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This article should be merged with Indian Mutiny, and replaced by Indian rebellion of 1857 as par vote on discussion page - See the discussion thread for more
The War of Independence of 1857 also known as the Sepoy Mutiny and Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857 to the British and The First War Of Indian Independence to the Indians was a period of armed uprising and rebellions in northern and central India against the British rule during 1857-1859. It was the first ever united struggle against colonial rule in India.
The telling of the history of the rebellion is, to this day, an ongoing battle between two competing narratives, the history claimed by the British that won the war, and the history claimed by the Indians who were defeated.
The British East India Company won the powers of Diwani in the Bengal after winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Their victory in the Battle of Buxar in 1764 won them the Nizamat of Bengal as well. After this the British East India Company started to expand its area of control in India.
In 1845 the British East India Company extended control over Sindh province. In 1848 the Second Sikh War took place and the British East India Company gained control of the Punjab as well. In 1853 the leader of the Marathas the Nana Sahib was denied his titles and his pension was stopped. In 1854 Berar was annexed into the Company's domains. In 1856 the state of Awadh/Oudh was also annexed by the British East India Company. Bahadur Shah Zafar was told that he would be the last Emperor and the Moghul Empire would end after him.
Sepoys were native Indian soldiers serving in the army of the East India Company under British NCOs and officers trained in the company's own military school in England. The presidencies of Bombay, Madras and Bengal maintained their own army each with its own commander-in-chief. They fielded more troops than the official army of the British Empire. In 1857 there were 257,000 sepoys.
The rebellion had an overwhelming amount of religious, social, political and economic causes. The Sepoys had their own list of grievances against the Company Raj, mainly caused by the ethnic gulf between the British and the Indians.
Due to missionary activity the Indians came to believe that the British intended to convert them to Christianity. In addition, the Company also recruited Indians of other castes than the Brahman and Rajputs; the latter is a traditional warrior caste in India. In 1856 sepoys were required to serve overseas which, to them, would have meant the loss of caste.
Indians were dissatisfied with the heavy-handed rule of the British East India Company who had embarked on a project of rather rapid westernization. This included the outlawing of many customs and religious rites of both Muslims and Hindus which caused outrage amongst the Indian populations.
The jewels of the royal family of Nagpur were publicly auctioned in Calcutta, a move that was seen as a sign of abject disrespect by the Indians.
It was repeatedly said that the justice system was unfair to the Indians. The official Blue Books -- entitled "East India (Torture) 1855-57"-- that were laid before the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857 revealed that British officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians.
If a landowner did not leave a male heir, the land became the property of the Company via the Doctrine of lapse carried out by Governor-General of India Dalhousie and his successor, Lord Canning. This applied to feudal lands as well as to the states.
The land was reorganised under the comparatively harsh Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes. In certain areas farmers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and tea. This resulted in hardship to the farmers and increases in food prices.
The British rule in India was unfair to the local industry which was subjected to much heavier tariffs than its British counterparts. So the local products sued to cost more than the products imported from Britain and hence lost their competitive edge in the market.
The Indians felt that the British were levying very heavy taxation on the locals. This included an increase in the taxation on land.
The sepoys were dissatisfied with various aspects of army life. Their pay was relatively low and after the British troops conquered Awadh and the Punjab, the soldiers no longer received extra pay for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions".
The British policy of expansionism was also greatly disliked by the Indians. In eight years James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie the Governor-General of India had annexed over 250,000 square miles of land to the British East India Company's territory.
The Sepoy soldiers found themselves constantly pitted against their countrymen in an army governed by what common soldiers came to feel were outside influences. In a colonial setting, this is the prime breeding ground for a conflagration.
The Pattern 1853 Enfield (P/53) rifle was introduced into India. Its cartridge was covered by a greased membrane which was supposed to be cut by the teeth before the cartridges were loaded into the rifles. There was a rumour that the membrane was greased by cow or pig fat. This was offensive to Hindu and Muslim soldiers, who considered tasting beef and pork to be against their respective religious tenets. The British claimed that they had replaced the cartridges with new ones not made from cow and pig fat but the rumour persisted. The Commander in Chief in India, General the Honourable George Anson reacted to this crises by saying that "I'll never give in to their beastly prejudices" and despite the pleas of his junior officers he did not compromise.
Prior to the events at Meerut there had been other events but they failed to cause as big a conflagration as that at Meerut. Fires broke out near Calcutta on the 22nd of January. On the 25th of February the 19th regiment mutinied at Behrampore and the regiment allowed one of its men to advance with a loaded musket upon the parade-ground in front of a line and open fire on his superior officer; a battle ensued. On the 31st of March the 34th Regiment rebelled at Barrackpore. April saw fires at Agra, Allahabad and Ambala.
