1.

THE REVOLT OF 1857

POLITICAL CAUSES

ADMINISTRATIVE CAUSES

SOCIO-RELIGIOUS CAUSES

INFLUENCE OF OUTSIDE EVENTS

DISCONTENT AMONG SEPOYS

STORM CENTRES AND LEADERS OF THE REVOLT

SUPPRESSION OF REVOLT

CAUSES OF FAILURE OF REVOLT

CONSEQUENCES

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INTRODUCTION

The causes of the revolt emerged from all aspects— socio-cultural, economic and political through all
sections and classes. These causes are discussed below.
ECONOMIC CAUSES
Destroyed the traditional economic fabric of the Indian society.
Imposed the new and a highly unpopular revenue settlement
Impoverished by heavy taxation,
Misery to the artisans and handicraftsmen. The takeover of Indian states by the Company cut off their
major source of patronage.
Discouraged Indian handicrafts and promoted British goods.
Highly skilled Indian craftsmen forced to look for alternate sources of employment that hardly existed,
as the destruction of Indian handicrafts was not accompanied by the development of modern
industries.

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Karl Marx remarked in 1853: "It was the British intruder who broke up the Indian
handloom and destroyed the spinning-wheel.
England began with depriving the Indian cottons from the European market; it then
introduced twist into Hindustan and in the end inundated the very mother country of
cotton with cottons.
Zamindars, saw land rights forfeited with frequent use of a quo warranto by the
administration.
Awadh, the storm center of the revolt, 21,000 taluqdars had their estates confiscated and
"unable to work, ashamed to beg, condemned to penury".
The ruination of Indian industry increased the pressure on agriculture and land.

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POLITICAL CAUSES

Materialistic policy of exaggeration broken pledges and oaths resulted in loss of political prestige,
on the one hand, and caused suspicion in the minds of almost all ruling princes in India,
On the other, through such policies as of 'Effective Control', 'Subsidiary Alliance' and 'Doctrine
of Lapse'.
House of Mughals was humbled when on Prince Faqiruddin's death in 1856, whose succession
had been recognized conditionally by Lord Dalhousie. Lord Canning announced that the next
prince on succession would have to reject the royal title and the ancestral Mughal palaces, in
addition to renunciations agreed upon by Prince Faqiruddin.
Collapse of rulers—the erstwhile aristocracy—also adversely affected sections of the Indian society
which derived their sustenance from cultural and religious pursuits.

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ADMINISTRATIVE CAUSES

Widespread corruption in the Company's administration, especially among the police, petty
officials and lower law courts, and the absentee sovereigntyship character of British rule
imparted a foreign and alien look in the eyes of Indians.

SOCIO-RELIGIOUS CAUSES

Racial implications and a superiority complex characterized the British administrative attitude
towards the native Indian population.

The activities of Christian missionaries followed the British flag in India were looked upon with
suspicion by Indians.

The attempts at socio- religious reform such as abolition of sati, support to widow-remarriage and
women's education were seen by a large section of the population as interference in the social and
religious domains of Indian society by outsiders.

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 These fears further compounded by the Government's decision to tax mosque and temple lands
and legislative measures, such as the Religious Disabilities Act, 1856, which modified Hindu
customs, for instance declaring that a change of religion did not debar a son from inheriting
the property of his heathen father.

INFLUENCE OF OUTSIDE EVENTS

The revolt of 1857 coincided with certain outside events in which the British suffered serious
losses—
The First Afghan War(1838-42),
Punjab Wars (1845-49),
Crimean Wars (1854-56),
Santhal rebellion (1855-57).
These had obvious psychological repercussions.
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DISCONTENT AMONG SEPOYS

Restrictions on wearing caste and sectarian marks and secret rumors of preaching activities of
chaplains (often maintained on the Company's expenses) were interpreted by Indian sepoys, who
were generally conservative by nature, as interference in their religious affairs.
To the religious Hindu of the time, crossing the seas meant loss of caste.

