The First Indian Independence War (1857 Revolution) 1
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Notion Press Old No. 38, New No. 6 McNichols Road, Chetpet Chennai - 600 031 First Published by Notion Press 2018 Copyright © Y Udaya Chandar 2018 All Rights Reserved. ISBN 978-1-64249-809-7 This book has been published with all efforts taken to make the material error-free after the consent of the author. However, the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. No part of this book may be used, reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Contents Preface v 1. The First Indian Independence War (1857 Revolution) 1 2. Jhansi Ki Rani, Lakshmibai 70 3. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose 107 4. Tatya Tope 180 5. Alluri Sita Rama Raju 225 6. Veerapandiya Kattabomman 249 7. Gadar Party 261 8. The Sikh Warriors 351 9. The Maratha Warriors 412 I The First Indian Independence War (1857 Revolution) Causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 had diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes. The sepoys, a generic term used for native Indian soldiers of the Bengal Army derived from the Persian word sepāhī meaning “infantry soldier,” had their own list of grievances against the British East Indian Company (BEIC) administration, caused mainly by the ethnic gulf between the European officers and their Indian troops. The spark that led to a rebellion in several sepoy companies was the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February, 1857. It was spread that the cartridges were made from cow and pig fat. Loading the Enfield required tearing open the greased cartridge with one’s teeth. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus while pigs were considered unclean by Muslims. Underlying grievances over British taxation and recent land annexations by the BEIC were ignited by the people at large. The old aristocracy, both Muslim and Hindu, who India’s Freedom Fighters in Arms were seeing their power steadily eroded by the East India Company, also rebelled against British rule. Frictions Some Indians were upset with what they saw as the draconian rule of the Company who had embarked on a project of territorial expansion and westernisation that was imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. Furthermore, legal changes introduced by the British were accompanied by prohibitions on Indian religious customs and were seen as steps towards forced conversion to Christianity. As early as the Charter Act of 1813 Christian missionaries were encouraged to come to Bombay and Calcutta under BEIC control. The British Governor General of India from 1848 to 1856 was Lord Dalhousie who passed the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 which allowed women to remarry, like Christian women. He also passed decrees allowing Hindus who had converted to Christianity to be able to inherit property, which had previously been denied by local practice (Priyadarshini). Author Pramod Nayar points out that by 1851 there were nineteen Protestant religious societies operating in India whose goal was the conversion of Indians to Christianity. Christian organisations from Britain had additionally created 222 “unattached” mission stations across India in the decade preceding the rebellion (Nayar, Pramod 2005). Religious disquiet as the cause of rebellion underlies the work of historian William Dalrymple who asserts that the rebels were motivated primarily by resistance to the actions of the British East India Company, especially under James Broun-Ramsay reign, which were perceived as attempts to impose Christianity and Christian laws in India. For instance, once the rebellion was underway, Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on May 11, 1857, he was told: “We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith.” They later stood in Chandni Chowk, 2 The First Indian Independence War (1857 Revolution) the main square, and asked the people gathered there, “Brothers, are you with those of the faith?” (Dalrymple 2006). Those European men and women who had previously converted to Islam such as Sergeant Major Gordon, and Abdullah Beg, a former Company soldier, were spared. In contrast, foreign Christians such as Revd Midgeley John Jennings, and Indian converts to Christianity such as one of Zafar’s personal physicians, Dr. Chaman Lal, were killed. Dalrymple further points out that as late as 6 September, when calling the inhabitants of Delhi to rally against the upcoming Company assault, Zafar issued a proclamation stating that this was a religious war being prosecuted on behalf of ‘the faith,’ and that all Muslim and Hindu residents of the imperial city, or of the countryside were encouraged to stay true to their faith and creeds. As further evidence, he observes that the Urdu sources of the pre-and post-rebellion periods usually refer to the British not as angrez (the English), goras (whites) or firangis (foreigners), but as kafir (disbeliever) and nasrani (Christians). Some historians have suggested that the impact of British economic and social ‘reforms’ has been greatly exaggerated, since the Company did not have the resources to enforce them, meaning that away from Calcutta their effect was negligible (Stokes 1973). Economics Many Indians felt that the Company was asking for heavy tax from the locals. This included an increase in the taxation on land. This seems to have been a very important reason for the spread of the rebellion, keeping in view the speed at which the conflagration ignited in many villages in northern India where farmers rushed to get back their unfairly grabbed title deeds. The resumption of tax free land and confiscation of jagirs (the grant or right to locally control land revenue) caused discontent among the jagirdars and zamindars. 3 India’s Freedom Fighters in Arms Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land (Achyut Yagnik 2005). Several years before the sepoys’ rebellion, Lord William Bentinck had attacked many jagirs in western Bengal. He also resumed the practice of tax free lands in some areas. These changes caused widespread resentment not only among the landed aristocracy but also caused great havoc to a larger section of the middleclass people. Lands were confiscated from the landlords and auctioned. Rich people like the merchants and moneylenders were therefore able to speculate in British land sales and drive out the most vulnerable peasant farmers. Sepoys During the late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the armies of the East India Company, in particular those of the Bengal Presidency, were victorious and indomitable — the term “high noon of the sepoy army” has been used by a military historian. The Company had an unbroken series of victories in India, against the Marathas, Mysore, north Indian states, and the Gorkhas, later against the Sikhs, and further afield in China and Burma. The Company had developed a military organisation where, in theory, fealty of the sepoys to the Company was considered the height of “izzat” or honour, where the European officer replaced the village headman with benevolent figures of authority, and where regiments were mostly recruited from sepoys belonging to the same caste, and community (Mason, Philip 1974). Unlike the Madras and Bombay Armies of the BEIC, which were far more diverse, the Bengal Army recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Bhumihars and Rajputs of the Ganges Valley. Though paid marginally less than the Bombay and Madras Presidency troops, there was a tradition of trust between the soldiery and the establishment — the soldiers felt needed and that the Company would 4 The First Indian Independence War (1857 Revolution) care for their welfare. The soldiers performed well on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honours in addition to the extra pay or “batta” (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule. 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. However much of this sense of the invincibility of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War where poor political judgement and inept British leadership led to the massacre of Elphinstone’s army (which included three Bengal regiments) while retreating from Kabul. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. Caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army were not merely tolerated but encouraged in the early years of the Company’s rule. Partly owing to this, Bengal sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the European soldiers. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. If the caste of high-caste sepoys was considered to be “polluted,” they would have to expend considerable sums of money on ritual purification before being accepted back into society. There had been earlier indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company. As early as 1806, concerns that the sepoys’ caste may be polluted had led to the Vellore Rebellion, which was brutally suppressed. In 1824, there was another rebellion by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots.