One hundred and fifty years after the events of 1857, there is still great debate in what they should actually be called. The British authorities firmly regarded the event as a mutiny by large sections of the Bengal army. Indeed the British were fortunate that it was only the Bengal Army, with a few exceptions, the Bombay and Madras armies stayed remarkably quiescent. The British recognised that there were a number of fellow travellers who joined in and took advantage of the collapse of authority throughout Northern India, notably Ghazis and Gujars.
Post 1947 Indian Nationalists have thought to refer to the events as India's First Nationalist Uprising. It is clear why they would like to brand this event as a nationalist uprising. It was unusual in that it did attract Muslims and Hindus to the cause, but the event was clearly confined to Northern India in general and Bengal in particular.
The truth was obviously somewhere in between. Undoubtedly, the Bengal Army took the lead through their initial mutinies, but they quickly tried to politicise and widen the event through asking the last Mughal Emperor to reassert his claims and reestablish the old Mughal Empire. This did attract wider support but the old Emperor did not have the energy or the resources to fully take on the power of the British in India. The hoped for general Indian uprising never did take place and despite attempts to escalate the events through various atrocities and sieges, the British were able to reorganise their forces in the Indian sub-continent and slowly but surely reestablish their control over the Bengal and other affected areas. Therefore, you could claim to call these events a mutiny that escalated into a rebellion but it never did hit the hoped for nationalist uprising status. For the sake of convenience and familiarity, I will use the term mutiny throughout although with the understanding that it did escalate further.
Causes
Again, there is much debate into why the mutiny did break out in India in 1857. For generations, British schoolboys and girls were told that it all had to do with a misunderstanding and mistakes over a new kind of cartridge issued to the Sepoys and Sowars. Indians were told that 1857 was the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Plassey and that British rule would come to an end on that date. These events certainly did occur and were significant in their own right. However the causes of the mutiny were far more varied and interconnected with one another in quite unforeseen and complicated manners.
Religion
The common thread that will tie most of the factors together and bringing an unlikely alliance between the Muslims and Hindus was the perceived threat to the native religions of the Indian sub-continent. The threat was the increased religious overtones of the East India Company and of the Europeans operating in the sub-continent. In the Eighteenth Century, the East India Company had been interested only in profit and commercial areas. As the Nineteenth Century progressed, religion began to play a more important role. Consequently, East India personnel took more interest in religious affairs and allowed more missionary work to be carried out under their aegis. This increased religiousity did not make much of a direct impact in terms of converts, but it was certainly noticed by a growing percentage of the Indian population and definitely by the East India Company's employees the sowars and sepoys. Indeed, more and more EIC officers were making unsubtle attempts to expose their soldiers to Christian teachings.
Losing Touch
In fact, the East India Company Officers had had a good reputation for mucking in with their soldiers and were known to lead from the front. In the Eighteenth Century, EIC officers had been real swashbucklers keen to make their fortune at whatever personal cost. They frequently underwent the same privations and dangers as their charges did. This earned the respect and awe of many Indian company soldiers. As time went on, newer generations of EIC officers were not so hungry for success. There were more British officers for starters and so it was easy for them to stay within the company of like minded officers rather than with their soldiers whose needs and wants they increasingly saw as foreign and peculiar. The officers' language skills consequently suffered which further took them out of the loop of understanding. When families started joining the officers, the break down in contact was almost complete. Officers were having to rely on their Indian NCOs who were very often as aggreived as the soldiers themselves.
Over-Confidence of EIC
Hand in hand with the loss of touch was the over confidence of the East India Company officials. They had become dangerously complacent about their own invincibility. Winning countless small battles at incredible odds had made the EIC seem impregnable. The fact that they were often using far better technology and were better organised only seemed to confirm their right to rule the sub-continent. Over the past century, the EIC had got side-tracked from making money from the ports of Calcutta and Bombay by supplying exotic goods to the people of Britain and the rest of the Empire. In fact scandal and corruption had already converted the East India Company from a trading company to a provider of government services. Ostensibly, this had been done to stamp out corruption and end the monopoly of the EIC over supplying goods. Actually, it would have the long term effect of changing the dynamics of EIC income. Their income would now come from direct taxation. The only ways to increase income was to increase taxation or to rule over an expanded empire. Neither of these methods would be popular with the Indian population. Whilst the company was making itself more unpopular in the areas it controlled, it would soon find that its armies were tied down in the newly conquered areas and their borders. The ratio of Europeans to Indians in the armed forces in the existing Indian Empire was reaching perilously low levels.
Dalhousie's Reforms
In 1848, James Ramsay, the Earl of Dalhousie, became Governor General of India. It was thought that he would represent a steadying influence on the colony and would control its budget. Dalhousie though attempted to spur on the modernisation and Europeanisation of the Colony. A department of Public Works was set up; telegraphs, railways, ports were all to be built or to be upgraded. The Ganges canal was to irrigate huge swathes of central India. Metalled roads were to be built. A postal system was set up. New engineering colleges were set up. Promotion was to be on merit rather than seniority. Tea plantations were encouraged and provided with the infrastructure to take away their products. He encouraged Christian missionaries and societies to provide missions to care for the needy and low caste Indians. These reforms, and many more, were intended to improve the efficiency of colony in the long run. The short term investment costs though would prove unpalatable and put yet more strain on the taxation system. He would also preside over the resurrection and implementation of the infamous 'doctrine of lapse' which will be expanded upon below. He retired due to ill health in 1856 - just before the mutiny - and was expecting a heroes welcome for his reforms but instead found himself having to defend himself against the charges of having stirred up the socio-economic structure of India to beyond breaking point.
Technology
EIC soldiers and other Indians would view many of the technological changes with trepidation. Steam trains and steam ships seemed to be some ungodly creature that defied the laws of nature. The new communications systems threatened many existing castes and businesses. Boatmen would be put out of the haulage business, farmers would find their local monopolies being challenged by cheaper imports from elsewhere in India or even further afield. Mass produced British made goods could be imported far more cheaply and efficiently than the locals could produce themselves. Severe strains were being placed on the existing economic systems by the very tools that were supposed to make India more efficient. Soldiers would have the added complication of new equipment and tactics to adapt to. With the expansion of the Indian Empire, soldiers were travelling further and further from their homes. Expeditions in Burma, the Middle East and further afield also required soldiers to travel over water. For high born Brahmins, this meant the loss of their caste. Technological change brought as many fears as benefits to the Indians in the 1850s.
