India

• India in 1857

  • By 1700 the EIC only serious competitors for Indian trade were French companies at Pondicherry 
  • Portuguese retained the enclave of Goa (south of Bombay) but were spent as commercial force
  • Dutch & Danes had trading posts, but their share of the market was failing
• India in 1857

  • In 1857, EIC owned est. 2/3 of the subcontinent
  • In 1857, the EIC total strength of the three presidency armies was 45,000 European and 232,000 sepoys = 1:5 
  • The Bengal army was largest, 24,000 Europeans and 135,000 sepoys 
• Cause of 1857: Annexation of territory

  Lord Dalhousie devised a policy known as the Doctrine of Lapse. The doctrine declared that if an Indian ruler died without a

  male heir (adopted heirs were not seen as legitimate) his kingdom would “lapse”, that is, become part of Company territory.
• Cause of 1857: Annexation of territory

  Several territories were annexed by applying this doctrine: Satara (1848), Punjab (1849), Udaipur (1852), Nagpur (1853).
• Cause of 1857: Annexation of territory

  Jhansi was annexed in 1854 through the Doctrine of Lapse. The British refused to recognise the right of the Rani of Jhansi’s adopted son, Domodar Rao, to rule after the death of her husband and annexed the territory. Awadh was annexed in. The British said they were “obliged by duty” to take over Awadh in order to free the people from the “misgovernment” of the Nawab.
• Cause of 1857: Annexation of territory

  The EIC incurred the resentment of Nana Saheb, the heir of the last Peshwa (hereditary ruler of the Maratha Confederacy that

  had once rivalled the British as the great power of India), as they refused to grant him the same £80,000 pension as his father

  Baji Rao II (last Maratha ruler) due to his adopted status.
• Cause of 1857: Annexation of territory

  The Mughal emperor in Delhi, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was seen as a client of the British for most of his reign without any real

  authority. He was increasingly treated as an impotent pensioner.
• Cause of 1857: Religion

  Under the Charter Act of 1813 missionaries were permitted to enter the Company's territories in India to spread their religion.

  3 traditional Indian customs aroused the anger of British missionaries: female infanticide (killing female babies), thagi (the murder of travellers on the Indian roads), and sati (the act of self-immolation when a Hindu widow was burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre)
• Cause of 1857: Religion

  In 1829, the Bengal Sati Regulation was passed which banned the Sati practice
• Cause of 1857: Religion

  1850, Caste Disabilities Removal Act: This act changed the Hindu law of inheritance enabling a Hindu who had converted into Christianity to inherit his ancestral properties.
• Cause of 1857: Religion

  In 1856, the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act was passed which legalised the remarriage of Hindu widows.
• Cause of 1857: Religion

  In 1852 the Reverend John Jennings arrived in Delhi on a mission to convert as many people as he could to Christianity. He was killed in Delhi on May 11th along with family and other members of the mission at the outbreak of the rebellion.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  The British introduced two major systems of land revenue collection in India: Zamindari and Mahalwari. These systems

  imposed new concepts which had not existed in India before: individual land ownership, money rents, and the free market.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  Zamindari (confined to the areas of Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha): Zamindars (landowners) were given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants. The realised amount would be divided into 11 parts. 1/11 of the share belongs to Zamindars and 10/11 of the share belongs to East India Company. From 1851-1852, the EIC collected £7,584,435 in revenue in Bengal alone.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  Mahalwari system (confined into the North-Western Provinces, parts of central India and Punjab): land was divided into Mahals. Each Mahal was made up of one or more villages. The entire village (Mahal) was considered as a single unit for tax collection.

  Even if a peasant/landholder paid his tax, but his neighbour did not, then his own land could also be confiscated. When the farmers were unable to pay tax before the deadline, they had to take a loan from moneylenders at a high rate of interest. If no pay back the loan and interest had their land seized.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  From 1851-1852, the EIC collected £5,670,715 in revenue from the North-Western provinces.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  Inam Commission was created in 1852 to examine the title deeds of landlords. Those who failed to produce documents had their lands confiscated. The Commission led to the confiscation of 20,000 estates.
• Cause of 1857: Economic

  Under Company rule, India’s trading position had been reversed. It exported raw materials such as cotton or opium rather than finished products and imported piece goods like textiles instead of raw materials.
• Cause of 1857: Unrest in Bengal

  The British had held India with an army of 277,746 men. Of these, only 45,533 were Europeans.
• Cause of 1857: Unrest in Bengal

  The chances for promotion in the army was very limited for Indians. The highest rank that an Indian could get in the Army department was that of a Subhedar whose monthly salary did not exceed 60 rupees.
• Cause of 1857: Unrest in Bengal

  Substantial numbers of the Bengal Army were drawn from high status sections of Indian society e.g., from Brahmins and Rajputs. They had a status to maintain which the EIC army failed to do for them due to the lack of promotion prospects.
• Cause of 1857: Unrest in Bengal

