first war of independence
The First War of Indian Independence was
a period of rebellions in northern and central India against British power in
1857–1858. The British usually refer to the rebellion of 1857 as the Indian Mutiny or the Sepoy Mutiny. It is widely
acknowledged to be the first-ever united rebellion against colonial rule in
India.
Mangal
Pandey, a Sepoy in the colonial British army, was the spearhead of this revolt,
which started when Indian soldiers rebelled against their British officers over
violation of their religious sensibilities. The uprising grew into a wider
rebellion to which the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah, the nominal ruler of
India, lent his nominal support. Other main leaders were Rani Lakshmibai of
Jhansi and Tantia Tope. The British cruelly put down the uprising, slaughtering
civilians indiscriminately. The result of the uprising was a feeling among the
British that they had conquered India and were entitled to rule. The Mughal
Emperor was banished and Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was
declared sovereign. The British East India Company, which had represented
the British Government in India and which acted as agent of the Mughals, was
closed down and replaced by direct control from London through a Governor-General.
Prior to the
revolt, some British officials in India saw Indians as equals and dreamed of a
long-term partnership between Britain and India to the
benefit of both. These officials had a sympathetic knowledge of Indian
languages and culture. Afterwards, fewer officials saw value in anything Indian
and many developed a sense of racial superiority, depicting India as a chaotic
and dangerous place where the different communities, especially Muslim and
Hindu, were only kept from butchering one another by Britain's exercise of
power. The rebellion was widely perceived to have been a mainly Muslim
uprising, although prominent Hindus also participated. However, Muslims
especially would find themselves less favored following this incident, with a
few exceptions.[2] India's
eventual partition into India and Pakistan, based on the "two
nation" theory that her Hindus and Muslims represented two distinct
nations whose people could not live together in peace, may be seen as another
long-term result of the uprising.
In British memory, novels and films romanticize the event
extolling the bravery of their soldiers, while in Indian memory rebels such as
Rani Lakshmi Bai and Nana Sahib enjoy the status of a Joan of Arc or
of a William Wallace, fighting injustice.
The Revolt of 1857:
The first
expression of organised resistance was the Revolt of 1857. It began as a revolt
of the sepoys of the Company’s army but eventually secured the participation of
the masses. Its causes lay deeply embedded in the grievances that all sections
of Indian society nurtured against the British rule.
Causes of the Revolt:
Political Causes:
The
political causes of the revolt may be traced to the British policy of expansion
through the Doctrine of Lapse and direct annexation. A large number of Indian
rulers and chiefs were dislodged, thus arousing fear in the minds of other
ruling families who apprehended a similar fate.
A large section of the population was alarmed by the
rapid spread of Western civilization in India. An Act in 1850 changed the Hindu
law of inheritance enabling a Hindu who had converted into Christianity to
inherit his ancestral properties. Besides, the missionaries were allowed to
make conversions to Christianity all over India. The people were convinced that
the Government was planning to convert Indians to Christianity.
Economic Causes:
In rural areas, peasants and zamindars resented the heavy
taxes on land and the stringent methods of revenue collection followed by the
Company. Many among these groups were unable to meet the heavy revenue demands
and repay their loans to money lenders, eventually losing the lands that they
had held for generations. Large numbers of sepoys were drawn from the peasantry
and had family ties in villages, so the grievances of the peasants also
affected them.
The Revolt of 1857 started as a sepoy mutiny. It was only
later on that other elements of society joined the revolt. Indian sepoys formed more than 87% of British
troops in India. They were considered inferior to British soldiers. An Indian sepoy
was paid less than a European sepoy of the same rank. Besides, an Indian sepoy
could not rise to a rank higher than that of a Subedar
The extension of the British Empire in India had
adversely affected the service conditions of Indian sepoys. They were required
to serve in areas far away from their homes. In 1856 Lord Canning issued the
General Services Enlistment Act which required that the sepoys must be ready to
serve even in British land across the sea.
The ‘Bengal Army’ was recruited from high caste
communities in Awadh. They were not prepared to cross the ocean (Kalapani)
which was forbidden as per Hindu religious beliefs. They developed the
suspicion that the Government was trying to convert Indians to
Christianity.After the annexation of Awadh the Nawab’s army was disbanded.
These soldiers lost their means of livelihood. They became bitter enemies of
the British.
The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident
of greased cartridges. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield
rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. Before loading these rifles
the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. Both Hindu and Muslim
sepoys refused to use them. Canning tried to make amends for the error and the offending
cartridges were withdrawn, but by then the damage had been done. There was
unrest in several places.
In March 1857, Mangal Pandey, a sepoy in Barrackpore, had
refused to use the cartridge and attacked his senior officers. He was hanged to
death on 8th April. On 9th May, 85 soldiers in Meerut refused to use the new
rifle and were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
Main
events of the revolt:
Soon there was a rebellion in the Meerut Cantonment. The
Meerut Mutiny (May 9, 1857) marked the beginning of the Revolt of 1857. The
Indian sepoys in Meerut murdered their British officers and broke open the
jail. On May 10, they marched to Delhi.
In Delhi the mutineers were joined by the Delhi sepoys
and the city came under their control. Next day, on 11th May, the sepoys
proclaimed the ageing Bahadur Shah Zafar the Emperor of Hindustan. But Bahadur
Shah was old and he could not give able leadership to the sepoys. The
occupation of Delhi was short-lived.
The British finally attacked Delhi in September. For six
days there was desperate fighting. But by September 1857, the British
reoccupied Delhi. Thousands of innocent people were massacred and hundreds were
hanged. The old king was captured and later deported to Rangoon where he died
in 1862. His sons were shot dead. Thus ended the imperial dynasty of the
Mughals.
The revolt spread over the entire area from the
neighbourhood of Patna to the borders of Rajasthan. There were six main centres
of revolt in these regions namely Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly, Jhansi, Gwalior
and Arrah in Bihar.
Lucknow was the capital of Awadh. There the mutinous
sepoys were joined by the disbanded soldiers from the old Awadh army. Begum
Hazrat Mahal, one of the begums of the ex-king of Awadh, took up the leadership
of the revolt. Finally the British forces captured Lucknow. The queen escaped
to Nepal.
Kanpur:
In Kanpur the revolt was led by Nana Saheb, the adopted
son of Peshwa Baji Rao II. He joined the revolt primarily because he was
deprived of his pension by the British. He captured Kanpur and proclaimed
himself the Peshwa. The victory was short- lived.
Kanpur was recaptured by the British after fresh
reinforcements arrived. The revolt was suppressed with terrible vengeance. The
rebels were either hanged or blown to pieces by canons. Nana Saheb escaped. But
his brilliant commander Tantia Tope continued the struggle. Tantia Tope was
finally defeated, arrested and hanged.
In Jhansi, the twenty-two-year-old Rani Lakshmi Bai led
the rebels when the British refused to accept the claim of her adopted son to
the throne of Jhansi. She fought gallantly against the British forces. But she
was ultimately defeated by the English.
Rani Lakshmi Bai escaped. Later on, the Rani was joined
by Tantia Tope and together they marched to Gwalior and captured it. Sindhia, a
loyal ally of the British, was driven out. Fierce fighting followed. The Rani
of Jhansi fought like a tigress. She died, fighting to the very end. Gwalior
was recaptured by the British.
Bihar:
In Bihar the revolt was led by Kunwar Singh.
The Revolt of 1857 lasted for more than a year. It was
suppressed by the middle of 1858. On July 8, 1858, fourteen months after the
outbreak at Meerut, peace was finally proclaimed by Canning.
There were many causes which led to the collapse of this
mighty rebellion. Here we list some of them to you.
Lack
of a Unified Programme and Ideology
The rebellion swept off the British system of government
and administration in India. But the rebels did not know what to create in its
place! They had no forward-looking plan in mind. This made them rely on the
outmoded feudal system with Bahadur Shah at its head. The other prominent
leaders of rebellion like , Nana sahib, Begum of Awadh.
Lack
of Unity Among Indians
As mentioned above, no broad based unity among the Indian
people could emerge. While sepoys of the Bengal army were revolting, some
soldiers in Panjab and south India fought on the side of the British to crush
these rebellions. Similarly, there were no accompanying rebellions in most of eastern
and southern India. The Sikhs also did not support the rebels. All these groups
had their reasons to do so. The possibility of the revival of Mughal authority
created a fear among the Sikhs who had faced so much oppression at the hands of
the Mughals. Similarly, the Rajput chieftains in Rajasthan and Nizam in
Hyderabad were so much harassed by the Marathas that they dreaded the revival
of Maratha power. Besides this, there were some element of the peasantry that
had profited from the British rule. They supported the British during the
revolt. The Zamindars of Bengal Presidency were the creation of the British;
and had all the reasons to support them. The same applied to the big merchant
of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras who did not go over to the rebels but supported
the British.
