Revolt of 1857

• British expansionist policies, economic exploitation and administrative innovations over the years had adversely affected the positions of all—rulers of Indian states, sepoys, zamindars, peasants, traders, artisans, pundits, maulvis, etc.

The 1857 Revolt: the Major Causes

• Daily existence of Indian population cutting through all sections and classes

Economic Causes

• New and a highly unpopular revenue settlement - heavy taxation under new revenue settlement.
• Loans from money-lenders/traders evicting land on non-payment of debt dues.
• Older system of zamindari was forced to disintegrate.
• absence of concomitant industrialisation on modern lines that hit peasants, artisans and small zamindars
• Misery to the artisans and handicrafts people, not now afford to be patrons of the crafts workers.
• British Policy discouraged Indian handicrafts and promoted British goods.
• High tariff duties on Indian-made goods, British goods into India attracted low tariffs
• Zamindars, rights forfeited by use of a quo warranto by the administration, led to loss of status for them in the villages.
• 21,000 taluqdars had their estates confiscated.
• Lopsided development resulted in pauperisation of the country in general.

Political Causes

• Greedy policy of aggrandisement accompanied by broken pledges and promises resulted in contempt for the Company and loss of political prestige.
• Absentee sovereigntyship character of British rule - 'Effective Control', 'Subsidiary Alliance' and 'Doctrine of Lapse'.
• British interference in socio-religious affairs of Indian public.

Administrative Causes

• Rampant corruption in the Company’s administration, especially among the police, petty officials and lower law courts.

Socio-Religious Causes

• Racial overtones and a superiority complex in administrative attitude towards the native Indian.
• Activities of Christian missionaries.
• Abolition of sati, support to widow-marriage and women’s education.
• Tax mosque and temple lands.
• Religious Disabilities Act, 1856.

Influence of Outside Events

• First Afghan War (1838-42), Punjab Wars (1845-49), and the Crimean Wars (1854-56).

Discontent Among Sepoys

• Conflict with the religious beliefs and prejudices of the sepoys, interference in their religious affairs.
• Hindu of the time, crossing the seas meant loss of caste. 1856, Lord Canning’s passes General Service Enlistment Act, serve anywhere their services might be required by the government.
• Indian sepoy was equally unhappy with his emoluments compared to his British counterpart. not be given the foreign service allowance (bhatta).
• Discriminated against racially and in matters of promotion and privileges.
• Revolts in the British Indian Army—in Bengal (1764), Vellore (1806), Barrackpore (1825) and during the Afghan Wars (1838-42).

Spread of the Revolt

The Spark

• Mixing of bone dust in atta (flour) & introduce Enfield rifle.
• Grease was reportedly made of beef and pig fat - cow was sacred to the Hindus while the pig was taboo for the Muslims.

Starts at Meerut

• 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore (West Bengal), which refused to use the newly introduced Enfield rifle and broke out in mutiny in February 1857 was disbanded in March 1857.
• 34th Native Infantry, Mangal Pande. step further and fired at the sergeant major.
• April 24, ninety men of the 3rd Native Cavalry refused to accept the greased cartridges, May 9, eighty-five of them were dismissed, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.
• Very next day, on May 10, they released their imprisoned comrades, killed their officers and unfurled the banner of revolt.

Bahadur Shah as symbolic Head

• Local infantry, killed their own European officers including Simon Fraser.
• aged and powerless Bahadur Shah Zafar was proclaimed the Emperor of India.
• Delhi, centre of the Great Revolt and Bahadur Shah, its symbol.
• With this single act, the sepoys had transformed a mutiny of soldiers into a revolutionary war.
• Rebels were politically motivated & perception of the British as the common enemy.
• Bahadur Shah, after initial vacillation, wrote letters to all the chiefs and rulers of India urging them to organise a confederacy of Indian states to fight and replace the British regime.
• Entire Bengal Army soon rose in revolt which spread quickly.

Civilians Join

• North-western provinces and Awadh, rose en masse to give vent to their opposition to British rule.
• Took advantage of the revolt to destroy the money-lenders’ account books and debt records & also attacked the British-established law courts, revenue offices (tehsils), revenue records and police stations.

Storm Centres and Leaders of the Revolt

1. Delhi - Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah
• Soldiers headed by General Bakht Khan
• Court has 6 Army & 4 Civilian, totally 10.
2. Kanpur - Nana Saheb
• Son of Baji Rao II.
• Expelled the English from Kanpur.
• Sir Hugh Wheeler, commanding the station, surrendered on June 27, 1857 and killed.
3. Lucknow - Begum Hazrat Mahal.
• Her son, Birjis Qadir, administration with equally by Muslims and Hindus.
• Residency was besieged by the Indian rebels and Sir Henry was killed during the siege.
• Sir Henry Havelock and Sir James Outram to recover Lucknow met with no success, later Sir Colin Campbell help of Gorkha regiments, finally recovered by the British, but guerrilla activity continued
4. Bareilly - Khan Bahadur.
• Army of 40,000 soldiers offered resistance to the British.
5. Bihar - Kunwar Singh.
• Grudge against the British.
• Unhesitatingly joined the sepoys when they reached Arrah from Dinapore (Danapur).
6. Faizabad - Maulvi Ahmadullah.
• Stiff battle against the British troops
7. Jhansi - Rani Laxmibai
• Lord Dalhousie, refused to her adopted son to succeed throne - Doctrine of Lapse.
• ”Main apni Jhansi nahin doongi” (I shall not give away my Jhansi).
• Joined by Tantia Tope, close associate of Nana Saheb, after the loss of Kanpur.
• Marched towards Gwalior & Nana Saheb was proclaimed the New Peshwa.
• Gwalior was recaptured by the English in June 1858.
8. Shah Mal
• Organised the headmen and peasants of 84 villages (referred as chaurasi desh), marching at night from village to village, urging people to rebel against the British hegemony
• Bungalow was turned into a “hall of justice”
• July 1857, Shah Mal was killed by an English officer, Dunlap.
• Shah Mal’s body was cut into pieces and his head displayed on July 21, 1857 to terrify the public.

