To "the cow reverencing Hindu and the pig paranoid Muslims" having to bite this was repellent, defiling and deadly to their religious prospects. A Chowkeydar ran up to another village with two chupatties. His unit in the Bengal Army, which had refused to use the new rifle cartridges, was about to be disarmed and punished. 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. 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. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service. A rumor that spread like wildfire among the sepoys (Indian soldiers) stationed at cantonments throughout the north of the country was that the British had come up with yet another diabolical contrivance for breaking their caste and defiling their bodies: the greased cartridge. The uprising was officially declared over on July 8, 1859. Christian organisations from Britain had additionally created 222 "unattached" mission stations across India in the decade preceding the rebellion. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 203-204 A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. The dramatic capture of Delhi turned mutiny into full-scale revolt. In the event, the chapattis were not harbingers of a coming storm. They were what people made them into, and the significance attributed to them was a symptom of the pervasive distrust and general consternation amongst the Indian population during the early months of 1857. This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernizing regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. Its cartridges consisted of a .577 inch ball projectile and a charge of gun powder propellant wrapped in waterproofed cartridge paper. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. (2021, July 31). [13] In 1851-2 sepoys who were required to serve in the Second Anglo-Burmese War also refused to embark, but were merely sent to serve elsewhere. By origin, a cartridge is a container, usually of paper, designed to hold enough powder for one discharge of the weapon. Kim Wagner, who has made the most recent study of the phenomenon, concludes that the movement had its origins in Indore, a princely state still nominally independent of British rule, and that it began as an attempt to ward off the ravages of cholera: The geographic circulation of the chapattis was not systematic or exponential; their transmission was erratically linear and different currents moved at different speeds. Measures of prevention of future crises naturally began with the army, which was completely reorganized. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean (Haram) by Muslims. Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. But the only evidence for either of these was the circulation from village to village of chapatis, or cakes of unleavened bread, a practice that, though it also occurred on other occasions, was known to have taken place at any time of unrest. The signal spread in all directions with wonderful celerity. British officials were alarmed at the rapid distribution of mysterious Indian breads across much of the Raj, There is a most mysterious affair going on throughout the whole of India at present, Dr. Gilbert Hadow wrote in a letter to his sister in Britain in March 1857. 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. Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 (London: John Murray, 2004). The Indian Mutiny of 1857-59 was a widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against the rule of British East India Company in India which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British crown. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. The revolt of 1857, which the British call the Indian Mutiny but many Indians prefer to think of as the First War of Independence, was the defining event in British imperial history. The Lucknow garrison held out in the residency from July 1, in spite of the death of Sir Henry Lawrence on July 4. The Revolt ended the rule of the English East India Company. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. To save content items to your account, There followed the relief of the residency (November) and the capture of Lucknow by the new commander in chief, Sir Colin Campbell (March 1858). Finally, there was the activity of Christian missionaries, by that time widespread. The whole episode falls into three periods: first came the summer of 1857, when the British, without reinforcements from home, fought with their backs to the wall; the second concerned the operations for the relief of Lucknow in the autumn; and the third was the successful campaign of Sir Colin Campbell (later Baron Clyde) and Sir Hugh Henry Rose (later Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi) in the first half of 1858. Beyond that, however, opinions remained divided. Map: Wikicommons. The greased cartridge - what was it all about? The Siege of Delhi. Indian soldiers had to blow the cartridge which was made of pork and beef. The revolt was sparked by a number of reasons, including economic exploitation, cultural repression, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers. Singhs coalitionits brief rise and fall, Congress government of P.V. The lack of planning after the outbreak rules out these two explanations, while the degree of popular support argues more than a purely military outbreak. The greased cartridges had to be opened by biting off the top with your teeth. The Bengal army of some 130,000 Indian troops may have contained as many as 40,000 Brahmans as well as many Rajputs. the Sepoy Mutiny (by British Historians) With this information, the sepoys believed that the British deliberately introduced the greased cartridges for defiling their religions. In an elaborate ceremony, Lord Lytton, the serving viceroy of India, honored a number of Indian princes. Narasimha Rao, The BJP becomes the largest party in the Lok Sabha, BJP reelection bids and tensions in Kashmir, Addressing COVID-19 and its economic impact. It is not known who first projected the plan. 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. Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). During the late eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century, the armies of the East India Company, in particular those of the Bengal Presidency, were victorious and indomitable the term "high noon of the sepoy army" has been used by a military historian. The Revolt of 1857 in India eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. Cookie Policy please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. Your Privacy Rights With this, and the aid of rebel dissensions, Delhi was stormed and captured by the British on September 20, while the emperor Bahdur Shah surrendered on promise of his life. The cartridge of the Enfield rifle was heavily greased - with animal fat, to facilitate an easier load into the muzzle. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. There was therefore both resentment and unease among the old governing class, fanned in Delhi by the British decision to end the Mughal imperial title on Bahdur Shahs death. ThoughtCo, Jul. And yet its just as possible to see the bloody results of the mutual incomprehension between the British and native communities in India as a potent reminder that mistrust and panic can have serious consequences. 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. 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. No, it is not by any means a custom; I am 50 years old, and never heard of such a thing before. Britain, of course, would rule India well into the 20th century. By a campaign in Avadh and Rohilkhand, Campbell cleared the countryside. Further, the British were becoming increasingly hostile toward traditional survivals and contemptuous of most things Indian. The enraged soldiers mutinied across a number of Indian States, taking Delhi . There was thus a suppressed tension in the countryside, ready to break out whenever governmental pressure might be reduced. Politically, many princes of India had retired into seclusion after their final defeat in 1818. Then enter the name part Tall tales, panic and misapprehension spread readily in such a climate, and plenty of people felt a certain disquiet in the early months of 1857. Dalhousie had also appointed Inam Commission with powers to confiscate land. The first sepoy who rebelled by aiming his loaded weapon at a British officer was Mangal Pandey who was later executed.[25]. A cartridge for the new Enfield rifle. The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal Sepoy regiment of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the Sepoy as a breach of faith by the company. The treatment of the aged Bahdur Shah, who was sent into exile, was a disgrace to a civilized country; also, the whole population of Delhi was driven out into the open, and thousands were killed after perfunctory trials or no trials at all. McNamara, Robert. The Muslims had lost the large state of Avadh; the Marathas had lost Nagpur, Satara, and Jhansi. Sepoy units in the south of India remained loyal, but in the north, many units of the Bengal Army turned on the British. 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.'. Throughout May and June 1857 more units of Indian troops mutinied against the British. The cartridge had to be bitten off before loading it into the gun. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. Rich people like the merchants and moneylenders were, therefore, able to speculate in British land sales and drive out the most vulnerable peasant farmers. 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