The Doctrine of Lapse
Simply put, the doctrine of lapse allowed the company to annex the principality of any Indian ruler who died without natural heirs or one who was manifestly incompetent. It was thought that this would be a fairly painless way for the company to expand its Indian Empire (and therefore its tax base) by avoiding any direct confrontations or military annexations. It was hoped that the Indians did not really mind who their rulers were and would fatalistically live with the changes far above their heads. It was hoped that they would appreciate British efficiency and incorruptability. Satara was the first state to be annexed this way, Jaitpur, Sambalpur, Nagpur and Jhansi would follow suit. The practice of Indian princes adopting heirs was conveniently placed aside by Dalhousie. In 1856 the EIC would pick up the richest of the states in this manner. It was declared that the Oudh was being mismanaged by its incompetent ruler and so was annexed. Oudh was a very rich and probably corrupt Indian state but it was one that was understood and appreciated by its population. The British were thought of as inflexible and alien. It was also not appreciated just how large a proportion of the EIC sepoy army came from Oudh. They had been happy to take the King's shilling as any mercenary would, but many of them were horrified to find that their own homes had been annexed in such an underhand and unfair way.
Overstretch
The decade before the mutiny had been a busy decade for both the British and EIC armies. The British army had just been involved in the hugely complicated and disastrously run Crimean campaign from 1854 to 1856. Apart from the manpower costs of this campaign, it was hardly an advertisement to the world on the efficiency of the British Army. Many observers felt that the British might be a paper tiger after all. Azimullah Khan who would later advise the infamous Nana Sahib was just one such observer. He felt that the Turks or the Russians might provide better long term allies for the Indians. The EIC armies had been busy in 1848/9 in the annexation of Punjab and Sindh with the Anglo-Sikh Wars. There had been war in Burma and many smaller scale battles along the frontiers. The Santal Expedition had shown how even poorly equipped peasant armies could cause huge logistical problems for the EIC army. On top of all this was the stationing of the EIC armies in the newly acquired lands. This policy was thought prudent lest the newly acquired peoples rose up against their new masters. The EIC assumed that those areas it had ruled for decades or more were firmly under their control.
Cartridges
Enfield Paper Cartridge
The infamous cartridge difficulties combined religious sensibilities with technological change. For years the EIC had relied on a simple but inaccurate smooth bore musket. It was decided to introduce a more accurate muzzle loading Enfield Rifled Musket. One way to speed up the loading process was the introduction of a paper cartridge with the bullet sitting on the exact quantity of powder needed. The loader was required to bite open this paper cartridge to expose the powder. The original cartridges were made in Britain and had been covered in tallow to help protect the cartridge from the elements. Unfortunately the tallow had been made from a beef and pork fat. To the British users of these cartridges, this made no big deal. Hindu and Muslim users were horrified at the defiling fat. The EIC quickly realised its blunder and replaced the animal fat with vegetable fat but the damage had already been done. To Hindus and Muslims alike, their worst fears of being ritually humiliated had been confirmed. Many assumed that this had been a deliberate policy by the Europeans who were looking to impose their own religion on the sub-continent. Battalion after battalion refused to use the new cartridges. Some even refused to handle the cartridges when officers had allowed them the option of tearing open the cartridges instead of biting them. As far as the officers were concerned, refusing to obey an order was tantamount to mutiny as it was. Different commanders handled the situation in different ways - some with more sensitivity than others. The first shots were to be fired by (an inebriated) Mungal Pandy on March 29th at Barrackpore. He protested against the disbanding of a unit that had disobeyed orders to use the cartridges. He shot at a British sergeant-major and a lieutenant and then engaged them in a sword fight. He saw the two of them off but then shot himself in the chest when General Hearsey arrived in the parade ground. The authorities at Barrackpore were forutunate to have the European 84th regiment to hand so that the disarming of the Indian battalions could be done with the threat of force for any sepoys thinking of refusing to hand over their guns. Not all stations would be so fortunate.
Igniting the Powder Keg
The fears of the sepoys were easily
played upon by those who
hoped to persuade them to turn
their guns against the British.
There were reports of nocturnal
meetings in the barracks. Mysterious fires
broke out, burning arrows were shot into
the thatched roofs of officers' bungalows,
and the telegraph station at the great
military post of Barrackpore near Calcutta
was burned down.
Most mysterious of all, flat cakes of
flour and water known as chapatis were
passed from village to village. A messenger
would arrive bearing them, saying that
they had been brought to his own village
and must be passed on. In time, the news
of this strange ritual reached the British
officials. What could it mean? Some
argued that it was a method of carrying
away disease, though there was no epidemic
in 1857. When Indians were questioned,
some said the distribution of
chapatis meant that something terrible
would happen, but they did not know
what it might be. Others replied that they
believed the chapatis were distributed by
order of the British, and had not thought
to inquire further. Whatever it meant, no
one dared to disobey the summons to
pass the flat cakes on to the next village,
and with the chapatis there spread
throughout the land the feeling of
expectancy, of tension, of uneasiness.
All of these incidents were reported, and the
reports were passed up through various
levels of authority until they ultimately
arrived on the table of the Governor General.
In the highly centralized system
of British administration, everything had
to be committed to paper and no action
could be taken until it had been approved
by a higher authority. A torrential flood
of paper flowed endlessly towards the
Governor-General's office, silting up the
channels of communication, stifling all
initiative.
Very few, even among the most senior
military officers, were prepared to bypass
the system. One who did was General
John Hearsey, commanding at Barrackpore.
As early as the end of January, 1857
he had directly warned the Governor General
that there were persons at work
deliberately creating trouble among the
sepoys, and that something must be done.
But even then, the system took control
and delayed decision. Early in February,
Hearsey decided to take action himself. He ordered a parade of the sepoys at
Barrackpore at which he himself would
try to reassure them that the British
had no designs on their religion.
Hearsey had the advantage of long
service in India; in fact he had been born
there. He was now 66 years of age, and
his military life had been spent with the
sepoys of the Company's army. He was
one of the few senior officers who respected
the sepoys and received, in return, their
respect and affection. Though old by
Indian standards, he was still strong and
active, a good horseman with a commanding
presence. If anyone could persuade
the sepoys of the good intentions of
the government it was Hearsey. He spoke
to the assembled men on February 9
in their own language. His arguments
were simple and fluent, and the sepoys
believed him. Unfortunately, Hearsey
could not speak at every military station.
Too often a commander, instead of using
persuasion - and, if that failed, taking
decisive action - panicked.
Such was the case with a Colonel
Mitchell, commanding the military station
at Berhampur, some 90 miles to the north
of Barrackpore. There were no European
troops on the station, only the 19th
Native Infantry, a squadron of native
cavalry, and a battery of guns manned
by sepoys. At a parade on February 27,
the infantrymen refused to accept an
issue of cartridges which they believed
were of the new contaminiated kind, though in fact they
were not. Instead of attempting to reassure
his men, Colonel Mitchell, hurrying
to the parade ground, threatened to
take the regiment to Burma or to China. Overseas travel was another way that Sepoys believed that they would lose Caste.
The sepoys took their commander's angry
threats as proof that all the rumours they
had heard were true, and their discipline
broke. At this point Mitchell became conciliatory,
for he feared that the gunners and cavalry
might be equally mutinous. The sepoys
returned to their duties, retaining their
arms. Colonel Mitchell reported the events
to Calcutta, and the system finally ground
out a decision on March 23 that the 19th
Native Infantry should be marched down
to Barrackpore, to be disbanded under the eyes of a British regiment, Her
Majesty's 87th, which was hastily being brought
back from Burma.
That British troops had to be brought
from such a distance merely emphasized
how few there were in northern India.
Most of the European troops assigned to
Bengal had been moved west to secure
the Punjab when it had been conquered
and annexed eight years earlier. At Calcutta
there was one British infantry battalion,
and another was stationed 400
miles away at Dinapur. One regiment
was stationed at Agra, and one at Lucknow.
Altogether, in Bengal - an area as
large as France and Germany combined
- the British in the Company troops and
the Queen's forces (lent to the Company
by the Crown) amounted to only four infantry battalions and a few individual
batteries of artillery. The Queen's forces
had already been considerably reduced
because of the demands of the Crimean
War then raging between Britain and its
allies against Russia. In India as a whole,
there were about 4,000 Europeans in
the Company and royal armies, as compared
with a total strength of about
300,000 Indian soldiers.
When the news of the impending disbandment
of Mitchell's command reached
the sepoys at Barrackpore, their faith in
the assurances of General Hearsey began
to evaporate. A rumour reached the
British that on March 10, when the
Governor-General and the most important
British officers would be attending
a fete to be given by the Maharaja of
Gwalior, there was to be a general uprising
by the sepoys. Because of an
unseasonable downpour of rain, the entertainment
was cancelled. The day passed
without incident, but the rumours of
rebellion persisted. The Governor-General
was anxious. So was General Hearsey,
who decided to address the sepoys under
his command once again. Among the
rumours at Barrackpore was one that
British troops of the 87th, due in shortly
from Burma, were to make a sudden
attack on the sepoys. On March 17,
Hearsey once again reassured his troops:
they need not fear for their caste or their
religion, he said, for the Europeans were
coming only to disband the mutinous
19th Native Infantry.
But the imminent punishment of the
19th - who by refusing the cartridge had
steadfastly remained loyal to their faith
- had already made a deep impression on
Hearsey's sepoys. Nine days later, as he
sat in his bungalow, Hearsey received
news of a tumult on the parade ground.
After sending orders to the British troops
to stand by, the General rode to the scene,
accompanied by his son John. A shocking
sight met his eyes. A young sepoy
named Mangal Pande had just cut down
two European officers and was now calling
on his comrades to rebel and die bravely
for their religion. No one seemed to be taking action. In one corner stood a
group of British officers, including the
commander of the sepoys' regiment, all
apparently struck with paralysis. One of
these men called out to Hearsey: "Have
a care! His musket is loaded." "Damn his
musket" replied Hearsey, and added to
his son: "If I fall, John, rush in and put
him to death somehow!"
As the General rode towards him, the
sepoy raised his musket - then turned it
on himself and pulled the trigger. But he
only succeeded in wounding himself, and
after being taken prisoner was court-martialled,
condemned and hanged. His
name lived on, for soon the cry of
"Remember Mangal Pande I" was to
become the Indians signal for revolt, and
for the British "pandy" became a general
term of abuse for all Mutineers.
The 19th were disarmed and disbanded
without incident at the end of March, and
the Commander-in-Chief, General George
Anson, saw no reason to alter the usual
hot-weather routine of the army. Despite
continuing reports of barracks mysteriously
going up in flames and of secret meetings among the sepoys, European
troops were marched to cooler stations in
the foothills of the Himalayas. Officers
went on leave. General Anson - who had
seen no fighting since the war against
Napoleon more than 40 years earlier retired
with his staff to the hill-station of
Simla, nearly 1,000 miles away from the
Governor-General and the civil government
in Calcutta.
The officers and their families in the
cool of their hill retreats had no means of
knowing it, but down on the plains, in the
great military cantonment of Meerut, 40
miles outside Delhi, greater troubles were
brewing. There, 85 sepoys had refused to
accept the new cartridge. They had been
court-martialled and found guilty of
disobedience and sentenced to varying
terms of imprisonment with hard labour.
On Saturday, May 9, the whole garrison
was paraded to witness the sentences
being put into effect.
For one young lieutenant, Hugh Gough,
who afterwards wrote a vivid account of
the Mutiny outbreak, the events of that
day seemed heavy with foreboding. Even the weather underlined the menace, for
it was dark, with low clouds, and a hot
dry wind blowing across the parade
ground where some 4,000 men were
drawn up to form three sides of a hollow
square. The sombre light seemed to
heighten the silver-grey of Gough's own
3rd Light Cavalry, the shining brass
helmets and leather breeches of the
Bengal Artillery officers, the black horsehair
plumes of the Dragoon Guards, the
olive-green of the 60th Native Rifles, and
the scarlet coats and white collars of the
Native Infantry.
On the fourth, open side of the square
stood the 85 sepoys. They were clad in
their uniforms, but their feet were bare
and they carried no weapons. Their comrades,
rigid at attention, carried arms,
but everyone knew that their ammunition
pouches were empty - by order. The
British troops had their rifles, the new
Enfields loaded with the cartridges that
had caused all the trouble, and aimed at
the Native Infantry. Gaps in their ranks
showed the open mouths of guns, at each
breech a gunner at the ready.
A British officer stepped forward and
a ripple ran through the ranks. Slowly he
read from a paper, an Indian officer translating
his words into careful Hindustani.
When they had finished there was silence
for a moment, then a party of British
soldiers moved down the file ripping the
buttons from the uniforms of the 85
sepoys and the coats from their backs.
Armourers with tools and shackles came
forward and slowly began to fit fetters on
the condemned men, many of whom had
served the British government with
perfect loyalty through long years and
bloody battles. As the fetters were placed
upon them, they lifted up their hands,
beseeching the General to have mercy on
them, but seeing no hope there they
turned to their comrades and reproached
them for standing aside and allowing
them to be disgraced. Many of them were
in tears, but they could do nothing in the
face of the loaded field-guns and rifles,
and the glittering sabres of the Dragoons.
For a moment, it seemed to Lieutenant
Gough as if the sepoys were about to
attack the British with their bare hands;
but the prisoners were marched off and
the tension eased.
That evening Gough went down to the
temporary jail and was deeply moved by
the grief of the men who begged him to
save them. Later, in the dark of the
veranda, he wondered what would happen
next. His thoughts were interrupted
by a rustle in the darkness. It was a native
officer of his own troop who had come, he
said, to discuss the troops' accounts.
Gough found this odd, especially as the
man seemed frightened and kept carefully
to the shadows. Then the real purpose
of the visit was revealed. Tomorrow,
Sunday, the sepoys would mutiny - all
of them, even the cavalry, the sahib's
own men. They would break open the
jail and release their comrades. Death
was planned for the white soldiers and
their families.
After the man had left, Gough went
to the mess and informed his colonel,
George Carmichael-Smyth. His story was
greeted with laughter. When he had been
in India a little longer, he would learn not
to take such stories seriously. But Gough
was convinced that the native officer had
come to warn him of a real danger. He went to the Brigadier commanding the
station, Archdale Wilson, and was treated
with good-natured contempt. If no one
else was worried, why should Lieutenant
Gough concern himself?
The next day was May 10, 1857. About
5 p.m. a rumour spread in Meerut bazaar
that British troops were coming to seize
the sepoys' arms. Sepoys in the bazaar
hurried back to their barracks as an angry
mob of villagers surged out to attack
the Europeans' bungalows. On the parade
ground, sepoys intent on releasing their
imprisoned comrades slipped away from
white officers desperately trying to control
them. 'When Gough went out on his
veranda an hour later the horizon was a
sea of flame. Galloping down to the
cavalry lines, he found "a thousand
sepoys dancing and leaping frantically
about, calling and yelling to each other
and blazing away with their muskets in
all directions."
By nightfall, Meerut was a city of
horror. British officers had been
cut down by their own men.
Two officers' wives were murdered
in incidents which acquired
particular 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.
The suddenness of the attack caught
the senior officers off balance. Most were
old, and had not had to fight since their
youth. Though there were as many
British troops in Meerut as there were
Indians, and though the British had
artillery, nothing was done to organize a
response. Some of the younger officers, like
Gough, tried to give their seniors a
sense of urgency. But the mutineers were
able to break open the jail, release the
85 prisoners and set off on the road to
Delhi, 40 miles away to the south-west,
unmolested by the British.
No one pursued them, and next morning
the first of them reached the old
imperial capital. Some went to the palace,
the great red sandstone fort from which
the Mughal emperors had ruled all India before the coming of the British. Bahadur
Shah, the last of the Mughal line, now
called - by courtesy of the British, who
paid him a pension - "King of Delhi,"
did not welcome the sepoys, though they
hailed him, as his ancestors had been
hailed, "Emperor of Hindustani." But
inside the palace there were also men who
had waited long for an opportunity to do
something against the British who had
usurped the Mughal power. They welcomed
the sepoys as liberators, and all
the romantic appeal of a once great native
dynasty rising again was grafted on to
the confused aims of the mutineers.
There was little or nothing that the
few British officers and civilians in Delhi
could do against the three native regiments
stationed there, the mutineers
from Meerut and the retainers of the King.
The arsenal, one of the largest in India,
was inside the city walls and guarded only
by native troops. The main magazine was
some three miles outside the city, having
been moved there a few years earlier for
added security. That, too, was guarded
by native infantry. By nightfall of May
11, the Europeans in Delhi were in a bad
way. Some escaped, some were prisoners
in the palace, but many had been killed
either by their own men or when the
arsenal was blown up to prevent it from
falling into the hands of the mutineers. The
magazine however remained intact and
was handed over to the mutineers; its
3,000 barrels of powder were saved to
sustain the mutineers for three months
against the forthcoming counter-attacks
of the British.
Yet all was not well for the rebels
inside the city. They set up an alternative
government, a "Court of Mutineers," but
it was torn by rivalries between the
various factions. Hindus, Muslims,
sepoys, civilians and Mughal princes. All
treated the Emperor, who was little more
than a reluctant symbol of revolt, with
open contempt. He even had to threaten
suicide to save his closest confidant from
death. Many princes preferred to play for
safety by casting their lot with the British,
now belatedly gathering their forces to
strike back at the rebels. It became increasingly
clear that the disunited force
of mutineers would have very little chance
of resisting a strong counter-attack.
A Year of Bloodshed
On the evening of May 12, General
Anson was host to a Simla dinner party
of 25. The wine and the
talk were good, and when he was
handed a telegram, he set it
aside under hjs plate. When the ladies had
left the table, he opened the flimsy blue
form. It was from Delhi, "We must leave
office," he read. "All the bungalows are
on fire, burning down by the sepoys of
Meerut. They came in this morning. Mr.
C. Todd is dead, we think. He went out
this morning and has not yet returned.
We learn that nine Europeans were
killed. We are off. Goodbye." Already,
two days had been lost. The telegraph
was new to India and the line from Delhi
went no further than Ambala, a distance
of 66 miles from Simla.
The news, though it did not shock
Anson into moving down into the plains
himself, at least drove him into sending
others. But it took time. Troops had to
be rounded up from the various hill
resorts. Meanwhile, the general wrote to
Governor-General Canning that he awaited more information before he would
proceed to Ambala. When the news came,
the worst fears were confirmed.
On May 15, Anson and a force of some
6,000 men left for Ambala to organize the
recapture of Delhi.
The task was formidable. Anson had
the troops, but little ammunition and
no transport. In an excess of economy,
the army had lost its transport department
some time pefore and had now to
depend on civilian contractors. As no
campaigns were ever mounted in the hot
weather, much of the transport had been
dispersed. As for ammunition, most of it
had been stored in the great magazine
at Delhi, which was thought to be secure.
While at Ambala, Anson was bombarded
with telegrams - from the
Governor-General, who ordered him to
"make as short work as possible of the
rebels who have cooped themselves up in Delhi" and from John Lawrence in
the Punjab. Lawrence had himself moved
ruthlessly against the rebels there. Now
he wanted further action. Delhi would
open its gates at the approach of British
troops, he assured Anson. "Pray only
reflect on the whole history of India.
Where have we failed when we acted vigorously? Where have we succeeded
when guided by timid counsels?"
Such advice was not a great deal of use
to Anson, but he did move, with only 20
rounds of ammunition a man, and none
for his artillery, without medical supplies
and with no bullocks to pull the guns. The
whole of the little force reached Rarnal,
some eight miles from Delhi, by May 30.
Three days earlier, Anson had died of
cholera after handing over command to
Sir Henry Barnard, who had at least seen
action in the Crimea. Barnard decided to
march without delay, supported by a
reinforcement from Meerut under Archdale
Wilson. Together, they met a force
of mutineers some six miles from Delhi
at Badli-ke-serai. After a sharp engagement
on June 8, the British put the
mutineers to flight. Elated with this
initial success, Barnard and his troops
moved on to Delhi.
The British occupied the old military
cantonments outside the city, on what
was known as the Ridge. As a gesture of
defiance, they burnt the barracks - and
left themselves without shelter from the
grinding sun which was to beat down
upon them for over three months in the
hottest season of the Indian year. It was
soon obvious that the British were not
strong enough to take Delhi. The force
on the Ridge numbered about 5,000 men,
while the mutineers in the city had over
30,000, a figure increasing every day as
more and more reinforcements came in brigades
of cavalry and infantry, their
regimental colours bearing the names of
British victories flying bravely, their
bands blaring British marching tunes.
The British lacked not only men and
guns but also dynamic leadership; heatstroke
and cholera took a heavy toll.
General Barnard himself succumbed early in July, and his successor was soon too
ill to exercise command. The next senior
officer was Archdale Wilson, hardly an
encouraging replacement for he it was
who had hesitated so fatally at Meerut.
The British had to have reinforcements
and heavy artillery with which to breach
the walls of Delhi, and the reinforcements
could only come from the Punjab. Fortunately,
there was John Lawrence who,
while ensuring the safety of the Punjab,
set in motion preparations for reinforcing
the British outside Delhi with a massive
siege-train: great guns drawn by 16
elephants and accompanied by over 500
waggons bursting with ammunition sufficient,
it was confidently stated, "to
grind Delhi to powder."
In the meantime, reinforcements had
been steadily arriving and, with them,
some younger officers anxious for action.
Among them was John Nicholson. His
reputation was already high, and one
officer claimed that he was "an army in
himself," but he was also quite sombre
and humourless, and his presence cast "a
damper on the gaiety of some who sat
around him" in the Mess.
Nicholson was anxious to get on with
the assault. But though Nicholson and
others successfully mounted a number of
small engagements, there was no possibility
of assaulting the city, protected
as it was by seven miles of walls, until
the siege-train arrived. It did so on
September 4, and three days later the
first breaching battery was laid against
the city walls. By the evening of the 14th,
the British had broken into the city but
the victory required bitter fighting and
many casualties.
That night the guns were quiet, but the
British soldiers found and broke open the
cellars of merchants dealing in European
liquors. One eyewitness wrote: "A black
or a green bottle filled with beer or wine
or brandy was more precious than a tiara
of diamonds." Most of the British force
spent two days in an orgy of violence, drunkeness and confusion, "utterly
demoralized" wrote Captain William
Hodson, "by hard work and hard drink.
. . . For the first time in my life, I have
had to see English soldiers refuse
repeatedly to follow their officers."
When Archdale Wilson finally ordered
the remaining liquor stores to be destroyed, there was still much to do in
clearing the city of the remaining rebels,
but by September 20, the city was in the
hands of the British. The inhabitants
were driven out into the countryside
while the city was given over to plunder.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Mutiny had
spread. Soon after the fall of Delhi to the
mutineers, the British communities in
two other cities, Lucknow and Cawnpore,
in the former Kingdom of Oudh, were
threatened with extinction.
Here, 250 miles south-east of Delhi,
the British were faced not only with a
military rebellion but with what seemed
like a mass revolt. The former King of
Oudh was in comfortable exile in Calcutta,
but his subjects remained behind in chaos
and poverty. The state forces had been
disbanded and armed soldiers had turned
to banditry. The thousands of servants
and tradesmen who had been employed
by the King were left without a livelihood.
New taxes pressed heavily on the people.
A new tax on the use of opium drove
thousands of addicts to suicide.
The Mutiny Spreads
During April, the British in Lucknow had made preparations for
the coming crisis. In charge was Sir Henry Lawrence,
brother of John. Under his
guidance, the Residency was fortified. It
stood to the north of the city on a raised
plateau backing on to the River Gumti,
and contained a number of buildings,
offices and bungalows. All round this area
were mosques and houses which overlooked
the defences, giving fine vantage points
for would-be attackers. Despite
requests by his officers, Lawrence refused
to demolish the Indian buildings. From
any sound military viewpoint, then, the
Residency was almost indefensible.
When the news of the outbreak at
Meerut reached Lucknow, the situation
immediately became dangerous. Buildings
were set on fire, and armed Indians
began to gather in the city and to attack
European positions. By early June, the
thin web of British rule had been broken.
"Every outpost, I fear, has fallen," wrote
Lawrence on June 12, "and we daily
expect to be besieged by the confederated
mutineers and their allies."
Forty-two miles away at Cawnpore, another garrison was already fighting for
its life. Cawnpore was the headquarters
of the command that covered Oudh. In
charge was Major-General Sir Hugh
Wheeler. A man in his early seventies,
he had served in India for 54 years - and
none of them had prepared him for what
he was now to face. Cawnpore was a large
station, with many European and Eurasian
families. To protect them Wheeler
had only 60 European artillerymen, on
whom he could rely absolutely. The rest
of his troops were Indian.
There were two possible strong points,
One was the magazine, which contained
large stocks of weapons and ammunition.
It stood only a little way from the river,
which could have been used for a getaway
in an emergency. The other consisted
of two barrack buildings in the
open, well away from the river, near the
main road from Allahabad. The barracks,
which had no defences, were chosen and
surrounded by an inadequate entrenchment,
though to a competent soldier the
disadvantages of the position should have
been obvious.
Near Cawnpore, in the town of Bithur,
lived a man known as the Nana Sahib.
The Nana was the adopted son of a prince
who, after defeat by the British, had
been settled in luxurious exile at Bithur,
For 33 years the British paid the Ptince
a lavish pension; but when he died in
1851 they refused to continue paying it
to his adopted son. To Nana's appeals
the government turned a deaf ear. The
Nana, living in indolence and luxury in
his palace - even financing his own body
of troops - bided his time. Noone seemed
to suspect that he might harbour a deep
grudge against the British. He remained
on the friendliest terms with the British
and, in particular, with General Wheeler
and his Indian wife. It is probable that
the General asked his advice and received
an assurance that, should the sepoys
mutiny, they would make for Delhi and
leave the British in Cawnpore alone. Certainly,
Wheeler trusted the Nana implicitly;
after deciding on the barracks as his own defensive position, the General
invited him to take over the magazine and
the Treasury with his household troops!
The Nana occupied these two points and waited. On the night of June 4 nearly
all of the sepoys mutinied, burning their
barracks before looting the Treasury.
Some of those who did not do so joined
Wheeler inside the entrenchment. The
mutineers - as the Nana had foretold left
for Delhi. Wheeler felt that all he had
to do was wait for reinforcements, which
he expected at any moment. He was soon
disillusioned. The sepoys had halted only
a few miles up the road.
On June 6, Wheeler received a letter
from the Nana Sahib saying that he
intended to attack the entrenchment.
Within a few hours the area was surrounded
by the rebels, and the guns from
the magazine that Wheeler had handed
over to his friend were dropping roundshot
on the barracks. Behind a feeble
rampart four feet high and made of loose
earth were 240 men and 375 women and
children. The sun was at its hottest, gunbarrels
burned the hand that held them,
and there was little or no protection though
about 60 years later a huge underground
room was discovered below the
barracks that would have given cool and
bullet-proof protection. Unaware of its
existence, the garrison was protected
from the mutineers' heavy artillery fire
only by shallow trenches.