Suppression of the Revolt

• Lieutenant Willoughby, John Nicholson, Lieutenant Hudson of British General captured Delhi on September 20, 1857, Bahadur Shah was taken prisoner.
• One by one, all the great leaders of the revolt fell.
• Sir Hugh Wheeler & Sir Colin Campbell occupied Kanpur.
• Lucknow by Henry Lawrence, Brigadier Inglis, Henry Havelock, James Outram, Sir Colin Campbell.
• Jhansi was recaptured by Sir Hugh Rose.
• Benaras, suppressed by Colonel James Neill.
• End of 1859, British authority over India was fully re-established

Causes of Revolt Failed

• All-India participation was absent
• Eastern, southern and western parts of India remained more or less unaffected.
• Earlier uprisings brutally suppressed by the Company.
• All classes did not join
• Certain classes and groups did not join.
• Zamindars act as "break-waters to storm".
• Educated Indians viewed this revolt as backward looking, they hopes that the British would usher in an era of modernisation.
• Not participate included the Sindhia of Gwalior, the Holkar of Indore, the rulers of Patiala, Sindh and other Sikh chieftains and the Maharaja of Kashmir.
• Poor Arms and Equipment
• Very few guns and muskets.
• electric telegraph kept the commander-in-chief informed about the movements and strategy of the rebels.
• Uncoordinated and Poorly Organised
• poorly organised with no coordination or central leadership
• Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope, Kunwar Singh, Laxmibai—were no match to their British opponents in generalship
• No Unified Ideology
• Lacked a clear understanding of colonial rule
• Revolt of 1857 played an important role in bringing the Indian people together and imparting to them the consciousness of belonging to one country

Hindu-Muslim Unity Factor

• Hindu & Muslim cooperation at all levels—people, soldiers, leaders.
• Two facts stand out
1. Unity among the Hindus and the Muslims of India in this period.
2. Deep loyalty which the people felt for the Mughal Crown.
• Laxmibai had the solid support of Afghan soldiers.

Nature of the Revolt

1. Sir John Seeley - Wholly unpatriotic and selfish Sepoy Mutiny with no native leadership and no popular support.
2. Dr K. Datta - "in the main a military outbreak, which was taken advantage of by certain discontented princes and landlords, whose interests had been affected by the new political order".
3. "Never all-Indian in character, but was localised, restricted and poorly organised".
4. V.D. Savarkar - "Planned war of national independence".
5. Dr. S.N. Sen - Fight for religion but ending as a war of independence.
6. Marxist historians - "the struggle of the soldier-peasant democratic combine against foreign as well as feudal bondage".
7. R.P. Dutt - Revolt of the peasantry against foreign domination.
8. Dr Sen - Rebellion can claim a national character.
9. S.B. Chaudhuri - "the first combined attempt of many classes of people to challenge a foreign power. This is a real, if remote, approach to the freedom movement of India of a later age".

Consequences

• Changes in the system of administration and the policies of the British government.
• Act declared Queen Victoria as the sovereign of British India and provided for the appointment of a Secretary of State for India.
• Direct responsibility for the administration of the country was assumed by the British Crown and Company rule was abolished. Lord Canning as Viceroy.
• Era of annexations and expansion had ended, respect the dignity and rights of the native princes.
• Freedom of religion without interference from British officials, equal opportunities in government services.
• Idea of “division and counterpoise” - no longer depend on Indian loyalty, Indian soldiers reduced & European soldiers was increased.
• Martial’ races of Punjab, Nepal, and north-western frontier who had proved loyal to the British during the Revolt.
• Army Amalgamation Scheme, 1861 - Company’s European troops to the services of the Crown (linked-battalion).
• All higher posts in the army and the artillery departments were reserved for Europeans.
• "Conservative brand of liberalism" - England who espoused the complete non-interference in the traditional structure of Indian society.
• Indian middle classes and gave rise to modern nationalism very soon.
• British used one class/community against another unscrupulously.
• Indian economy was fully exploited without fear.
• Indian Civil Service Act of 1861.
• Complete structure of the Indian government was remodelled and based on the notion of a master race—justifying the philosophy of the ‘Whiteman’s burden’

Significance of the Revolt

• Course of the struggle for freedom
• Primitive arms which the Indians possessed were no match for the advanced weapons of the British.
• educated middle class, which was a growing section, did not believe in violence and preferred an orderly approach.