In 1856 Lord Canning's Government passed the General Service Enlistment Act which decreed
that all future recruits to the Bengal Army would have to give an undertaking to serve anywhere
their services might be required by the Government. This caused resentment.

The Indian sepoy was equally unhappy with his emoluments compared to
his British counterpart. A more immediatecause of the sepoys' dissatisfaction
was the order that they would not be given the foreign service allowance
(Matta) when serving in Sindh or in Punjab. The annexation of Awadh,
home of many of the sepoys, further inflamed their feelings.

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The Indian sepoy discriminated against racially and in matters of promotion and privileges.
The discontent of the sepoys was not limited to matters military;
It reflected the general disenchantment with and opposition to British rule.
The sepoy, in fact, was a 'peasant in uniform' whose consciousness was not divorced from that of
the rural population.
"The Army voiced grievances other than its own; and the movement spread beyond the Army".

Finally, there had been a long history of revolts in the British Indian Army—in Bengal
(1764), Vellore (1806), Barrackpore (1825) and during the Afghan Wars (1838-42) to
mention just a few.

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BEGINNING AND SPREAD

The mixing of bone dust in flour and the introduction of the Enfield rifle enhanced the sepoys'
growing disaffection with the Government.
The cartridge of the new rifle bitten off before loading and the grease made of beef and pig fan.
Administration did nothing to allay these fears, and the sepoys felt their religion was in grave
danger.
The revolt began at Meerut, gathering force rapidly, vast area from the Punjab in the north and
the Narmada in the south to Bihar in the east and Rajputana in the west.
Even before the Meerut incident, there were rumblings resentment in various cantonments.
19th Native Infantry at Berhampur, which refused to use the newly introduced Enfield rifle and
broke out in mutiny in February 1857 was disbanded in March 1857.
A young sepoy of the 34th Native Infantry, Mangal Pande, went a step further and firedat the
sergeant major of his unit at Barrackpore.

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The 7th Awadh Regiment which defied its officers met with a similar fate.
Ninety men of 3rd Native Cavalry refused to accept the greased cartridges.
Eighty-five of them were dismissed, sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and put in fetters.
This sparked off a general mutiny among the Indian soldiers stationed at Meerut.
The very next day, they released their imprisoned comrades, killed their officers and unfurled
the banner of revolt.
In Delhi, the local infantry joined them, killed their own European officers including Simon
Fraser, the political agent,and seized the city.
Lieutenant Willoughby, the officer-in charge of the magazine at Delhi, offered some resistance,
but was overcome.

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The aged and powerless Bahadur Shah Zafar was proclaimed the emperor of India.
Delhi was soon to become the centre of the Great Revolt and Bahadur Shah, its symbol.
This spontaneous raising of the last Mughal king to the leadership of the country was a
recognition of the fact that the long reign of Mughal dynasty had become the traditional symbol
of India's political unity.
With this single act, the sepoys had transformed a mutiny of soldiers into a revolutionary war,
while all Indian chiefs who took part in the revolt hastened to proclaim their loyalty to the
Mughal emperor.
Bahadur Shah, after initial vacillation, wrote letters to all the chiefs and rulers of India urging them
to organize a confederacy of Indian states to fight and replace the British regime.
Entire Bengal Army soon rose in revolt which spread quickly. Awadh, Rohilkhand, the Doab, the
Bundelkhand, central India, large parts of Bihar and East Punjab shook off British authority.

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 The peasants and petty zamindars gave free expression to grievances by attacking the
moneylenders and zamindars who displaced them from the land.
Took advantage of the revolt to destroy the moneylenders' account books and debt records also
attacked the British-established law courts, revenue offices (tehsils), revenue records and police
stations.

According to one estimate, of the total number of about 1,50,000 men who died fighting
the English in Awadh, over 1,00,000 were civilians.

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STORM CENTRES AND LEADERS OF THE REVOLT

At Delhi, the nominal and symbolic leadership belonged to the Mughal emperor,
Bahadur Shah, the real command lay with a court of soldiers headed by General Bakht Khan
who had led the revolt of Bareilly troops and brought them to Delhi. The court consisted of
ten members, six from the army and four from the civilian departments.

