What caused the Great Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 – 1858?
The Great Sepoy Rebellion of 1857-1858 had diverse political, economic, military, and religious causes. At about 1820, British Paramountcy, the belief in British dominance in Indian political, economic, and cultural life, was introduced. The Paramountcy In Indian Constitutional Law suggests that “the British paramountcy in India obviously connotes that the British had established such a power in India which was exercising supreme authority or jurisdiction over the Indian Native States, or which was above all other States in India in rank, order and jurisdiction” (3). It is also important to define Native State. Sir William Lee-Warner, British Political Officer defines Native State as “a political community occupying a territory in India of defined boundaries and subject to a common and responsible ruler, who has, as a matter of fact, enjoyed and exercised, with sanction of the British Government, any of the functions and attributes of internal sovereignty. The indivisibility of sovereignty does not belong to the Indian system of sovereign States” (3).
18th century India was very different from the nation state which exists today. It didn’t exist as a country but rather consisted of different territories controlled by a variety of rulers and the greatest of these was the British East India Company which governed two-thirds of the subcontinent. The ‘Sepoy’ is a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army and derived from the Persian word ‘sepahi’ meaning infantry soldier.
The British East India Company was originally created to trade with the Mughal Empire in 1600 when a group pro London merchants led by Sir Thomas Smith petitioned Queen I to grant them a royal charter to trade. The Mughal Empire at the time had military dominance and cultural wealth that Europe could utilize in the world market. They began building small factories on India’s eastern and western coasts where they could orchestrate the profitable trade in spices, textiles and luxury goods. With the Company’s rapid growth, it became a significant income for the British economy as it emerged as one of London’s most powerful financial institutions.
The Company purchased land from Indian rulers to build settlements and recruited native armed forces to protect them which eventually grew into the Bengal, Bombay and Madras Armies. As the previously dominant Mughal Empire began to decline in the 18th century, European states attempted to carve out their power bases. From the early 1800s, the Company attempted to develop the Indian economy and legal system by attempting to change Indian culture.
The Company became India’s leading power in 1757 after Robert Clive’s victory at Plassey and began expanding its Indian domains. From the early 1800s, the Company attempted to develop the Indian economy and legal system by forcibly trying to change the Indian culture. The aim of the East India Company was to make profit by establishing monopoly trade in the goods and services with India and the East Indies. However, as power became a player in the game, the East India Company quickly turned into a sovereign power. From this point on, the British took several actions all of which eventually led to the Great Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 – 1858.
With an increase in economic growth, the Company began raising its own army of troops. After taking over the Punjab in 1849, the Company reduced the number of British Army regiments in India. Of the 159,000 men in the Bengal Army establishment, 24,000 were European and 135,000 were Indian Sepoy and Sowars. This created unease in the Bengal Army as many of their men were being put in the battlefront despite their already small numbered population. There was also an apparent increased push towards westernization of the British ruled Indian areas.
“The parliamentary reports of 1840 record that while the British cotton and silk goods imported into India paid a duty of VA per cent and woolen goods 2 per cent, Indian cotton goods exported to Britain paid 10 per cent, silk goods 20 per cent and the woolen goods 30 per cent. Further, the abolition of the monopoly of trade in 1813 of East India Company and the introduction of free trade by 1833 increased further the exploitation of the economy of India”. India was striped of her agricultural duties resulting in several Indians losing their jobs.
Lord Dalhousie, British governor of India during the period, saw himself as an Orientalist monarch and believed in bringing the British level of intellectual revolution to India. However, in doing so, he failed to take into the deep-rooted traditions and way of life that the Indians had treasured. The British used a variety of tactics to gain control of the Hindu princely states that were under what were called subsidiary alliances with the British. In order to become the leading power in India, the Company utilized their power and leadership in order to replace old Indian aristocracy with British officials.
The Hindu society was being greatly affected by the introduction of Western ideas. Missionaries were challenging the religious beliefs of the Hindu and the humanitarian movement led to reforms that went deeper than the political superstructure. Lord Dalhousie, British governor of India, during his tenure made efforts toward emancipating women and had introduced a bill to remove all legal obstacles to the remarriage of Hindu windows. Converts to Christianity were to share with their Hindu relatives the property of the family estate. There was also a widespread belief that the British aimed at breaking down the caste system. In all, the introduction of Western methods of education was a direct challenge to orthodox of both Hindu and Muslim tradition. The East India Company also forbid certain religious practices and traditions including Sati in 1829 causing Hindus to take part in the eventual revolt. They also passed the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856 and the Religious Disabilities Act of 1856 all of which tampered with the existing traditions and created suspicion towards the British objective to Christianize India. The company also tried to undermine the caste system due to the post- Enlightened British thought which saw it as inherently unfair.
The British officers and missionaries began to preach Christianity to the Hindu and Muslim sepoys. This caused the Indians to believe, quite reasonably, that their religion was under attack by the British East India Company. This lingering feeling of oppression and disrespect brought on the British East India Company played a major role in the eventual uprise.