Lack
of support from the Educated Indians
The modern educated Indians also did not support the
revolt because, in their view, the revolt was backward-looking. This educated
middle class 14 was the product of the British system of education and they
believed mistakenly that the British would lead the country towards
modernisation.
Disunity
among the Leaders
The main problem however, was lack of unity in the ranks
of rebels themselves. Their leaders were suspicious and jealous of each other
and often indulged in petty quarrels. The Begum of Awadh, for example,
quarreled with Maulavi Ahmadullah, and the Mughal princes with the
sepoy-generals. Azimullah, the political adviser of the Nana Saheb, asked him
not to visit Delhi lest he be overshadowed by the Emperor Bahadur Shah. Thus.
Selfishness and narrow perspective of the leaders sapped the strength of the
revolt and prevented its consolidation.
Military
Superiority of the British
Another major factor for the defeat of the rebels was the
British superiority in arms. The British imperialism, at the height of its
power the world over and supported by most of the Indian princes and chiefs,
proved militarily too strong for the rebels. While the rebels were lacking in
discipline and a central command, the British continued to have a constant
supply of disciplined soldiers, war materials and money from British. Sheer
courage supply of disciplined soldiers, war materials and money from British.
Sheer courage could not win against a powerful and determined enemy who planned
its strategy skillfully. Because of illdiscipline the rebels lost more men and
material than the British in every encounter. Many sepoys, seeing that the
British had an upper hand, left for their villages.
These were the main factors responsible for the failure
of the revolt.
Results of the revolt:
Despite the fact that the revolt of 1857 failed, it gave
a severe jolt to the British administration in India. The structure and
policies of the reestablished British rule were, in many respects, drastically
changed.
Transfer of Power
The First major change was that the power to govern India
passed from the East India Company to the British Crown through an Act of 1858.
Now a Secretary of State for India aided by a Council was to be responsible for
the governance of India. Earlier this authority was wielded by the Directors of
the Company.
Changes in Military Organisation
The second drastic change was effected in the army. Steps
were taken to prevent any further revolt by the Indian soldiers. Firstly, the
number of European soldiers was increased and fixed at one European to two
Indian soldiers in Bengal Army and two to five in Bombay and Madras armies.
Moreover, the European troops were kept in key geographical and military
positions. The crucial branches of the army like artillery were put exclusively
in European hands. Secondly, the organization of the Indian section of the army
was now based on the policy of divide and rule. Regiments were created on the
basis of caste, community and region to prevent the development of any
nationalistic feeling among the soldiers.
Divide and Rule
This policy of
“divide and rule” was also introduced in the civilian population, since the
British thought that the revolt was a conspiracy hatched by the Muslims the
latter were severely punished and 16 discriminations made against them in
public appointment and in other areas. This policy was later reversed and a
belated appeasement of Muslims began. A policy of preferential treatment of the
Muslims was adopted towards the end of the 19th century. These policies created
problems for Indian freedom struggle and contributed to the growth of
communalism.
New
Policy towards the Princes
Another important change was in
the British policies towards the Princely states. The earlier policy of
annexation neither was nor abandoned and the rulers of these states were now
authorized to adopt heirs. This was done as a reward to those native rulers who
had remained loyal to the British during the revolt. However, this authority of
the Indian rulers over particular territories was completely subordinated to
the authority of the British and they were converted into Board of Privileged
dependents.
Search princes and landlords,
Besides these
changes, the British now turned to the most reactionary groups among the
Indians, like the zamindars, princes and landlords, for strengthening their
fortune in the country.
1:- It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
so-called First National War of Independence of 1857 is neither First, nor
National, nor war of Independence. R.C.
Majumdar
The revolt of 1857
was a struggle of the soldier-peasant democratic combine against foreign
imperialism as well as indigenous landlordism. Marxist Interpretation
(a tribute to the
Rani of Jhansi from the man who defeated her) It was far more than a mutiny,..
Yet much less than a first war of independence. Stanley Wolpert
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