The death-toll among the defenders
grew steadily. On June 23, the anniversary
of the Battle of Plassey, a great assault
was beaten off. But food and water were
scarce, and the route to the well was open
to heavy fire from the mutineers. By June
25 the ammunition was almost gone and
starvation confronted the garrison in the
face. There was no sign of relief, but on the
same day the Nana offered terms of surrender.
Wheeler himself was opposed to surrender, but others thought that some
attempt should be made to save the
women and children.
A written treaty was drafted and
accepted, by which the British were to
surrender their guns and treasure and
theIil march out of the entrenchment with
their hand-arms and 60 rounds of ammunition
for each man. The Nana was to
provide boats to transport the women,
the children and the sick.
On June 27 what remained of the garrison
marched out towards the landingstage.
The sick and the women were
carried out in palanquins, and the children
who could not walk were carried'by some
of the sepoys who had been trying to kill
them a few days before. By 9 a.m. all
were embarked in large clumsy vessels
with thatched roofs which looked, from
a distance, "rather like floating haystacks."
Suddenly, and without warning,
a shot was heard. Fearful of treachery,
and with nerves tattered by three weeks
of siege, the British immediately opened
fire. The Nana's men replied with grapeshot
and ball, and the little fleet was soon
ablaze. One boat succeeded in getting
away, and four of its occupants finally
reached safety.
Of those who survived this last battle,
the men - 60 in number - were killed by
the Nana's troops; the women and children
were first imprisoned in a large house
and later moved to a smaller one built
by an English officer for his native mistress
(hence its name, Bibighur, meaning
"House of Ladies"). On July 15th, news
reached Cawnpore that the British were
approaching the city. Nana Sahib ordered
all the remaining prisoners to be killed.
His motives for doing this remain obscure.
Perhaps it was out of blind rage, perhaps
to rid himself of those who might give
evidence against him, perhaps in the
extraordinary belief that the approaching forces would then have no remaining
motive to press home their assault in order
to rescue their imprisoned countrymen.
Towards evening, five British men fugitives
from elsewhere captured over
the past few days - were taken out and
shot. Then a party of sepoys was detailed
off to execute the 210 women and children.
Apparently unable to bring themselves
to commit such cold-blooded murder,
they-fired high. Butchers were then summoned
from the bazaar and together with
two or three of the Nana's troops went in
to finish the job with knives. It was not
efficiently done. A few were still alive in
the morning, among them some children,
saved perhaps, by the crush of bodies in
the darkness. In the morning, the victims
were dragged out and thrown down a
near-by well. Some sepoys said that the children
still alive were killed first, others that
they were tossed alive into the well.
It was this atrocity above
all which inflamed British feelings when
the relief forces under General Henry
Havelock arrived to begin the assault on
Cawnpore two days later.
The recapture of Cawnpore was the
first stage on the way to relieving the
Residency at Lucknow. The 2,000 troops,
racked by dysentery, cholera and heatstroke,
took ten days to advance the 100
miles from Allahabad to Cawnpore. When
they entered the town, on the l7th,
they still hoped to bring release to the
women and children imprisoned there.
Instead they found a slaughter-house.
"I am not exaggerating," wrote one
officer, "when I tell you that the soles of
my boots were more than covered with
the blood of these poor wretched creatures."
Blood-stained clothing was scattered
about, as well as leaves ripped out
of the Bible and out of another appropriately titled
book, Preparation for Death
The British left the room untouched,
and filled in the well only partially; so
that they could stand as terrible reminders
to new troops from England that their
duty must be sustained by a desire for
revenge. One soldier, his head full of tales
of atrocities, reported: "I seed two Moors
[Indians] talking in a cart. Presently I
heard one of 'em say 'Cawnpore.' I knowed
what that meant; so I fetched Tom
Walker, and he heard 'em say 'Cawnpore,'
and he knowed what that meant. So we
polished 'em both off."
Revenge was not confined to ignorant
soldiers. At Cawnpore, Brigadier-General
James Neill issued an order on July 25
that every captured rebel, whether proved
guilty or not, "will be taken down to the
house and will be forced to clean up a
small portion of the bloodstains. The
task will be made as revolting to his feelings
as possible... After properly cleaning
up his portion, the culprit will be
immediately hanged." The guilty men,
of course, had fled long before Neill
arrived. Neill proudly reported that "a
Mohammedan officer of our civil court,
a great rascal" had objected. He was
flogged, and "made to lick up part of the
blood with his tongue." Then, in Old Testament terms expressing the fanatical
desire for vengeance which infected many
British, Neill concluded: "No doubt this
is a strange law, but it suits the occasion
well, and I hope I shall not be interfered
with until the room is thoroughly cleansed
in this way.... I will hold my own, with
the help and the blessing of God. I cannot
help seeing that His finger is in all
this - we have been false to ourselves so
often."
Neill's ferocity was not exceptional.
The British, enraged by
the murder of their women and
children in Cawnpore and elsewhere,
were already responding
with a reign of terror. By the middle of
June, l857, they had begun what one
19th-Century historian of the Mutiny,
I.W. Kaye, called a "Bloody Assize."
Indiscriminate lynchings were commonplace.
"Volunteer hanging parties," wrote
Kaye, "went out into the districts, and
amateur executioners were not wanting
to the occasion. One gentleman boasted
of the numbers he had finished off quite
'in an artistic manner,' with mango trees
for gibbets and elephants for drops, the
victims of this wild justice being strung up, as though for pastime, in the form of
figures of eight."
Hanging, however, was usually thought
too good for mutineers. When the facilities
were available, it was usual to blow
them from guns. It was claimed that this
method contained "two valuable elements
of capital punishment; it was painless to
the criminal and terrible to the beholder."
The ritual was certainly hideous. With
great ceremony the victim was escorted
to the parade ground while the band
played some lively air. The victim's back
was ranged against the muzzle of one of
the big guns and he was strapped into
position. Then the band would fall silent
and the only sound would be the faint
crackle of the portfire, as it was lowered
to the touch-hole. With a flash and a
roar, an obscene shower of blood and
entrails would cover both the gunners
and observers.
While Neill was engaged on his personal
vengeance at Cawnpore, Havelock
set out for Lucknow. He was, however,
opposed not only by large bodies of
mutineers, but also by heat-stroke and
disease. Though he was victorious in a
number of engagements, his troops were
too weak to follow up their successes, and twice he was forced to fall back on Cawnpore.
There he was able to regain sufficient
strength to defeat, on August 16, a
large force of mutineers who attempted
to retake the city. But reinforcements
arrived, and on September 19 Havelock
was at last able to set out once again to
relieve the long besieged people in the
Lucknow Residency.
Inside the Residency, the garrison of
1,800 British men, women and
children, as well as 1,200 native soldiers
and non-combatants - had been holding
out against a force of well over 20,000
Indian mutineers.
