Indian Rebellion of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857, also called the Great Indian Event of 1857, the Indian Mutiny, the Sepoy Mutiny, India's First War of Independence, or India's First Struggle for Independence, began on 10 May 1857 at Meerut as a mutiny of sepoy of the British East India Company's army. Sepoy in the Presidency of Bengal revolted against their British officers.

Causes

Long term

The causes of the rebellion are hard to pin down and have been much argued about. Before the rebellion, 50,000 British troops and 300,000 sepoy served in the East India Company army.

The forces were divided into three presidency armies: Bombay, Madras, and Bengal. Those armies had a make-up that varied from region to region.

The Bengal Army recruited higher castes such as Rajputs and Bhumihar brahmins and reduced the enlistment of lower castes in 1855. In contrast, the Madras Army and the Bombay Army were “more localized, caste-neutral armies” that “did not prefer high-caste men”. The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for the initial mutinies that led to the rebellion.

There were some changes in the terms of their service, which may have created resentment. As the East India Company expanded, soldiers were now expected to serve in less familiar regions, such as in Burma, and to make do without the “foreign service” remuneration that they used to have. Another financial grievance stemmed from the General Service Act, which denied retired sepoy a pension. That applied only to recruits, but older sepoy suspected that it might apply to those already in service. Moreover, the Bengal Army was paid less than the Madras and Bombay Armies, which increased its members' fears over pensions.

Short term

The immediate event that angered the sepoy was the ammunition for the new Enfield rifles, which they had to use. The cartridges that were used in the new rifles had to be bitten open. The Muslims were angry because they thought that the paper cartridges had pig fat in them. Hindu soldiers were angry because they believed the cartridges had cow fat in them. On January 27, Colonel Richard Birch ordered that no cartridges should have grease on them and that sepoy could grease them with whatever they wanted.

During the 1850s, the British rulers continued to take some regions forcibly that had been ruled by Indians. For example, the British, under the decision of Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, seized in 1856 the kingdom of Agra and Oudh, which is now part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. That went against Indian customs and did not give any respect to old royal houses of India like the Mughals, the nominal Indian emperors, and the Peshwas, the most powerful Maratha rulers.

Events

The rebellion broke out after a soldier, called Mangal Pandey, attacked a British sergeant and wounded an adjutant while his regiment was in Barrackpore. General Hearsey ordered another Indian soldier to arrest Mangal Pandey, but the soldier refused. Later, the British arrested Mangal Pandey and the other Indian soldier and hanged both of them for treachery. All other soldiers of that regiment lost their places in the army. On May 10, 1857, cavalry troops doing parade at Meerut broke rank, freed the soldiers of the 3rd Regiment and moved towards Delhi. Soon, many Indians of northern India joined the soldiers; entered the Delhi Fort, where Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II lived; and made him unwillingly become the leader of the rebellion.

Very soon, the revolt spread throughout northern India. Important Indian leaders of royal families joined the rebellion and started fighting the British in several places. Its leaders included Ahmed Ullah, an advisor of the ex-King of Oudh; Nana Saheb, his nephew Rao Saheb, and his retainers, Tantia Tope and Rani Lakshmibai; the Rani of Jhansi; Kunwar Singh; the Rajput chief of Jagadishpur in Bihar; and Firuz Saha, a relative of the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah.

At first, the British were slow to respond, but they later took rapid action with heavy forces and brought their regiments from the Crimean War to India. They also redirected many of the regiments that were going to China to India. The British forces reached Delhi and surrounded the city from July 1 to August 31, 1857. Eventually, street-to-street fighting broke out between the British troops and the Indians. Ultimately, the British took control of Delhi. The massacre at Kanpur (July 1857) and the Siege of Lucknow (June to November 1857) were also critical.