Emperor Bahadur Shah was perhaps the weakest link in the chain of leadership of the revolt.
His weak personality, old age and lack of leadership qualities created political weakness at the
nerve centre of the revolt and did incalculable damage to it.

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At Kanpur, Nana Saheb, the adopted son of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II. Refused the family
title and, banished from Poona,
Nana Saheb expelled the English from Kanpur, proclaimed himself the Peshwa, acknowledged
Bahadur Shah as the emperor of India and declared himself to be his governor.
Sir Hugh Wheeler, commanding the station, surrendered on June 27, 1857

Begum Hazrat Mahal took over the reigns at Lucknow and popular sympathy was
overwhelmingly in favour of the deposed Nawab.
Her son, Birjis Qadir, was proclaimed the Nawab and a regular administration was organized
with important offices shared equally by Muslims and Hindus.

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Henry Lawrence, the British resident, the European inhabitants and a few hundred loyal sepoys
took shelter in the residency.
The residency was besieged by the Indian rebels and Sir Henry was killed during the siege. The
command of the besieged garrison devolved on Brigadier Inglis who held out against heavy
odds.
The early attempts of Sir Henry Havelock and Sir James Outrarn to recover Lucknow met with
no success.
Finally, Sir Colin Campbell, the new commander-in-chief, evacuated the Europeans with the
help of Gorkha regiments.
In March 1858, the city was finally recovered by the British, but guerrilla activity continued till
September of the same year.

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In Bihar, the revolt was led by Kunwar Singh, the zamindar of Jagdishpur.
An old man in his seventies, he nursed a grudge against the British who had deprived him
of his estates.
He unhesitatingly joined the sepoys when they reached Arrah from Dinapore.

The most outstanding leader of the revolt was Rani Laxmibai, who assumed
the leadership of the sepoys at Jhansi.
Lord Dalhousie, the governor- general, had refused to allow her adopted son
to succeed to the throne after her husband Raja Ganbadhar Rao died, and
had annexed the state by the application of the infamous 'Doctrine of Lapse'.

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Driven out of Jhansi by British forces, she gave the battle cry—"main apni Jhansi nahi
doongi" (I shall not give away my Jhansi).
She was joined by Tantia Tope, a close associate of Nana Saheb, after the loss of Kanpur.
Rani of Jhansi and Tantia Tope marched towards Gwalior where they were hailed by the
Indian soldiers.
The Scindhia, the local ruler, however, decided to side with the English and took shelter at
Agra. Nana Saheb was proclaimed the Peshwa and plans were chalked out for a march into
the south.
Gwalior was recaptured by the English in June 1858.

For more than a year the rebels carried on their struggle against heavy odds

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CAUSES OF FAILURE OF REVOLT

Limited territorial spread was one factor; there was no all-India covering about the revolt.
The eastern, southern and western parts of India remained more or less unaffected.
Modern educated Indians viewed this revolt as backward looking, and mistakenly hoped the
British would usher in an era of modernisation.

The Indian soldiers were poorly equipped materially, fighting generally with swords and spears
and very few guns and muskets.
On the other hand, the European soldiers were equipped with the latest weapons of war like the
Enfield rifle.

In fact, the revolt of 1857 played an important role in bringing the Indian people
together and imparting to them the consciousness of belonging to one country.

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CONSEQUENCES

The revolt of 1857 marks a turning point in the history of India. It led to changes in the
system of administration and the policy of the Government.

The direct responsibility for the administration of the country was assumed by the British
Crown and Company rule was abolished. The assumption of the Government of India by the
sovereign of Great Britain was announced by Lord Canning at a durbar at Allahabad in the
‘Queen’s Proclamation’ issued on November 1, 1858.

The era of annexations and expansion ended and the British promised to respect the dignity and
rights of the native princes.

The Indian states were henceforth to recognise the paramountcy of the British Crown and
were to be treated as parts of a single charge.

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