The siege had been precipitated by an
ill-advised attempt by Sir Henry Lawrence
to destroy a body of rebels at a
place some ten miles from the Residency
on June 29. The sortie had ended in a
rout, and Lawrence had been compelled
to retire on the Residency area before all
his preparations there were complete. On
the following day, he withdrew the garrison
from the Machchi Bhawan, blowing
up 240 barrels of gunpowder and five
million rounds of ammunition when they
left to keep these supplies from falling
into the hands of the Indians.
The defence of the Residency was a
nightmare. Because of Lawrence's refusal
to demolish the mosques and houses surrounding
the area, the defenders were
under fire from the near-by roottops, suffering from what the military commander,
Colonel Inglis, described as "our
very tenderness to the religious prejudices
and respect to the rights of our
rebellious citizens and soldiery."
Casualties were high. The deadly sniper
fire was soon supplemented by heavy
artillery. On July I a shell burst in the
room occupied by Lawrence. On being
pressed to move to a safer place he replied that he "did not believe that the enemy
had an artilleryman good enough to put
another shell into that small room." He
was wrong. About 8 a.m. the next day,
while he lay exhausted on his bed, there
was "a sheet of flames and a terrific
report." To the cry from one of his aides,
"Sir Henry, are you hurt?" he replied
"I am killed." His pain dulled by chloroform,
Lawrence survived for two days.
In his conscious periods he dictated orders
and requested that on his tomb should
be placed the simple inscription: "Here
lies Henry Lawrence who tried to do his
duty. May God have mercy on him." In
the night of July 4 he was buried with
other dead in a large pit.
At least the men of the garrison had
their duties. But the women and children
were confined to the cellars, and lived a
terrible, separate life punctuated only by alarms and deaths. Food was rationed,
each person receiving "attar or flour,
which we made into chupatties; rice,
dhal or peas; salt and meat." There were
no proper cooking facilities so everything
was cooked together, with ship's biscuits
and some water, into a stew. "But as the
saucepan was of copper and could not be
relined during tpe siege, the food when
it was turned out was often perfectly
green - hunger alone could make it enjoyable."
The children suffered most. The
heat was intense and there were no
coolies to pull the punkah fans. When the
besiegers attacked the Residency, all the
lights had to be put out and the children
lay trembling in the darkness until the
defenders had routed the Indians.
The rebels in Oudh had few military
leaders of any quality, but among the
civilians there was a woman of strong
character and sense of purpose. The
Begum Hazrat Mahal, who had begun
her career as adancing-girl, had caught
the eye of the King of Oudh and borne
him a son. After the rising in Oudh, the
sepoys approached a number of the exKing's
concubines. to persuade them to
put up one of their 'sons as king. All
refused until it came to the turn of Hazrat
Mahal. She immediately agreed that her
ten-year-old son, Birjis Qadr, should be
proclaimed King and that she should be
Regent during his minority. William
Roward Russell - correspondent of the
London Times - noted in his diary: "This
Begum exhibits great energy and ability.
She has excited all Oudh to take up the
interests of her sop, and the chiefs have
sworn to be faithful to him."
A "government" was formed under
Hazrat Mahal's authority and proclamations
were made over the seal of King
Birjis Qadr. The Begum toured through
Oudh and was in constant correspondence
with other leaders of the rebels.
Little of this was known inside the Residency,
for news was hard to come by. But
a native spy was several times able to
make his way through the rebel forces
to Havelock's camp; and on September
23 a letter came from Sir James Outram,
who had been sent to supersede Havelock
but instead volunteered to serve under
him until Lucknow was relieved. In his
letter Outram informed the commander of the garrison that the relieving force
would be there in a few days.
On September 25, after bloody fighting,
Havelock battered his way through to
the Residency. "The half-famished garrison," wrote Havelock, "contrived to
regale me, not only with beef cutlets, but
with mock turtle soup and champagne."
But Havelock and Outram could do
nothing in return. The force they had
brought to Lucknow was not strong
enough to break out again.
Reinforcements, however, were by now
arriving in India in ever-increasing numbers.
With them came two generals who
were to bring the campaign against the
mutineers to an end - Sir Colin Campbell
and Sir Hugh Rose. On November 9,
Campbell advanced with 5 ,000 men on
Lucknow. To guide him, Outram sent
Henry Kavanagh, who had volunteered
to make his way through the rebel lines '
disguised as an Indian. It seemed a foolhardy
enterprise, as he was nearly six
feet tall, with red-gold hair and beard,
and blazing blue eyes. But, made up with
lampblack, he succeeded in reaching
Campbell. On November 16, Campbell
entered the city. He had moved slowly,
careful not to risk unnecessary lives, but
his caution - commendable in itself proved
self-defeating because he allowed
his enemy to escape time and again, and
the campaign was prolonged.
Campbell slowly cleared the city of
rebel forces as the garrison in the Residency
made preparations for the evacuation.
As the early darkness descended on
November 19, the sad remnant of the
garrison marched out. Campbell made no
attempt to hold the city. He did not have
the troops, and there were more pressing
calls; at Cawnpore he had left General
Windham with only 500 men to guard
the one bridge by which mutineers fleeing
from Lucknow might cross the River
Ganges. Outram and Havelock were left,
with 4,000 men, in a walled park four
miles from Lucknow. There, weak with
dysentery, Havelock waited for death.
"For 40 years," he told Outram, "I have
so endeavoured to rule my life that when
death came I might face it without fear."
It came on the morning of November 24.
Campbell's weary men hurried towards
Cawnpore, hampered by the women and
children who were refugees from Lucknow. Windham, faced by a rebel force of
some 20,000 men under the command of
the best of the rebel generals, Tantia Topi,
reluctantly had had to give ground. But
with Campbell's arrival, the British took
the offensive, routed Tantia Topi and
saved Cawnpore.
The campaign was by no means over.
It was three months before Campbell
could retake Lucknow in March 1858,
and it was not until May, with the successful
action at Bareilly in Rohilkhand,
that large-scale operations in the north
came to an end.
The fall of the two great centres of the
revolt, Delhi and Lucknow, marked the
beginning of the end, and many mutineers
realized it. The civilian leaders of the
Mutiny disappeared, some never to be
heard of again. Those who had taken
advantage of the breakdown of British
rule to payoff old scores or acquire an
easy fortune faded into the background
from which they had emerged. Only a
few, like the Rani of Jhansi and Tantia
Topi, fought on to the end alongside their
sepoy followers who - as the British had
made clear - stood as much c:hance of
death if they surrendered as if they went
on fighting to the bitter end.
While Campbell completed his campaign
in Oudh, Sir Henry Rose turned on
the rebels in central India.
The End Game
Rose, starting from Bornbay, made
for Jhansi, which he reached on
March 21. Before he could besiege
the citadel, he had to march
out against Tantia Topi, who
had recovered from his defeat by Campbell.
