(Online Course) GS Concepts : Mordern Indian History - Causes of the Revolt of 1857

Topic: Causes of the Revolt of 1857

Question : Briefly discuss the causes of the revolt of 1857?

Answer:

The revolt did not happen overnight. From the beginning of the political influence .of the British after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the British faced resistance from various sections of the society. The miscellaneous populace had been harbouring resentment against the British. Due to the nature of the early historiography of the revolt, which was written by officials turned historians, it was believed to be a ‘mere mutiny’ of the sepoys in Bengal and Meerut, which was later joined by the civil populace. However, an analysis shows that such a simplistic view is limited in its scope. It is difficult to highlight a single cause for the outbreak of the revolt. There were multiple grievances, which were acutely felt by the different sections of the society. While noting the anti-British sentiments in the revolt it is equally essential to take into account the fact that the revolt in later stages was directed against the landlords, banias and money-lenders. The landlords in the British period were principally the creation of the new revenue policies introduced under them and had become vehicles of peasant exploitation.

Social and Religious Causes: From the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British had abandoned its policy of non-interference in the socio-religious life of the Indians. Abolition of Sati in 1829 under Lord Bentinck, the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, and western education all led to disruption in the social world of the people After the Charter of 1813, the Christian missionaries were allowed to enter India and carry on with their mission of proselytizing. This, combined with the Religious Disabilities Act of 1856, which sought to do away with the previous ban on Christian converts from Hinduism in inheriting property, created a feeling amongst the people of threat to their religion and way of life.

Economic Causes: British rule led to breakdown of the village self-sufficiency and also disturbed order of land settlements in India. The British ordered an enquiry into the title deeds of the landed estates in Bengal and its adjoining areas, Bombay Provinces and North-Western Provinces Many people who had held lands before the coming of the British lost their lands under the ‘reorganisation’ of the land titles. Added to this was the commercialisation of agriculture which burdened the peasantry, adoption of free trade imperialism from 1800, de-industrilization and drain of wealth all of which led to overall decline of the economy.

Military Grievances: The sepoys of the Bengal army were recruited mainly from the North-West Provinces, and Awadh. It had a high proportion of high caste men, Bhumihar, Brahmins and Rajputs of the Ganges Valley. Given the social status of the sepoys, in the early years of the Company rule, the British tolerated and even encouraged the caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army. But by 1820s, these customs -and privileges were threatened by the modernizing forces that sought to introduce a stricter universalised military culture. In accordance with the changes, the sepoys were prohibited to observe some customary practices, like wearing a saffron mark on their forehead, growing beard and wearing turbans. The sepoys who had become accustomed to very high ritual status were extremely sensitive to suggestions that threatened their caste rules.

Serving abroad was also against the caste-rules of the sepoys and this clashed with the need to defend the growing British Empire outside India. The mutiny in Afghanistan during 1839-42 was met with reprisals and led the Company to widen the recruitment base of the Bengal army to include other castes and regional groups. The sepoys had refused to serve in Burma and it led to the passing of the General Services Enlistment Act by Lord Cannings Government in 1856. It compelled the sepoys to serve abroad, if the need arose.

In 1856, in accordance with the new rules, the soldiers no longer received extra allowance bhatta for service outside their own regions because they were no longer considered to be foreign missions. This affected the extra pay of the sepoys. But the English soldiers in the Indian army continued to receive this allowance. Thus, the denial of this allowance amounted to gross discrimination against the sepoys.

Also, the Indian sepoys were discriminated against in terms of promotion and salary. While the sepoys outnumbered the European soldiers, the former were not promoted to higher posts in the army.

Political Causes: -Annexation of Awadh in 1856 was a blow to the prestige of the ruling classes, the local population and the sepoys. Apart from Delhi, Awadh was the second most important centre of the revolt. Multiple causes were present here in their true form. About three-fourth of the Company’s sepoys were recruited from Awadh and most of them were simply peasants in uniform. Thus, any change in the agrarian set-up and in the cultural fabric would also be acutely felt by them; Annexation of Awadh in 1856 on the pretext maladministration became an important cause for many of those who participated. The annexation led to disbanding of the Nawab’s army and also affected the entire aristocracy, which in turn severely affected the economy of the region. In Awadh, many taulkdars who lost their property as a result of the Summary Settlement in 1856 supported the rebels. The revolt was perhaps of the highest intensity in Awadh.

Initially, when the British were expanding their hold over India and consolidating their rule, they were careful in showing due deference to Indian Princes and their privileges. But as their confidence grew, there was an attempt by the British to take away the nominal authority of the native. Princes and their pensions were greatly reduced. This created unease among the various regional kingdoms. The earlier treaties made with the Indian Princes came to be increasingly disregarded. Policies of ‘Aggressive Annexation’, and the ‘Doctrine of Lapse’ were aggressively followed under Lord Dalhousie and came to be widely resented. By following the Doctrine of Lapse, the adopted sons of the deceased kings were derecognisied as heirs to the throne, which subsequently led to the annexation a large number of kingdoms. Satara (1848), Nagpur, Sambalpur and Baghat (1850), Udaipur (1852), and Jhansi (1853) to name a few, were annexed by the British.

