Stbere im grten eBookstore der Welt und lies noch heute im Web, auf deinem Tablet, Telefon oder E-Reader. And where had the chowkidar got them? He also resumed the practice of tax-free lands in some areas. The uprising was put down, but the methods employed by the British were so harsh that many in the western world were offended. It began on a point of caste pollution; its leaders were traditionalists who looked to reviving the past, while the small new Westernized class actively supported the British. From Delhi the revolt spread in June to Kanpur (Cawnpore) and Lucknow. Published online by Cambridge University Press: It is also known by other names: the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. Jaiwant Paul "The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58" In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames o. 'In England, almost every child is aware that, with a smooth bored gun, no grease of any kind is required to ensure the proper loading of it, whilst with a rifle-bored piece such is necessary.' So writes Mrs Peile, one of those who escaped from Delhi on 11 May 1857. No one seems to know the meaning of it. It is not known where it originated, by whom or for what purpose, whether it is supposed to be connected to any religious ceremony or whether it has to do with some secret society. Some currents simply ran cold, while others moved in parallel, or paused before continuing. To "the cow reverencing Hindu and the pig paranoid Muslims" having to bite this was repellent, defiling and deadly to their religious prospects. There at a stroke was an army, a cause, and a national leaderthe only Muslim who appealed to both Hindus and Muslims. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. Indian sepoys believed that the cartridge was greased with either pig fat or made from cow fat. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The mutiny and great revolt of 1857-59. Any British plans to reform Indian society, which had been one of the underlying causes of the revolt, were essentially set aside, and religious conversion of the Indian population was no longer viewed as a practical goal. "[26] Their rule in India had begun with the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. The campaign then settled down to British attempts to take Delhi and relieve Lucknow. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally. [7] Several years before the sepoys' mutiny, Lord William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in western Bengal. At some point the chapattis passed beyond the limits of their meaningful transmission and simply continued through the country as a blank message. Most worryingly of all, some very similar rumors had once been recorded far to the south, in the Madras Presidency in 1806, at the time of a serious outbreak of mutiny among Indian soldiers stationed at Vellore. Cookie Settings. I had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the object. Mangal Pandey, (born July 19, 1827, Akbarpur, Indiadied April 8, 1857, Barrackpore), Indian soldier whose attack on British officers on March 29, 1857, was the first major incident of what came to be known as the Indian, or Sepoy, Mutiny (in India the uprising is often called the First War of Independence or other similar names). The Revolt of 1857 in India eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. When soldiers of the Bengal army mutinied in Meerut on May 10, 1857, tension had been growing for some time. In contrast to their Indian predecessors, the British considered such refusals at times to be outright "mutinies" and therefore to be suppressed brutally. Sympathetic rulers, such as Lord William Bentinck were replaced by arrogant aristocrats, such as Lord Dalhousie, who despised the troops and the populace. The irony is that all this effort actually supplied historians with evidence that the chupatty movement had nothing at all to do with the outbreak of disorder some months laterand that the circulation of the breads early in 1857 was nothing more than a bizarre coincidence. The Lucknow garrison held out in the residency from July 1, in spite of the death of Sir Henry Lawrence on July 4. Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. One thing did not change in this new weapon the loading process, which did not improve significantly until the introduction of breech loaders and metallic, one-piece cartridges a few decades later. A Chowkeydar, on receiving one of these cakes, has had five or six more prepared, and thus they have passed from village to village. An idea has been industriously circulated that the Government has given the order. The officers continued to be British, but they were more closely linked with their men. Rumors spread with great rapidity before and during the mutinynot least because of the large number of British women and children at the mercy of the rebels in towns such as Delhi and Kanpur. The East India Company had been active in India for nearly 250 years, but the violence of the 1857 uprising led to the British government dissolving the company and taking direct control of India. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. ThoughtCo, Jul. All of the Bengal Native Cavalry regiments and 45 of the infantry units rebelled at some point. A few suggested that the chapatis might conceal seditious letters that were forwarded from village to village, read by the village chief, again crusted over with flour, and sent on in the shape of a chupatty, to be broken by the next recipient, but examination of the breads revealed no hidden messages. One popular story, widely believed, suggested that the British were attempting the mass conversion of their subjects to Christianity by adulterating their flour with bone meal from cows and pigs, which was forbidden to Hindus and Moslems, respectively. These recalcitrant troops were placed in irons, but their comrades soon came to their rescue. Since the batta made the difference between active service being considered munificent or burdensome, the sepoys repeatedly resented and actively opposed inconsiderate unilateral changes in pay and batta ordered by the Military Audit department. Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. To facilitate its passage, the cartridges were greased with tallow, which, in the U.K., was made of beef and pork fat. Economically and socially, there had been much dislocation in the landholding class all over northern and western India as a result of British land-revenue settlements, setting group against group. The soldiers performed well on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honors in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. The immediate cause of the Revolt was the issue of the greased cartridges. A cartridge for the new Enfield rifle. They bore no message, and were identical to the breads cooked in every home in India, a staple part (even today) of the locals diet. Some Indians were upset with the draconian rule of the Company who had embarked on a project of territorial expansion and westernization that was imposed without any regard for historical subtleties in Indian society. Kanpur History of the Siege of Delhi (Edinburgh: A&C Black, 1861);John Kaye. In India, it has been viewed quite differently. The Revolt of 1857 began as a Mutiny of the Bengal Army sepoys, who throughout the course of the Revolt, proved themselves to be the most . Wild stories circulated freely in the panic-stricken atmosphere of 1857, and there were enough real massacres and murders to make almost anything seem possible. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. It consisted of the distribution of many thousands of chapatisunleavened Indian breadsthat were passed from hand to hand and from village to village throughout the mofussil (interior) of the subcontinent. The Sepoy Mutinywas a violent and very bloody uprising againstBritish rule in Indiain 1857. Then came the Western innovations of the now overconfident British. The army so far had been quipped with the smooth-barrelled musket, which had a protracted loading procedure and was not accurate over long ranges. The Bengal army of some 130,000 Indian troops may have contained as many as 40,000 Brahmans as well as many Rajputs. And when the Indian independence movement gained momentum in the 20th century, events of the Revolt of 1857 were viewed as having been an early battle for independence, while individuals such as Mangal Pandey were hailed as early national heroes. At other times however, the Company directly or indirectly conceded the legitimacy of the sepoy's demands, such as when troops of the Bengal and Madras armies refused to serve in Sindh without batta after its conquest. The revolt was sparked by a number of reasons, including economic exploitation, cultural repression, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers. In sum, this combination of factors produced, besides the normal tensions endemic in India, an uneasy, fearful, suspicious, and resentful frame of mind and a wind of unrest ready to fan the flame of any actual physical outbreak. For instance, once the rebellion was underway, Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar met the sepoys on 11 May 1857, he was told: "We have joined hands to protect our religion and our faith." Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. It is however also possible to enclose within the paper container the bullet as well as the powder and the cartridge then becomes a balled cartridge. The Revolt of 1857-58 was the biggest and bloodiest conflict against any European colonial power during the nineteenth century. The cartridges were wrapped in paper, which had been coated in grease which made the cartridges easier to load in rifle barrels. He first defeated the Gwalior contingent and then, when the rebels Tantia Topi and Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi had seized Gwalior, broke up their forces in two more battles. McNamara, Robert. This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India company. Measures of prevention of future crises naturally began with the army, which was completely reorganized. It is called the chupatty movement. . This revolt had shaken the foundation of . Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. As the mutiny spread, the British began called mutineers "pandies." [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. The chupatty movement first came to British attention early in February 1857. When Muslim and Hindu troops learned that the tip of the Enfield cartridge had to be bitten off to prepare it for firing, a number of troops refused, for religious reasons, to accept the ammunition. Indian soldiers had to blow the cartridge which was made of pork and beef. Richard Barter. "The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. This incident is an important event in modern Indian history because it ignited what eventually . McNamara, Robert. Politically, many princes of India had retired into seclusion after their final defeat in 1818. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Most Indians thought they were the work of the British, whothrough the East India Companyhad ruled over large portions of the country for almost a century (and were, according to one well-known prophecy, due to be unseated at that centurys end). The sepoys rejected this, pointing out that they might very well forget and bite the cartridge, not surprising given the extensive drilling that allowed 19th century British and Indian troops to fire three to four rounds per minute. And the uprising became extremely violent. [12], There had been earlier indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company. It is not known who first projected the plan. Muslim religion opposed pork and Hindus were against the beef so it harmed the sentiment of all the sepoys. 1857 revolt started firstly on 29th March 1857 from Bairakpur (West Bengal) by Mangal Pandey. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. Eleven of the sepoys were executed and hundreds more sentenced to hard labor. Under a British policy called the "doctrine of lapse," the East India Company would take control of Indian states in which a local ruler had died without an heir. Due to the need for technical specialists, the artillery units generally had a higher proportion of British personnel. As time passed, the powers of the commanding officers reduced and the government became more unfeeling or distant from the concerns of the sepoys. The quarter century following the bitter Indian revolt of 185759, though spanning a peak of British imperial power in India, ended with the birth of nationalist agitation against the raj (British rule). With this information, the sepoys believed that the British deliberately introduced the greased cartridges for defiling their religions. However much of this sense of the invincibility of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War where poor political judgment and inept British leadership led to the massacre of Elphinstone's army (which included three Bengal regiments) while retreating from Kabul. Christian organisations from Britain had additionally created 222 "unattached" mission stations across India in the decade preceding the rebellion. His name has become synonymous with the revolt of 1857. Host of Midian: the chapati circulation and the Indian Revolt of 1857-58. Studies in History 16 (2000);Christopher Hibbert. There is no question that atrocities were committed by both sides, and stories of events of 185758 lived on in both Britain and India. 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. 31, 2021, thoughtco.com/sepoy-mutiny-of-1857-1774014. } Mangal Pandey was an Indian soldier who played an important role in incidents prior to the uprising of 1857, known by different names like the 'Indian Rebellion of 1857,' the 'Sepoy Mutiny' and 'India's First War of Independence.'. Underlying grievances over British taxation and recent land annexations by the English East India Company (EEIC) also contributed to the anger of the sepoy mutineers, and within weeks, dozens of units of the Indian army joined peasant armies in widespread rebellion. Content may require purchase if you do not have access. He was informed that they had been brought in by one of his Indian police officers, who had received them from a puzzled village chowkidar (watchman). Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land. Total loading time: 0 Seen from a distance of 150 years, the chupatty movement can appear a quaint anomaly, a strange and colorful rumor of interest mostly to historians and psychologists. By a campaign in Avadh and Rohilkhand, Campbell cleared the countryside. The chapatis were real, but no one knew for sure what they were for. A cartridge of this kind, containing powder and nothing more, is often specified as an unballed cartridge. Yet discreet inquiries soon revealed that many hundreds of chapatis were passing through his district, and through other parts of India as welleverywhere from the Narmada river in the south to the border with Nepal several hundred miles to the north. These are deep waters that we trawl in, and dangerous ones, too. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. (See Barrackpore Mutiny.). Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. I have the honour to inform you that a signal has passed through numbers of the villages in this district, the purport of which has not yet transpired. [10], Caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army were not merely tolerated but encouraged in the early years of the company's rule. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. The Revolt of 1857, an anti-colonial movement which fought against the imperialist policies of the British East India Company, is an important event that took place in Indian history. It was initiated by sepoys in the Bengal Presidency against the British officers. . Another important source of discontent among the Indian rulers was that the British policies of conquest had created significant unrest. In the 1870s the British government formalized its role as an imperial power. The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India - Biswamoy Pati 2010-01 The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a e~sepoy mutinye(tm). 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