  In 1856 the General Service Enlistment Act stipulated that all new recruits should in future swear that they would cross the sea for military service though this would involve Hindu troops in ritual pollution (high caste Hindu’s are not supposed to travel overseas) and had to be undertaken for no extra pay.
• Cause of 1857: Enfield Rifle

  In January 1857, rumours began that the British were coating the cartridges for the Enfield rifle with cow and pig fat. To load it, the sepoys had to bite off the ends of lubricated cartridges. This offended the Hindu as they saw cows as a sacred animal while the Muslim believed that contact with the unclean pig defile him.
• Cause of 1857: Enfield Rifle

  On 29th March, a sepoy named Mangal Pandey refused to use the cartridges and attempted to incite his fellow sepoys to revolt against their British officers due to the rifle. He attacked two of those officers: he was arrested and sentenced to death.
• Cause of 1857: Enfield Rifle

  On 9th May 1857, 85 men in the third Bengal cavalry refused to accept the new cartridges believing they had been greased with pig and cow fat. The British arrested, court-martialled, and sentenced 85 sepoys to 10 years imprisonment.
• Cause of 1857: Enfield Rifle

  This punishment enraged their comrades and on 10th May, their fellow cavalrymen broke out in open defiance. They ransacked the nearby military station, shot dead the lieutenant of the eleventh Bengal native infantry, John Finnis and any other Europeans they could lay their hands on. The rebellion had begun.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Start of the rebellion

  By the night of 10th May, Meerut was a city of horror with the sepoys killing any Europeans they could find.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Start of the rebellion

  Two officers' wives were murdered in incidents which acquired notoriety. One of them, a Mrs. Chambers, was pregnant: her unborn child

  was ripped from her womb by a local butcher. The other, a Mrs. Dawson, was recovering from smallpox: to avoid contagion, the mob threw

  burning torches at her until her clothes caught fire and burnt her to death.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Start of the rebellion

  From Meerut, the mutineers marched to Delhi, where there were no European troops. There the local sepoy garrison joined the Meerut

  men, and by nightfall the aged Mughal emperor Bahādur Shah II had been nominally restored to power by the mutinous sepoys.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Siege of Delhi

  Inside the city were more than 30,000 mutineers loyal to Bahadur Shah, who was holding court as the Mughal emperor.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Siege of Delhi

  The Company established a base on the Delhi ridge and the Siege of Delhi began. General John Nicholson arrived on the ridge on August

  7th with a force of 4,000 highly trained troops, many of whom were native. He was given the nickname of Nikalseyn by the Sikhs of Punjab

  who admired him. They were joined by Pathans, Afghans and Multanis who were sure of his leadership and keen to take part in the

  destruction of their historical foes, the Indians.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Siege of Delhi

  By September, the British had assembled a force of 9,000, which consisted of 6,000 Punjabis and Ghurkas (sent from Nepal).

  On 14th September, an attempt to storm the city through the Kashmiri Gate was launched by the British.

  After a week of street fighting the British reached the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah had already fled. The British had retaken the city.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  In June 1857, the Bengal Army sepoys stationed in Cawnpore rebelled, looted the treasury, and laid siege to General Wheeler's garrison.

  The outnumbered garrison of 1,000 Europeans (half women + children) surrendered on the promise of safe passage on boats to Allahabad
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  27th June: After the British began to board the boats, they were ambushed under the order of Nana Sahib, and the boats were set on fire.

  Of approximately 450 men, women, and children, more than half were killed.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  15th July: The remaining 200 women and children were taken back to the town and imprisoned in a building called the Bibighar. On 15th

  July, Nana Sahib ordered them to be murdered with their bodies thrown into a well.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  16th July: General Havelock with 1,100 British and 300 Sikhs fought against Nana Saheb and his 5,000 men. Company forces captured the

  city. A group of British officers and soldiers set out to the Bibighar, to rescue the captives, assuming that they were still alive. However,

  when they reached the site, they found it empty and blood-splattered, with the bodies of the 200 women and children dismembered and

  thrown down the courtyard well or into the Ganges River.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  The massacre disgusted the British troops with "Remember Cawnpore!" becoming a war cry used by British soldiers for the rest of the

  conflict.
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  Rebels confessing to or believed to be involved in the massacre were forced to lick the floor of the Bibighar compound. The sepoys were

  then religiously disgraced by being forced to eat beef (if Hindu) or pork (if Muslim).
• Why did the Indian Rebellion fail? Cawnpore

  The Muslim sepoys were sewn into pig skins before being hanged, and low-caste Hindu Street sweepers were employed to execute the

  high-caste Brahmin rebels to add additional religious disgrace to their punishment.
• Causes for failure of Indian Rebellion: Loyalty of Indians/lack of involvement

  • The rebellion was, in the end, a local event; it was centred mainly in the northern and central regions of India. 
  • The large princely states, Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir did not join the rebellion. The entire south of India took no part in the Rebellion.