, Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. On May 9, 1857, some 4,000 British soldiers and sepoysnative Indian troopsformed a three-sided hollow square on the parade ground at the Meerut military cantonment, 40 miles northeast of Delhi, to witness punishment. 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. From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. Although the armies of many Rajas or states which rebelled contained large numbers of guns, the British superiority in artillery was to be decisive in the siege of Delhi after the arrival of a siege train of thirty-two howitzers and mortars. This included an increase in the taxation on land. Stbere im grten eBookstore der Welt und lies noch heute im Web, auf deinem Tablet, Telefon oder E-Reader. 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. 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. This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. This movement became much more than a military mutiny. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. The Revolt of 1857 started as a Mutiny of the sepoys. 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. [21], The Bengal Army also administered, sometimes loosely, 29 regiments of irregular horses and 42 of irregular infantry. In England, almost every child is aware that, with a smooth bored gun, no grease of any kind is required to ensure the proper loading of it, whilst with a rifle-bored piece such is necessary. So writes Mrs Peile, one of those who escaped from Delhi on 11 May 1857. This allowed different meanings an interpretations to be attributed to them, and the chapattis became an index of peoples thoughts and worries. Proceedings of the Trial of Badahur Shah. In Accounts and Papers, East Indies, Session 3 February-19 April 1859, Parliamentary Papers XVIII of 1859;William Wotherspoon Ireland. Another suggestion they put forward was to introduce a new drill, in which the cartridge was not bitten with the teeth but torn open with the hand. 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. But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. Famous For: Revolt of 1857. For instance, once the rebellion was underway, Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on 11 May 1857, he was told: "We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith." The army so far had been quipped with the smooth-barrelled musket, which had a protracted loading procedure and was not accurate over long ranges. The dramatic capture of Delhi turned mutiny into full-scale revolt. That rate was particularly disconcerting because it was vastly swifter than the fastest British mails, and urgent inquiries were made as to the source and meaning of the movement. They yielded the information that the breads were being distributed far more widely than anyone in Agra had yet realized, and that the Indians who received them generally took them as some sort of a sign. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernizing regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. rumours abounded that the Enfield cartridges were greased with animal fat. The East India Company had been active in India for nearly 250 years, but the violence of the 1857 uprising led to the British government dissolving the company and taking direct control of India. Pig was forbidden for Muslim and cow was sacred for Hindus, so both refused to use them and revolted in Meerut in May 1857. [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. Sympathetic rulers, such as Lord William Bentinck were replaced by arrogant aristocrats, such as Lord Dalhousie, who despised the troops and the populace. This incident is an important event in modern Indian history because it ignited what eventually . 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. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India - Biswamoy Pati 2010-01 The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a e~sepoy mutinye(tm). This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. Terms of Use B. The company had an unbroken series of victories in India, against the Marathas, Mysore, north Indian states, and the Gurkhas, later against the Sikhs, and further afield in China and Burma. 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. But the back of the rebellion had been broken and time gained for reinforcements to restore British superiority. Furthermore, legal changes introduced by the British were accompanied by prohibitions on Indian religious customs and were seen as steps towards forced conversion to Christianity. The cartridge had to be bitten off before loading it into the gun. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 305-306 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. From the interrogation of an official at the King of Delhis court: I did hear of the circumstance. [13] In 1851-2 sepoys who were required to serve in the Second Anglo-Burmese War also refused to embark, but were merely sent to serve elsewhere. 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 . 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. 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. 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. They later stood in Chandni Chowk, the main square, and asked the people gathered there, "Brothers, are you with those of the faith? 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. 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. Thus, long after the chapattis reached their northern-most point of Meerut, there was another northwards distribution from Cawnpore to Fattehgarh, which was widely reported in the newspapers The circulation took place along well-established routes of transmission, which followed the main trade and pilgrimage routes between the bigger cities. Some currents simply ran cold, while others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing. He is on the expert panel on weapons for several museums of Rajasthan. A number of Indians began to suspect that the British intended to convert the Indian population to Christianity. Fighting in some places continued well into 1858, but the British were ultimately able to establish control. In spite of their apparently desperate situation, the British possessed long-term advantages: they could and did receive reinforcements from Britain; they had, thanks to the resolution of Sir John Lawrence, a firm base in the Punjab, and they had another base in Bengal, where the people were quiet; they had virtually no anxiety in the south and only a little in the west; and they had an immense belief in themselves and their civilization, which gave resolution to their initial desperation. A few suggested that the chapatis might conceal seditious letters that were forwarded from village to village, read by the village chief, again crusted over with flour, and sent on in the shape of a chupatty, to be broken by the next recipient, but examination of the breads revealed no hidden messages. The Revolt of 1857-58 was the biggest and bloodiest conflict against any European colonial power during the nineteenth century. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. 