A large factor of the Revolt was this notion of the old against the new. India had been familiar with their conservatism and traditions which were suddenly tampered by British hegemony and Christian indoctrination.
The alleged reason for the revolt began with the introduction of the new Enfield rifle. To load the rifle, the sepoys had to bite off the ends of the cartridges. Rumors began in 1856 that the grease on the cartridge was made of a mixture of beef tallow and pork lard. Eating cows is forbidden in Hinduism and consumption of pork is forbidden in Islam. As a result, this one small change managed to offend both Hindu and Muslim troops. The belief that the rifle was tainted arguably stems back to the series of actions the British took previously. In all, the British didn’t acknowledge the growing dissatisfaction of the sepoys until the Rebellion.
On March 29. 1857, Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of Barrackpore near Calcutta attacked his officers as an act of his discontentment with the British authority. Padney attempted to to gather other sepoys to rise up against the British officers. He attacked two of the officers and was restrained and arrested. He was tried and sentenced death by hanging. This became the first major incident of what became known as the Sepoy Rebellion.
The Mutiny revolt really began at Meerut, the first area to receive the new weapons. On May 10, 1857 when 85 members of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry were jailed for refusing to use the new cartridges. The prisoners escaped with the help of their comrades and ransacked the nearby militarily station killing any Europeans they could find. The following day, Delhi fell to the mutineers and news of these events spread encouraging further mutinies elsewhere. Though the British manufactures soon changed the cartridges in attempt to calm the spreading anger among the Sepoys, this resulted in further outrage. The British trying to change the cartridge only confirmed the rumors about what the cartridges were believed to be made of and the British were in fact trying to convert them.
They were joined by native rulers and thousands of ordinary people in a struggle that threatened to destroy British colonial power on the Indian subcontinent. Eventually all 10 Bengal Light Cavalry Regiments and most of the 74 Bengal native infantry regiments were a part of the Rebellion.
With the growing British power in India, India rulers became undermined by the implementation of British laws which created an justifiable hatred towards the British power in India. Native rulers were forced to disband their armies. Princely families joined the uprising due to the British changes to the inheritance laws. Referencing back to the Paramountcy In Indian Constitutional Law it is stated that “During this phase, from 1813 to 1857, the British made almost all the Indian States subordinate to their power, by compelling them to enter into subsidiary alliances with them. The Indian Princes were put under obligation to accept the British Paramountcy. They were to reduce their armies, rely more and more upon the Paramount army for the external and internal security and pay for expenditure of the same in form of money or territory. They had to banish all the non-English European employees from their services and conduct their foreign affairs through the British Government only. In all their disputes with other States, the British Government would act as an arbitrator. The Princes, in return, were guaranteed the territorial integrity of their state and protection from an invasion by any power” (5). Though this was a fair favor in return, the Princes lost their ability to rule and regulate their people how they believed was suitable.
The Doctrine of Lapse was also introduced which stated that if the ruler of a state died without a biological heir, the state would automatically become under British rule. In an attempt to control succession in many of the princely states that were nominally independent from the British, the Company made adopted children ineligible for thrones. Under this doctrine, the company took over the states of Satara, Nagpur and Jhansi. Rulers who did not qualify under the Doctrine of Lapse thus supported the rebellion which spread to north and central India.
These administrative changes which were initiated and implemented abruptly were unfamiliar to the Indians who had only been ruled in traditional regulations. Not only were Indians striped of their titles, but they were also not allowed positions in high civil and military jobs as those were reserved for the British. The British East India Company failed to honor the provision of 1833 Charter Act which stated that “no Indian shall by reason of his faith, place of birth, descent, complexion or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office or employment under the East India Company”.
Large landowners in Northern India also rose against the British because the British East India Company had confiscated much of their land and redistributed it to the peasantry. And peasantry also joined the revolt to protest the heavy land taxes imposed by the British which they could barely afford.
The mutiny, luckily for the British, confined to the soldiers of the Bengal Army because it was a military based rebellion. The Company’s Madras and Bombay armies including other Indian units such as the Sikhs, Punjabi Muslims and Gurkhas were relatively unaffected because of their support for the British, partly due to their fear of a return to Mughal rule. By the time it was over, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people had been killed and India was changed forever.
The Sepoy Rebellion lasted until June of 1858. In August, the Government of India Act of 1858 dissolved the British East India Company. The British home government eventually disbanded the British East India Company taking direct colonial control of the British Raj in India. The British government took direct control of the half of India formerly under the Company, with various princes still in nominal control of the other half. The last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was blamed for the revolt though he played little in it and the British government sent him to exile in Rangoon Burma.
Though to some the Great Sepoy Rebellion is seen as the first great war of independence, to others it was merely a mutiny and revolt against existing condition, the Indian revolt didn’t result in freedom for India and in many ways, Britain reacted by taking firmer control of the ‘crown jewel’ of its empire. It wouldn’t be until another 90 years before India gained their independence.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44138788.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Acdac6924416adf6be168343ecf1de8f3