In March 1857 a sepoy Mangal Pande of the 34th Native Infantry attacked his British sergeat and an adjutant. General Hearsay ordered a jemadar to arrest him but the jemadar refused. He was captured and along with the jemadar was hanged on the 7th of April. The whole regiment was dismissed as a collective punishment and because it was felt that they will harbour feelings against their superiors after this incident. The other sepoys thought of this as harsh punishment.
On the 9th of May 85 troopers of the 3rd Light Cavalry at Meeruth refused to use their cartridges. They were imprisoned, sentenced to ten years of hard labor, and stripped of their uniforms in public. It has been said that the town prostitutes made fun of the manhood of the sepoys during the night and this is what goaded them.
On the 10th of May when the 11th and 20th cavalry assembled they broke rank and turned on their commanding officers. They then liberated the 3rd Regiment. The rebelling forces were then engaged by the remaining British forces in Meerut. Meerut had the largest percentage of British troops of every station in India 2,038 European troops versus 2,357 sepoys. The British side even had 12 field guns while the sepoys lacked an artillery. The British forces could have stopped the sepoys from marching on Delhi.
On the 11th of May they reached Delhi. They were joined by other Indians from the local bazaar. Here they attacked and captured the Red Fort (Lal Qila) which was the residence of Bahadur Shah Zafar. The sepoys demanded that he reclaim his throne. At first he was reluctant but eventually he agreed to the demands and became the leader of the rebellion
The Indian side was not completely unified in their purpose. While the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was restored to the imperial throne there was a faction that wanted the Marhatta rulers to be enthroned as well. Apart from this the Awadhis wanted to retain the powers that their Nawab used to have.
The war was mainly centred in northern and central areas of India. Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Jhansi and Bareilly were the main centres of the war. The Marhattas, Rohillas and the Awadhis supported Bahadur Shah Zafar and were against the British.
There were calls for Jihad by some leaders including the millennarian Ahmedullah Shah. This caused a strong response by the muslims. This response caused the British to think that the Muslims were the main force behind this event.
Many Indians supported the British and these very forces were crucial to the British reconquest of the independent areas. The Sikhs and Pathans of the Punjab and NWFP supported the British and helped in the capture of Delhi. The Gurkhas of Nepal supported kept supporting the British as well.
Most of southern India remained passive with only sporadic and haphazard outbreaks of violence. Most of the states did not take part in the war but by doing this they kept away from the cause of the Indian side a grievance still aires by some South Asians.
Bahadur Shah Zafar proclaimed himself the Emperor of the whole of India. The civilians, nobility and other dignitaries took the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. The Emperor issued coins in his name (In India this the way of asserting your Imperial status) and his name was added to the Khutbah (The acceptance by Muslims that he is their King).
Initially, the Indian soldiers were able to push back the British forces. This gave a boost to the War of Independence. The Indian army captured the important towns in Harayana, Bihar, Central Provinces and the United Provinces. The British forces at Meerut and Ambala held out resolutely and held back the Indian Army for several months.
The British proved to be a formidably foe. They had the superior weapons and much better training and strategy. The freedom fighters lacked all of these things. Most of all they lacked a centralized command and control system.
Rao Tularam of Hariana went to collect arms from Russia which had just been in a war with the British at the Crimea, but he died on the way.
The British were slow to strike back at first but eventually two columns left Meerut and Simla. They proceeded slowly towards Delhi and fought, killed, and hanged numerous Indians along the way. At the same time, the British moved regiments from the Crimean War, and diverted European regiments headed for China to India.
After a march lasting two months, the British fought the main army of the rebels near Delhi in Badl-ke-Serai and drove them back to Delhi. The British established a base on the Delhi ridge to the north of the city and the siege began. The siege of Dehli lasted roughly from July 1st to August 31st. However the encirclement was hardly complete?the rebels could easily receive resources and reinforcements. Later the British were joined by the Punjab Movable Column of Sikh soldiers and elements of Gurkha Brigade.
Eagerly-awaited heavy siege guns did not guarantee an easy victory against numerical superiority of the sepoys. Eventually the British broke through the Kashmiri gate and began a week of street fighting. The Sikh troops left after the death of their commander. When the British reached the Red Fort, Bahadur Shah had already fled to Humayun's tomb. The British had retaken the city.
The British followed by looting and pillaging the city. A large number of the citizens were slaughtered to avenge the Europeans killed by the Indians. Artillery was set up in the main mosque in the city and the neighbourhoods within the range of artillery were shot down. These were the homes of the Muslim nobility from all over India. These houses contained innumerable cultural, artistic, literary and monetary riches. An example would be the loss of most of the works of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib thought of as the greats south Asian poet of the current era.
British arrested Bahadur Shah later and the next day British officer William Hodson shot his sons Mirza Moghul, Mirza Khizr Sultan, and Mirza Abu Bakr under his own authority. Their heads were presented to their father the next day.