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. . It is not known who first projected the plan. each other as brothers.4 So when the issue of greased cartridges arose, with fear of pollution from beef and pork, they would unite as one on the single cry of the defence of their faith or "Deen". #Mangal Pandey #1857 Revolt #Cartridges #Sepoy Mutiny The spark for the 1857 Revolt was provided by Greased Cartridges.Why Greased Cartridges triggered the R. Feature Flags: { They bore no message, and were identical to the breads cooked in every home in India, a staple part (even today) of the locals diet. Down-country operations centred on the relief of Lucknow. More disturbing to traditional sensibilities were the interventions, in the name of humanity, in the realm of Hindu custome.g., the prohibition of suttee, the campaign against infanticide, the law legalizing remarriage of Hindu widows. The British, who had nothing to do with the mysterious transmission, guessed the breads were a piece of mischief-making on the part of the Indians, though opinion was divided as to whether the breads came from the east, near Calcutta (Kolkata), from the north, in the province of Oude (Avadh) or from Indore, in the center of the country. There was also a general feeling that English officers were losing touch with the Indian troops under them. [12], There had been earlier indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company. 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. His name has become synonymous with the revolt of 1857. Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. the Sepoy Mutiny (by British Historians) 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. The immediate cause of military disaffection was the deployment of the new breech-loading Enfield rifle, the cartridge of which was purportedly greased with pork and beef fat. In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames of rebellion. 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. A keen cricketer and tennis player, he now lives in Delhi and serves as director of a few companies. [7] Several years before the sepoys' mutiny, Lord William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in western Bengal. Christian organisations from Britain had additionally created 222 "unattached" mission stations across India in the decade preceding the rebellion. 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. Some time in February 1857, a curious occurrence took place. In another, however, the appalling atrocities visited by the Companys armies on the people of northern India were far from justified, since the British proved to be just as prone to rumors and panics as their Indian subjects. Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. 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. However, nearly every sepoy was either Muslima religion that forbids eating the fat or any other part of a pig, or Hinduwhere the same rule applies to cows. The chupatty movement first came to British attention early in February 1857. 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. The enraged soldiers mutinied across a number of Indian States, taking Delhi . Find out more about saving content to Dropbox. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean (Haram) by Muslims. KoboE. 24 October 2009. The military cause was both particular and general. However much of this sense of the invincibility of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War where poor political judgment and inept British leadership led to the massacre of Elphinstone's army (which included three Bengal regiments) while retreating from Kabul. Many Indians felt that the company was asking for heavy tax from the locals. } He ordered his fellow-official to make ten more, and give two to each of the five nearest village Chowkeydars with the same instructions. 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. And where had the chowkidar got them? The British Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856 was Lord Dalhousie who passed the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 which allowed widows to remarry, like Christian women. To load the rifle, the end of the cartridge containing the powder had to be bitten off so that the charge would ignite. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. Their educational policy was a Westernizing one, with English instead of Persian as the official language; the old elites, schooled in the traditional pattern, felt themselves slighted. What are the major holidays and festivals of India? Politically, many princes of India had retired into seclusion after their final defeat in 1818. But the only evidence for either of these was the circulation from village to village of chapatis, or cakes of unleavened bread, a practice that, though it also occurred on other occasions, was known to have taken place at any time of unrest. Following the fighting of 185758, India was legally considered a colony of Britain, ruled by a viceroy. In 1824, there was another mutiny by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. https://www.thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014 (accessed March 1, 2023). 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. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. Cookie Policy Richard Barter. Post this, India was directly ruled by the British government through representatives known as Governor-General. The revolt was sparked by a number of reasons, including economic exploitation, cultural repression, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers. With this, and the aid of rebel dissensions, Delhi was stormed and captured by the British on September 20, while the emperor Bahdur Shah surrendered on promise of his life. For both Indians and British, the period was haunted with dark memories of the mutiny, and numerous measures were taken by the British raj to avoid another conflict. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. 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. The rifle's cartridges contained 68 grains of FF black powder, and the ball was typically a 530-grain Pritchett or a Burton-Mini ball. In some cases, they used an execution method of lashing a mutineer to the mouth of a cannon, and then firing the cannon and literally blasting the man to pieces. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp | READ MORE. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857-58 against the rule of the British East India Company, . Match the following: Answer: [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. There is no question that atrocities were committed by both sides, and stories of events of 185758 lived on in both Britain and India. The Sepoy Mutiny was a violent and very bloody uprising against British rule in India in 1857. I have the honour to inform you that a signal has passed through numbers of the villages in this district, the purport of which has not yet transpired. The sepoys rejected this, pointing out that they might very well forget and bite the cartridge, not surprising given the extensive drilling that allowed 19th century British and Indian troops to fire three to four rounds per minute. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. 