However, each of these states was brought under the British rule for their strategic value, administrative and military. Annexation of Jhansi was important in order to further improve the Company’s internal administration in Bundelkhand. Satara was geographically placed between two principal military stations in the Bombay Presidency, and lay along the main lines of communication between Bombay and Madras. Nagpur was “placed right across the main lines of communication between Bombay and Calcutta.” Aside from administrative expediency, Lord Dalhousie had a firm belief that if placed under the direct administration of the Company’s Government, people would enjoy greater “prosperity and happiness.” In retrospect due to this policy, the disgruntled and deposed Princes or guardians of some, of these annexed states became leaders of the revolt in their regions.

Annexation of the Princely or Native States, which were previously left largely undisturbed, added to the growing apprehension amongst the Princes regarding the future of their sovereignty The forfeiture or reduction of the princely pensions also affected them and their dependants.

Agrarian Causes: The Summary Settlement of 1856, which was first introduced in the North Western Provinces, was extended to Awadh Since its main aim was to bypass the middlemen in the collection of revenues and to win the confidence of the agricultural populace, the settlement was made-with the actual occupiers of the land and it disregarded all other proprietary rights. Due to this, the talukdars, who functioned almost independently under the Nawab and extracted exorbitant revenues, lost about half of their estates and the connected regalia. In most of the regions there was an increase in the power and hold of the money-lenders and in the number of absentee landlords.

The condition, of the peasants, however, only got worse. Heavy over assessment of land revenue impoverished them. While talukdars used to appropriate the surplus produced by the peasant, the extractive powers were limited and constrained by the relations of mutual interdependence between the Nawab, talukdars, the peasants, and the traditional worldview of social norms at, ob1igations, The British conquest assaulted this traditional world view, and removal of the king had an emotional impact on the people of Awadh after its annexation in 1856.

One of the most important changes that took place in the early years of the British rule was the introduction of the institution of private property rights in land. With this change, land became a commodity, which could be bought, sold, rented or leased. If the landholder defaulted on his due, he faced a real possibility of forfeiting his land. In point of fact, many of the new landed elites emerged after buying the lands of the older landed classes who had either defaulted on their dues or could not produce the title deeds.

Administrative Causes: The annexation of the Indian states did not only lead to dislocation of the ruling elites and the local populace, but the British also actively followed the policy of discrimination against the Indians. All high posts in the Company’s government were reserved for the Europeans.

The administrative machinery of the East India Company was inefficient and inadequate. Their revenue policies were widely resented. Many districts in the newly annexed states were in the state of perpetual revolt. Significant numbers of talukdars / hereditary landlords were deprived of their position and resources. There was a large scale confiscation and auctioning of the estates. The new revenue policies created a vicious circle of problems for all concerned. The old aristocracy and landlords lost their power and lands; the new landlords thus created, extracted mercilessly from the peasants but the demand being unreasonably high, often led to the landlords, losing their land; and the peasants had to face perpetual hardship at the hands of the Company’s policies along with the demands of the landlords and ultimately fell under the debt-trap of the money-lenders in an effort to meet the various fiscal demands.

Main Events of the Revolt of 1857tc "Main Events of the Revolt of 1857"

On March 29, 1857 at Barrackpore (now Barrackpur) near Calcutta, Mangal Pandey, a Bhumihar Brahman sepoy of Ballia district of modern UP, attacked and injured his British sergeant on the parade ground and wounded an Adjutant with a sword after failing to shoot at him. The officer in charge, General Hearsay, ordered a Jamadaar of the troops, Ishwaria Pandey, to arrest Mangal Pandey, which he refused to do as did the whole regiment. Pandey was executed. As a collective punishment for his act and in an attempt to circumvent a possible revolt, the entire regiment was subsequently disbanded.

On May 11, 1857 a band of discontented sepoys from Meerut marched to Red Fort, Delhi and appealed to an aging Mughal Emperor Bhahdur Shah II, who had been reduced to the status of a pensioner of the British, to become the leader of their Revolt and hailed him as the Emperor of Hindustan. This marked the beginning of the widespread uprising by the sepoys. On June 4, the sepoys of 2nd Calvary and the 1st Native Infantry rose up in mutiny in Kanpur, killing many British men, women and children.

The Cawnpore (now Kanpur in U.P.) Massacre is the most infamous event in the revolt’s history. The rebels under Nana Sahib attacked the British in Kanpur on June 6, 1857. The British suffered heavy losses. The British, who were besieged in Kanpur, were promised a safe passage by Nana Sahib to Allahbad on June 27, 1857. However, under some circumstances, the details of which are still debated, the captives were attacked in their boats while on the river. The remaining were held at Bibigarh. The rebels on hearing the news of the British rescue troops approaching from Allahabad, hacked all the captives, which included 120 women and some children, to death and threw them in a well in the compound. As the details of the massacre spread, the counter-atrocities by the British increased and the rebels lost many pro-Indian rebel supporters amongst the non-Indian populace.

Prominent Leaders of the Revolttc "Prominent Leaders of the Revolt"

Bahadur Shah II, Nana Sahib, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, Khan Bahadur Khan of Rohilkhand, Kunwar Singh of Arrah, Maulvi Ahmad-ullah of Faizabad, Tantia Tope and Prince Firoz Shah of the Mughal royal family and raised the banner of the revolt in Mandasor (M.P.)

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