Once more the Indian was defeated
and Rose could return to the storming of
Jhansi. Even though the British guns had
continued to bombard the city while Rose
was away dealing with Tantia Topi, it
still looked formidable. The great fort
seemed untouched and the Rani's flag
still flew defiantly from one of the towers.
This remarkable woman, only 23 years
old, had been a reluctant rebel. She took
up arms after the British accused her of
leading a massacre of white women and
children. Although there is no evidence of
her complicity in the deed, she was condemned
by the British as the "Jezebel of
India" and chose to fight. But without
hoped for support from Tantia Topi, the
plight of the city was serious.
When the British launched their
assault, they were met with strong
resistance but finally broke through the
walls into the city. No quarter was given
by the British, even to women and
children. Those of the rebels who could
not escape, wrote an eyewitness, "threw
their women and babes down wells and
then jumped down themselves." The
fighting went on for some days, until the
streets were so full of corpses that all
the squares were turned into cremation
grounds and "it became difficult to
breathe, as the air stank with the odour
of burning human flesh and the stench of
rotting animals in the streets." The
British claimed to have killed 5,000
"rebels" in the town, but many must have
been innocent citizens.
The Rani was not among the dead. On
April 4, she and a small party had left the
fort and made for the north gate of the
city. Passing through, she avoided Rose's
patrols and was many miles away before
the British discovered she had gone. A
cavalry detachment, sent in pursuit,
caught up with the party, and according
to some sources the British officer commanding
was wounded in a sword-fight
by the Rani herself. The Rani and four
retainers reached the town of Kalpi the
next day, and were joined there by Tantia
Topi. Rallying their forces, they descended
on Gwalior, an immense fortress held by
a ruler loyal to the British. The ruler
marched out against the rebels, but his
army deserted to them and he himself
barely escaped capture.
Rose and his exhausted troops took
Gwalior on June 20. Among those who
fell in the fighting was the Rani of Jhansi,
dressed as a man, her great jewelled
sword still in her hand. Tantia Topi
escaped, only to be betrayed to the
British; he was hanged in April, 1859.
Peace in India was not officially declared
until July 8, 1859. "War is at an
end; Rebellion is put down; the Noise of
Arms is no longer heard where the enemies
of the State have persisted in their last
Struggle;' the Presence of large Forces in
the Field has ceased to be necessary;
Order is re-established; and peaceful
Pursuits have everywhere been resumed."
So ran Lord Canning's proclamation. The
British in the subcontinent and at home
began to breathe freely once again
Legacy of the Mutiny
There had been no real danger
that British rule in India would
be overthrown. The majority of
the native soldiers had remained
loyal. In fact, without them the
British could hardly have suppressed the
rebellion. During the attack on Delhi,
for example, of 11,200 combatants on
the British side no fewer than 7,900 had
been Indian. Large areas of the country
remained unruffled by what the Indians
called "the devil's wind."
Though the British lost at most about
11,000 men, three-quarters of them killed
by disease or heat-stroke, the overall
cost was high. There are no reliable
figures for sepoy or civilian deaths, but
many thousands, both guilty and innocent,
had perished. The scars of the
rebellion were there for all to see. Ruined
cities, burnt villages and dead fields ran
like a swathe across northern India. The
country was further burdened by a debt
of '30,000,000 and all the problems of
reconstruction. In Britain, the Mutiny
did more than produce a wave of hysteria
and a desire for vengeance: it convinced
the politicians that the British Crown
must assume full responsibility from the
East India Company for the government
of India. This was done by Royal
proclamation on November 1, 1858.
One of the first problems which had to
be tackled was the reorganization of the
army. The Company's white troops were
disbanded (and some of those men mutinied
in protest). Henceforth there was to be a
permanent garrison of British Army
troops serving only in India. Regiments
of the Queen's forces would do tours of
duty and then be replaced. The problem
of the Indian element in the army was
much more difficult. But two innovations
were essential: the proportion of native
to British troops was not to be allowed
to exceed two to one, and the artillery
was to be almost exclusively in the hands
of the Queen's regiments. In the Bengal
Army, the number of native infantry
regiments was reduced from 146 in 1857
to 72, and similar reductions took place
in the Bombay and Madras armies. The
number of men in each regiment was also
reduced to 600. By 1861, there were about
70,000 British troops to 135,000 native
troops, and the British held all the
arsenals and the principal forts.
The main task of civil reconstruction
took many years. The first step was an
attempt at reconciliation. The princes,
who had generally either sided with the
British or had been peutral, were no
longer threatened with annexation. Over
the years that followed the Mutiny, every
attempt was made to show them that
their true interests lay with the British,
and everything was done to give them a
position - albeit empty of real power in
the new Empire of India. Recognizing
that one of the causes of the Mutiny had
been the fear that the British intended
to make all Indians Christians, Queen
Victoria proclaimed that although "firmly relying ourselves upon
the truth of Christianity and acknowledging
with gratitude the solace of
religion, we disclaim alike the right and
the desire to impose our convictions on
any other subjects."
Only one of the rebel leaders replied to the Queen's proclamation. The Begum
Hazrat Mahal of Oudh, refusing the offer
of a pardon and a pension stayed in Nepal,
to which she had escaped, and from there
issued her reply. The Begum's "proclamation"
is an unusual document. It dissected
Queen Victoria's text, paragraph
by paragraph, and in its
way it enshrines the fears and misunderstandings
that led to the sepoy
revolt. Her criticism of the clause guaranteeing
freedom of religious worship is
worth quoting, for behind it lies the truth
of the tragedy of 1857:
"In the proclamation it is written that
the Christian religion is true, but no other
creed will suffer oppression, and that the
laws will be observed towards all. What
has the administration of justice to do
with the truth or falsehood of a religion?
That religion is true which acknowledges
one God and knows no other. Where there
are three gods in a religion, neither
Mussulman nor Hindus - nay, not even
Jews, sun-worshippers or fire-worshippers
- can believe it to be true. To eat pigs
and drink wine, to bite greased cartridges,
and to mix pig's fat with flour and
sweetmeats, to destroy Hindu and Mussulman
temples on pretence of making roads,
to build churches, to send clergymen into
the streets and alleys to preach the
Christian religion, to institute English
schools, and pay people a monthly stipend
for learning the English Sciences, while
the places of worship of Hindu and Mussulman
are to this day neglected - with all
this how can the people believe that
religion will not be interfered with? The
rebellion began with religion, and for it
millions of men have been killed. Let not
our subjects be deceived; thousands were
deprived of their religion in the northwest
and thousands were hanged rather
than abandon their religion. "
What, then, had the revolt been? Was
it merely a military mutiny in a part of
the army, as the British believed, or a
national uprising, as later Indian historians
have argued? The truth lies somewhere
in between. It was traditional
India that had risen against the British,
the India which remembered its past,
hated the present and dreaded the future
that was now absolutely
certain to belong to the Westernized
Indian, and not to the Indian soldiers or princes.