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. Leader of the British Conservative Party and future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli argued these objects were signs to rebel and evidence of a conspiracy, and the press echoed this belief. To save content items to your account, ThoughtCo, Jul. The chapatis were real, but no one knew for sure what they were for. A man had come out of the jungle with them, and given them to the watchman with instructions to make four like them and to take these to the watchman in the next village, who was to be told to do the same.. 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. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. The powder and bullet for the new rifle were put together in a paper cartridge. All in all, the British were extremely spooked by the spread of the chapatis. Ferocity led to grave excesses on both sides, distinguishing this war in horror from other wars of the 19th century. Any British plans to reform Indian society, which had been one of the underlying causes of the revolt, were essentially set aside, and religious conversion of the Indian population was no longer viewed as a practical goal. Once the first rebellions took place, it was clear to most British commanders that the grievances which led to them were felt throughout the Bengal army and no Indian unit could wholly be trusted, although many officers continued to vouch for their men's loyalty, even in the face of captured correspondence indicating their intention to rebel. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolt, Bahadur Shah Zafar lived in Delhi as a Pensioner of the British. Mason, Philip (1974), page 264 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014. The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58, Rezensionen werden nicht berprft, Google sucht jedoch gezielt nach geflschten Inhalten und entfernt diese. British and Indian military drills of the time required soldiers to bite off the end of the Beeswax paper cartridge, pour the gunpowder contained within down the barrel, stuff the remaining paper cartridge into the barrel, ram the paper cartridge (which included the ball wrapped and tied in place) down the barrel, remove the ram-rod, return the ram-rod, bring the rifle to the ready, set the sights, add a percussion cap, present the rifle, and fire. To "the cow reverencing Hindu and the pig paranoid Muslims" having to bite this was repellent, defiling and deadly to their religious prospects. Thereafter he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Oman. And the leaders were not united, because they sought to revive former Hindu and Muslim regimes, which in their heyday had bitterly clashed. 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 Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010);Andrew Ward. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. 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. The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was doomed to fail, but the religious and cultural tensions it inflamed would ultimately topple the British raj. Muslim religion opposed pork and Hindus were against the beef so it harmed the sentiment of all the sepoys. ThoughtCo. Advertising Notice 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. Wagner concludes that the trigger for the rebellion of 1857 was thus rumour, not the actual issue, or use, of cartridges greased with animal fat; that, in any case, we simply don't know what sort of tallow was used at Gangadarh Banerji & Co.; and that - remarkable as it now seems - the truth of the matter never was established, even by the 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. [19] Thus, the Hindu soldiers viewed the Act as a potential threat to their faith. Seven Years' War: Major General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, Biography of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, 20 Facts About the Life of Mahatma Gandhi, independence movement against British rule. The mutiny and great revolt of 1857-59. The grotesque executions by cannon became even became widely known in America. Privacy Statement British officials were alarmed at the rapid distribution of mysterious Indian breads across much of the Raj, There is a most mysterious affair going on throughout the whole of India at present, Dr. Gilbert Hadow wrote in a letter to his sister in Britain in March 1857. Mutiny Memoirs of an Old Officer (London: Folio Society, 1984);Troy Downs. In contrast to their Indian predecessors, the British considered such refusals at times to be outright "mutinies" and therefore to be suppressed brutally. However, in those two years, they were not ordered to use them. Victoria added the title "Empress of India" to her royal title. There was rumor about an old prophecy that the company's rule would end after a hundred years. The Revolt of 1857, also known as the First War of Indian Independence, was a significant uprising against British colonial rule in India. Revolt Of 1857 India Causes Eects History Facts N Info 1 . A. 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. The surrender of Kanpur, after a relatively brief siege, was followed by a massacre of virtually all British citizens and loyal Indian soldiers at Kanpur. One of the first officials to encounter it was Mark Thornhill, magistrate in the little Indian town of Mathura, near Agra. Such measures were considered a valid negotiating tactic by the sepoys, likely to be repeated every time such issues arose. As mutineers were captured, they were often killed on the spot, and many were executed in dramatic fashion. The soldiers performed well on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honors in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule. He was informed that they had been brought in by one of his Indian police officers, who had received them from a puzzled village chowkidar (watchman). 2023 Smithsonian Magazine There at a stroke was an army, a cause, and a national leaderthe only Muslim who appealed to both Hindus and Muslims. (2021, July 31). In addition, the General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 required recruits to serve overseas if ordered, a challenge to the castes who composed so much of the Bengal army. (See Barrackpore Mutiny.). This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India company. Thornhill examined the chapatis in his office. In fact, it was rather the last effort of traditional India. By the 1850s the East India Company controlled much of India. Nationalist historians have seen in it the first Indian war of independence. [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. More closely linked with their men rifles the sepoys had to be bitten before... Victoria added the title `` Empress of India had retired into seclusion after their final defeat in 1818 the. While others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing final defeat in 1818 was not well in the,... Was Mark Thornhill, magistrate in the taxation on land in the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British and. Facts N Info 1, pages 305-306 `` a Matter of Honour '', London:,. For several museums of Rajasthan mutinied across a number of reasons, economic... 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