In June, sepoys under General Wheeler in Kanpur rebelled - apparently with tacit approval of Nana Sahib - and besieged the European entrenchment. The British lasted three weeks of siege without water, suffering constant casualties. On June 25 Nana Sahib requested surrender and Wheeler had little choice but to accept. When British boarded riverboats, their pilots fled setting fire to the boats, and exchange of fire ensued. The Indians fired at the boats with grapeshot and filled the river with corpses. Only one boat with 4 men escaped.
The surviving women and children were led to Bibi-Ghar (the house of the women) in Cawnpore. On July 15, three men entered it and killed everyone with knives and hatchets and hacked them to pieces. Their bodies were thrown down a well.
The British were aghast and the pro-Indian proponents lost all their support. Cawnpore became a war cry for the British soldiers for the rest of the conflict. Nana Sahib disappeared.
When the British retook Cawnpore later, the soldiers took their sepoy prisoners to the Bibi-Ghar and forced them to lick the bloodstains from the walls and floor. Then they hanged all of the sepoy prisoners.
The state of Awadh (also known as Oudh, in modern-day Uttar Pradesh) went into rebellion very soon after events in Meerut. British commander of Lucknow, Henry Lawrence, had enough time to fortify his position inside the Residency compound. He had 1700 men, including loyal sepoys. The rebels initial assaults were not successful and they begun a barrage of artillery and musket fire into the compound. Lawrence was one of the first casualties. The rebels tried to breach the walls with explosives and bypass them via underground tunnels that led to underground close combat. After 90 days of siege, numbers of British were reduced to 300 loyal sepoys, 350 British soldiers and 550 noncombatants.
On September 25 a thousand soldiers of the Highlanders under General Sir Henry Havelock joined them, in what was known as 'The First Relief of Lucknow'. In October another Highlander unit under Sir Colin Campbell came to relieve them and on November 18 they evacuated the compound women and children first. They fled to now-retaken Cawnpore.
Jhansi was a Maratha-ruled princely state in Bundelkhand. When the Raja of Jhansi died without an male heir in 1853, Jhansi was annexed to the British Raj by the Governor-General of India under the Doctrine of Lapse. His widow, Rani Lakshmi Bai, protested the annexation on the grounds that she had not been allowed to adopt a successor, as per Indian custom.
When the Rebellion broke out, Jhansi quickly became a center of the rebellion. A small group of British officials took refuge in Jhansi's fort, and the Rani negotiated their evacuation. When the British left the fort, they were massacred by the rebels. Although the massacre probably occurred without the Rani's consent and she protested both her innocence and her loyalty to Britain, she stood accused by the British.
In September and October of 1857, the Rani led the successful defense of Jhansi from the invading armies of the neighboring rajas of Datia and Orchha. In March of 1858, the British Army advanced on Jhansi, and laid siege to the city. The British captured the city, but the Rani escaped the city in disguise.
On June 1 1858, Rani Lakshmi Bai and a group of Maratha rebels captured the fortress city of Gwalior from the Sindhia rulers, who were British allies. The Rani died three weeks later at the start of the British assault, when she was hit by a spray of bullets while riding on the fortress ramparts. The British captured Gwalior three days later.
The Rohillas centred in Bareilly were also very active in the war and this area was amongst the last to be captured by the British.
From the end of 1857, the British had begun to gain ground again. Lucknow was retaken in March 1858. On the 8th of July 1858, a peace treaty was signed and the war ended.
Due to the bloody start of the rebellion, and the violence perpetrated upon the Europeans by the Indian forces, the British believed that they were justified in using similar tactics. The British press and British government did not advocate clemency of any kind, though Governor General Canning tried to be sympathetic to native sensibilities, earning the scornful sobriquet "Clemency Canning". Soldiers took very few prisoners and often executed them later. Whole villages were wiped out for apparent pro-rebel sympathies. The Indians called it Devil's Wind.
The last rebels were defeated in Gwalior on June 20 1858. By 1859, Rebel leaders Bakht Khan and Nana Sahib had been slain in battle. The British adopted the old Mughal punishment for mutiny and sentenced rebels were lashed to the mouth of cannons and blown to pieces. It was the crudest war India had seen in a long time, with both sides resorting to what can only be described as barbarism.
The rebellion also saw the end of the East India Company's rule in India. In August by the Act for the Better Government of India power was transferred to the British Crown. A secretary of state was entrusted with the authority of Indian affairs and the Crown's viceroy in India was to be the chief executive.
In the aftermath of the rebellion, the British government decided to take India under the direct control of Crown under the rule of British Raj. A Viceroy was appointed to represent the Crown. The British embarked on a program of reform, trying to integrate Indian higher castes and rulers into the government and abolishing the East India Company.
They stopped land grabs, decreed religious tolerance and admitted Indians into civil service, albeit mainly as subordinates. They also increased the number of British soldiers in relation to native ones and allowed only British soldiers to handle artillery. In 1877 Queen Victoria took the title of Empress of India. Bahadur Shah was exiled to Rangoon where he died in 1862, finally bringing the Moghul dynasty to an end.
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