What was the Indian Rebellion of 1857 ?

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Indian Mutiny, also called Sepoy Mutiny, widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India in 1857–58. Begun in Meerut by Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company, it spread to Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, and Lucknow. In India it is often called the First War of Independence and other similar names.

To regard the rebellion merely as a sepoy mutiny is to underestimate the root causes leading to it. British paramountcy—i.e., the belief in British dominance in Indian political, economic, and cultural life—had been introduced in India about 1820.

The British increasingly used a variety of tactics to usurp control of the Hindu princely states that were under what were called subsidiary alliances with the British. Everywhere the old Indian aristocracy was being replaced by British officials.

One notable British technique was called the doctrine of lapse, first perpetrated by Lord Dalhousie in the late 1840s. It involved the British prohibiting a Hindu ruler without a natural heir from adopting a successor and, after the ruler died or abdicated, annexing his land.

To those problems may be added the growing discontent of the Brahmans, many of whom had been dispossessed of their revenues or had lost lucrative positions.

Another serious concern was the increasing pace of Westernization, by which Hindu society was being affected by the introduction of Western ideas. Missionaries were challenging the religious beliefs of the Hindus.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of British East India Company's army on May 10, 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to the region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, northern Madhya Pradesh or Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, Delhi, and Gurgaon.

Quote: "The 1857 rebellion was by and large confined to northern Indian Gangetic Plain and central India." The rebellion posed a considerable threat to British power in that region, contained only with the fall of Gwalior on June 20, 1858.

The rebellion has also been termed India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, and the Sepoy Mutiny.

The humanitarian movement led to reforms that went deeper than the political superstructure. During his tenure as governor-general of India (1848–56), Lord Dalhousie made efforts toward emancipating women and had introduced a bill to remove all legal obstacles to the remarriage of Hindu widows.

As with the American colonies, Britain began its presence in India by way of a chartered company. The Honourable East India Company had been granted rights by the Crown to conduct trade in India and establish treaties.

The British government promised military protection of the East India Company. India had long suffered divisions between its Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, and Jain populations.

They lacked the blood and cultural ties with Britain that Americans had. In India's case, they faced a foreign invader in Great Britain, not a civil war.

Converts to Christianity were to share with their Hindu relatives in the property of the family estate. There was a widespread belief that the British aimed at breaking down the caste system. The introduction of Western methods of education was a direct challenge to orthodoxy, both Hindu and Muslim.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 marked an uprising against a hostile foreign nation rather than a rebellion against a brother.

The mutiny broke out in the Bengal army because it was only in the military sphere that Indians were organized. The pretext for revolt was the introduction of the new Enfield rifle.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 marked a turning point for Britain in India. Prior to the uprising against the British, the British East India Company governed British affairs in India.

To load it, the sepoys had to bite off the ends of lubricated cartridges. A rumour spread among the sepoys that the grease used to lubricate the cartridges was a mixture of pigs’ and cows’ lard; thus, to have oral contact with it was an insult to both Muslims and Hindus.

The British army and navy supported the East India Company while the governors of the company ruled British possessions in India.

After the nearly disastrous for British interests rebellion in India, the British crown assumed direct control over affairs in India through the Governor General or Raj.

There is no conclusive evidence that either of these materials was actually used on any of the cartridges in question. However, the perception that the cartridges were tainted added to the larger suspicion that the British were trying to undermine Indian traditional society. For their part, the British did not pay enough attention to the growing level of sepoy discontent.

India became a colony directly under control of the British crown, much as the American colonies had been.

In late March 1857 a sepoy named Mangal Pandey attacked British officers at the military garrison in Barrackpore. He was arrested and then executed by the British in early April. Later in April sepoy troopers at Meerut refused the Enfield cartridges, and, as punishment, they were given long prison terms, fettered, and put in jail.

This punishment incensed their comrades, who rose on May 10, shot their British officers, and marched to Delhi, where there were no European troops. There the local sepoy garrison joined the Meerut men, and by nightfall the aged pensionary Mughal emperor Bahādur Shah II had been nominally restored to power by a tumultuous soldiery.