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Rebellion of 1857 Was Doomed to Fail, but the Religious and Cultural Tensions It Inflamed Would Ultimately Topple the British Raj by Ron Soodalter

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Rebellion of 1857 Was Doomed to Fail, but the Religious and Cultural Tensions It Inflamed Would Ultimately Topple the British Raj by Ron Soodalter THE INDIAN REBELLION OF 1857 WAS DOOMED TO FAIL, BUT THE RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL TENSIONS IT INFLAMED WOULD ULTIMATELY TOPPLE THE BRITISH RAJ BY RON SOODALTER On May 9,1857, some 4,000 British soldiers and sepoys—native Indian troops—formed a three-sided hollow square on the parade ground at the Meerut mihtary cantonment, 40 miles northeast of Delhi, to witness punishment. On the fourth side of the square 85 sepoys of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry—Muslims and Hindus, many of them veterans with long years of service—stood at attention as their uniform jackets were stripped from them. The disgraced soldiers, weeping and begging for mercy, were then marched away to imprisonment at hard lahor. The offense for which they had been court-martialed was disobedience—they had refused to load their rifles. or more than 150 years historians percussion cap, bring the hammer to removed from the cartridge, the sides of have maintained that India's First full cock and fire. the bullet should be wetted in the mouth revolt against British rule broke During manufacture the cartridges bejoi e putting it into the barrel; the out at least in part over a gun-—to were coated with beeswax and tallow to saliva will serve the purpose of grease beF precise, the muzzle-loading Pattern protect the powder from the elements, for the time being. 1853 Enfield rifle-musket. Each of the and the bullets were greased to ensure a weapon's paper cartridges contained a proper seal in the barrel. The adjutant- When rumors spread among the precise amount of powder and a .577- general's official 1856 Instruction of caliber Minié ball. The rifleman was re- Muskctiy specified: tridges and bullets were greased with quired to bite off the cartridge's paper pork and beef fat, they were outraged. end, pour the powder down the barrel, Whenever the grease round the bullet It is considered haram ("sinful") for seat and ram home the bullet, add a appears to be melted away or otherwise Muslims to put anything derived from MILITARY HISTORY Led by Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Havelock, British soldiers fight sepoy insurgents besieging the city of Lucknow. Sparking the revolt of native Indian troops were rumors that new British- issued cartridges, opposite, were greased with animal fat. a pig in their mouths, just as it is un- yelling to each other and blazing away acceptable for Hindus to ingest cow fat. with their muskets in all directions." When ordered to load their weapons The sepoys freed their 85 jailed com- for firing drills, the sepoys refused. panions and set off for Delhi in no par- The troops' British officers, either ticular hurry, the British too stunned ignorant of the religious and cultural to attempt to stop them. The bloody dilemma or simply not interested, re- Indian Rebellion of 1857 had begun. sponded by the book. When informed of In retrospect there was scant reason the sepoys' concems, Maj. Gen. George for the British at Meerut to have been Anson, the commander in chief in India, caught off-guard. A number of Bengal reportedly responded, "I'll never give in battalions had already refused to accept to their beastly prejudices." By refusing the new ammunition, and the previous a direct order, the sepoys opened them- four months had witnessed a series of selves up to charges of mutiny, and a unconnected but ominous incidents at court-martial ensured they were con- various military posts involving myste- victed and punished accordingly. rious fires, fiaming arrows loosed into The troops assembled to witness the thatched roofs of British officers' the punishment were openly troubled homes and secret nocturnal meetings. by the events of the day. That nightl a Between January and April fires were set near Calcutta and at Agra, Allahabad Maj. Gen. George and Ambala. The telegraph station at Anson, commander the Barrackpore post was burned to in chief in india: the ground, and on March 23 the 19th 'I'li never give in Native Infantry stationed there was dis- to [the Sepoys'] armed and disbanded for disobeying beastiy prejudices' orders regarding the paper cartridges. Six days later a sepoy named Mangal native officer stealthily approached Pandey attacked and wounded two Brit- young Lieutenant Hugh Gough and ish officers in protest. Choosing death warned him the sepoys were planning over capture, Pandey then turned his to mutiny the next day, and they in- weapon on himself but survived to stand tended to slaughter British officers and trial and face the gallows. By hanging their families. Gough immediately Pandey, the British created a martyr and brought word to his commander Colo- coined a