NCERT Class 8 - Our Pasts III • NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part III, Chapter 11

The Revolt of 1857

The revolt began at Meerut on 10 May 1857 and spread across north and central India within weeks. It was the largest armed challenge to British rule in the nineteenth century, and its suppression ended the rule of the East India Company.

Causes

• Political - annexations under the Doctrine of Lapse and of Awadh left dispossessed rulers and claimants such as Nana Saheb, whose pension was stopped, and the Rani of Jhansi, whose adopted son was not recognised.
• Economic - heavy revenue demand, the ruin of artisans, and the pressure of debt on peasants; landholders lost estates in revenue settlements.
• Social and religious - fear that laws on sati, widow remarriage and missionary activity were part of a design to convert; the abolition of practices by law was read as interference.
• Military - Indian sepoys formed the great majority of the army but could rise no higher than subedar, faced discrimination in pay and allowances, and resented service overseas which the General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 required.
• Immediate cause - the new Enfield rifle cartridge, whose greased paper had to be bitten open; the grease was believed to contain the fat of cows and pigs, offending both Hindu and Muslim sepoys.

Outbreak and centres

• Mangal Pandey attacked his officers at Barrackpore on 29 March 1857 and was executed.
• Sepoys at Meerut revolted on 10 May 1857, marched to Delhi and proclaimed the aged Bahadur Shah Zafar as emperor, which gave the revolt a symbol of legitimacy.

• Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur in Bihar, then about eighty years old, fought a mobile campaign across Bihar and the neighbouring districts and is the outstanding leader of the revolt in the east.
• Hindus and Muslims fought together, and rural people joined the sepoys in many districts, attacking record rooms, treasuries and moneylenders.

Why it failed and what followed

• It was limited in area - Punjab, Bengal proper, most of the south and the large princely states stayed quiet or helped the British.
• There was no common leadership or plan; leaders fought for their own regions and often for restoration rather than for a shared future.
• The rebels were poorly equipped compared to British troops, and the British used the telegraph and railway to move information and men quickly.
• Consequences - the Government of India Act 1858 ended Company rule; the Queen's Proclamation of 1858, read out at Allahabad by Canning, promised no further annexation and respect for religion.
• The army was reorganised with a higher proportion of British soldiers and artillery kept in British hands, and recruitment shifted towards groups thought loyal.
• The Doctrine of Lapse was abandoned, princely states were assured of their existence, and British policy turned openly towards caution and division.