When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. Due to the need for technical specialists, the artillery units generally had a higher proportion of British personnel. The Politics of a Popular Uprising: Bundelkhand in 1857 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994);Mark Thornhill. It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that signicantly challenged imperialism in India. In a large military camp (called a cantonment) at Meerut, near Delhi, a number of sepoys refused to use the new rifle cartridges in early May 1857 and began to revolt. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. Terms of Use The Siege of Delhi. . And the leaders were not united, because they sought to revive former Hindu and Muslim regimes, which in their heyday had bitterly clashed. 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. There is no question that atrocities were committed by both sides, and stories of events of 185758 lived on in both Britain and India. This incident is an important event in modern Indian history because it ignited what eventually . The British military commander Sir James Outram thought it was a Muslim conspiracy, exploiting Hindu grievances. E. Jaiwant Paul is a man of varied interests, having authored eight other books, including Rani of Jhansi, The Story of Tea, Baji Rao, The Unforgettable Maharajas, Har Dayal: The Great Revolutionary (co-author Mrs Shubh Paul), Arms and Armour: Traditional Weapons of India, and Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. Jaiwant Paul "The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58" In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames o. Some currents simply ran cold, while others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp [1] As early as the Charter Act of 1813 Christian missionaries were encouraged to come to Bombay and Calcutta under EEIC control. By the time the British came to examine the causes of the rebellion, therefore, the chupatty movement had assumed a fresh significance. Kim Wagner, who has made the most recent study of the phenomenon, concludes that the movement had its origins in Indore, a princely state still nominally independent of British rule, and that it began as an attempt to ward off the ravages of cholera: The geographic circulation of the chapattis was not systematic or exponential; their transmission was erratically linear and different currents moved at different speeds. And the uprising became extremely violent. Along with the previously mentioned illustration in Ballou's Pictorial, numerous American newspapers published accounts of the violence in India. As mutineers were captured, they were often killed on the spot, and many were executed in dramatic fashion. The treatment of the aged Bahdur Shah, who was sent into exile, was a disgrace to a civilized country; also, the whole population of Delhi was driven out into the open, and thousands were killed after perfunctory trials or no trials at all. And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. Before Smithsonian.com, Dash authored the award-winning blog A Blast From the Past. Scottish Highlanders charge during the suppression of the rebellion of 1857. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. The revolt failed in overthrowing British Rule. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." 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. Cookie Policy When soldiers of the Bengal army mutinied in Meerut on May 10, 1857, tension had been growing for some time. His name has become synonymous with the revolt of 1857. Advertising Notice Since the batta made the difference between active service being considered munificent or burdensome, the sepoys repeatedly resented and actively opposed inconsiderate unilateral changes in pay and batta ordered by the Military Audit department. The sepoys' British officers dismissed these claims as rumors and suggested that the sepoys make a batch of fresh cartridges, using a religiously acceptable greasing agent such as ghee or vegetable oil. Government was ostentatiously neutral, but Hindu society was inclined to regard the missionaries as eroding Hindu society without openly interfering. The Bengal army of some 130,000 Indian troops may have contained as many as 40,000 Brahmans as well as many Rajputs. As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." This allowed different meanings an interpretations to be attributed to them, and the chapattis became an index of peoples thoughts and worries. With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. 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. The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. Loading the Enfield often required tearing open the greased cartridge with one's teeth, and many sepoys believed that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 226-228 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. 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. 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. 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. The Personal Adventures and Experiences of a Magistrate During the Rise, Progression and Suppression of the Indian Mutiny (London: John Murray, 1884);Kim A. Wagner. 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). (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. [9], Until the 1840s there had been a widespread belief amongst the Bengal sepoys in the Iqbal or continued good fortune of the East India Company. He also resumed the practice of tax-free lands in some areas. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. It was against this backdrop of uneasiness in which the mutiny erupted in 1857. Queen Victoria, at the prompting of Benjamin Disraeli, announced to Parliament that her Indian subjects were "happy under My rule and loyal to My throne.". B. The Revolt ended the rule of the English East India Company. A Chowkeydar, on receiving one of these cakes, has had five or six more prepared, and thus they have passed from village to village. An idea has been industriously circulated that the Government has given the order. Some time in February 1857, a curious occurrence took place. 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. 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. Thornhill came into his office one morning to find four dirty little cakes of the coarsest flour, about the size and thickness of a biscuit lying on his desk. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, sepoys tended to take great pride in their military prowess, and they exhibited enormous loyalty to their British officers. The magistrates tried to stop it, but, in spite of all they could do, it passed along to the borders of the Punjab. "[26] Their rule in India had begun with the Battle of Plassey in 1757. 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. 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). The British had accentuated caste consciousness by careful regulations, had allowed discipline to grow lax, and had failed to maintain understanding between British officers and their men. 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. Has data issue: true Such measures were considered a valid negotiating tactic by the sepoys, likely to be repeated every time such issues arose. Eleven of the sepoys were executed and hundreds more sentenced to hard labor. Some of the more knowledgeable British officials linked the spread of the chapatis to an effort to prevent the outbreak of cholera in central India and added that, since incidence of the disease was associated with the movement of the Companys armies, there was a widespread belief that the British were in fact responsible for the disease. Another official suggested that the chupatty movement had been initiated somewhere in central India by dyers, anxious that their dyes were not clearing properly, or were the product of some spellwork aimed at protecting crops against hail. The rifling inside the musket barrel ensured accuracy at much greater distances than was possible with old muskets. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. I had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the object. On March 29, 1857, on the parade ground at Barrackpore, a sepoy named Mangal Pandey fired the first shot of the uprising. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine 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. McNamara, Robert. Rich people like the merchants and moneylenders were, therefore, able to speculate in British land sales and drive out the most vulnerable peasant farmers. 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. History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. 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. But the back of the rebellion had been broken and time gained for reinforcements to restore British superiority. All of the Bengal Native Cavalry regiments and 45 of the infantry units rebelled at some point. 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