new word in the English colo- nel George Carmichael-Smyth—who nial vocabulary. As the rebellion raged laughed and informed the young lieu- over the next two years, they would re- tenant that longer exposure to India fer colloquially to all mutineers as would quell his groundless fears. Gough "pandies." Eor the rebels, "Remember then took his intelligence to station Mangal Pandey!" became a rallying cry. commander Brigadier Archdale Wilson Although each incident was duly re- and was again met with condescensicfn ported, the impossibly ponderous and and disbelief. ineffectual chain of communication By 5 o'clock the next afternoon a leading to the governor general's desk horde of angry villagers and sepoys had precluded immediate action, and the in this period watercoior reheliing sepoys, some carrying come together in an uncontrollable situation continued to fester—until the mob. They set fire to the British bunga- Meerut station went up in flames. Eounded in 1599 by a handful of Lon- lows and turned their weapons on tl^e don merchants seeking to enter the hated British officers. Two of the offi- hile the introduction of lucrative spice trade with the Indian cers' wives were brutally slain—one greased paper cartridges subcontinent, it quickly amassed both torched in her sickbed, while a butcher W sparked the sepoy revolt, the wealth and power, and in 1661 its re- cut the unborn child of the second from underlying causes of the broader up- vised government charter gave it the her womb. Gough peered cautiously rising were far more complex. If there power to "make war and peace with any from his veranda at what he later de- were a single culprit at whom one might prince or people that are not Christians." scribed as, "a thousand sepoys dancing point a finger, it would be the mega- The EIC soon grew into a massive and leaping frantically about, calling and conglomerate East India Co. (EIC). monopoly that largely controlled and MILITARY HISTORY ''if' their British-issued weapons and wearing elements of their uniforms, dispute the division of spoils they have looted from British barracks and homes. expanded Britain's Eastern colonies and, 1788, noted British statesman Edmund inserted itself into all aspects of Indian with the support of the British govern- Burke accurately described the EIC culture, politics and religion. The Brit- ment, fielded its own army. So rich did as, "a state in the disguise of a mer- ish government finally stripped the the company grow through trading in chant." And the firm added to its con- company of its Indian trade monopoly silk, cotton, spices, gold, precious jewels siderable holdings as much by war as in 1813, and 20 years later London as- and, eventually, opium that in 1667 the by commerce. sumed nominal control of its Indian government in London mandated it An imperial power in its own right, territories. Nonetheless, company poli- make an annual payment of £400,000 with control over territories that far out- cies and procedures remained much as —a tremendous sum—to the national stripped those of Britain itself, the EIC before, and the EICs practices contin- Exchequer. Speaking in Parliament in created a governing body that boldly ued to gall the native peoples. REBELLION OF 1857 THE BRITISH IN INDIA 1600s-1947 n much the same way the Boston Tea Party vented EAST INDIA CO. (EIC) Patriot frustration with British rule and sparked Granted a royai charter in 1599, the Irebellion in the American colonies, the sepoy mutiny EiC quickiy set about cornering the at Meerut vented Indian frustration with British rule and trade routes to india and then, with sparked the 1857 Rebellion. Neither was the causative its own sanctioned army, subjugating agent but more the starting gun. But the Indian people the subcontinent itseif. IVIix in the free were not unified in dissension, and the hostilities spread hand it ailowed Christian missionaries, little beyond the north-central princely states. Other and the seeds for mutiny were sown. regions allied with the British or remained neutral. EAST INDIA COMPflMY From Meerut the rebels struck quickly at Delhi, killing British soldiers and civilians and seizing the primary powder magazine. The British response was slow but inexorably steady. The garrison at Lucknow endured a BRITISH liVIPERIALISiVI IN INDIA As the EIC soiidified its grip, so months-long siege before relief arrived. The massacre came reforms designed to civiiize of Cawnpore's British population hardened popular and modernize the British coiony. opinion against the rebels, and by year's end the British Resentment grew. Lord Daihousie had the upper hand. Crown troops crushed the last rebel fanned the flames with his Doctrine holdouts at Gwalior in June 1858, and a treaty followed. of Lapse, which aiiowed the EIC to annex any principaiity at its whim. INDIAN REBELLION OF 1857 The rebeliion had been brewing for decades before the issue of Enfieid cartridges provided the flashpoint. iVIeerut station was the first to go up in fiâmes, and the vioience flared.
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