Q. The Revolt of 1857 was merely an mutiny. Discuss.
Ans:
The revolt of 1857 shook the British empire in India to it’s very foundations. It was cumulative effect of British expansionist policies, economic exploitation and administrative innovations which over the years had adversely affected the position of all sections of society- Zamindar, peasants, traders,, artisans, Pandits, Moulvis. Views of historians differ on the nature of the 1857 revolt.
For some historians, it was a mere ‘Sepoy Mutiny’:
- British historians like Sir John Seeley said,”a wholly unpatriotic and selfish Sepoy Mutiny with no native leadership and no popular support”. Many other contemporary personalities like Sir John Lawrence, Marshman and many other Europeans historians are of the view that it was military rising which was triggered by the use of the greased cartridges.
- According to them the Indian soldiers attempted to up root the British government. A few native rulers also supported them but it were only those who were deprived of their kingdons by Lord Dalhousie. Rebel however didn’t get any support from the Indian civilian population. To substantiate their opinion they put forward several arguments:
- The revolt was restricted only to northern India and most of the remaining country remained unaffected. Even in the North several states including Punjab stood aloof. Therefore such a revolt can’t be called national rising.
- Only a few European troops were sufficient to suppress the revolt.
- Except few rulers like Bahadur Shah II, Nana Sahib and Laxmi Bai, Kunvar Singh etc. no other Indian rulers took part in the revolt.
- The common people and peasants remained peaceful and didn’t take prt in the revolt in large number.
- The revolt was confined to the few urban areas whichout its echo being heard in the villages.
- Discontents among sepoy were the major cause of the mutiny:
- The conditions of service in the Company’s Army and cantonments increasingly came into conflict with the religious beliefs and prejudices of the sepoys.
- Restrictions on wearing caste and sectarian marks and secret rumors of proselytizing activities were interpreted by Indian sepoys, who were generally conservative by nature, as interference in their religious affairs.
- To the religious Hindu of the time, crossing the seas meant loss of caste. But the General Service Enlistment Act 1856, decreed that all future recruits to the Bengal Army would have to give an undertaking to serve anywhere their services might be required by the Government. This caused resentment.
- The Indian sepoy was equally unhappy with his emoluments compared to his British counterpart. A more immediate cause of the sepoys’ dissatisfaction was the order that they would not be given the foreign service allowance (Matta) when serving in Sindh or in Punjab.
- The annexation of Awadh, home of many (about seventy-five thousand) of the sepoys, further inflamed their feelings.
- The Indian sepoy was made to feel a subordinate at every step and was discriminated against racially and in matters of promotion and privileges.
- The most immediate cause of the revolt was the rumour that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifle had been greased with cow and pig fat. Since the cartridges had to be bitten off before loading, it confirmed the sepoys’ old suspicion about a conspiracy to destroy their religion and caste and convert them Christianity.
- The main initiative was taken by the Sepoy:
- The Meerut sepoys started the revolt on 10 May. They killed their European officers and proceeded to Delhi, where on 11 May they proclaimed the ageing Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar the Emperor of Hindustan.
- From Delhi the uprising soon spread to other army centres in the North-Western Provinces and Awadh and soon took the shape of a civil rebellion.
- In Awadh, Taluqdars revolted only after the revolt was initiated by the sepoys.
- The feudal lords in many cases were reluctant to assume leadership and were pushed by the rebels sepoy.
- Bahadur Shah was taken by surprise when approached by the rebel sepoys, and only with great hesitation did he agree to be their leader.
- Nana Sahib in Kanpur and Rani of Jhansi were also forced by the sepoy to assume leadership.
- The action of the sepoys released the rural population from fear of the state and the control exercised by the administration. The mutiny of sepoy was accompanied by the civilian revolt.
- Dr K. Datta considers the revolt of 1857 to have been “in the main a military outbreak, which was taken advantage of by certain discontented princes and landlords, whose interests had been affected by the new political order”.
- S.N. Sen also said that “The movement began as a military mutiny and when the administration collapsed the lawless elements . . . took the upper hand”.
- R.C. Majumdar viewed “What began as a mutiny ended in certain areas in an outbreak of civil population.
However, the view of John lawrence and Seelay is not accepted by the majority of the historians:
- They didn’t provide the complete picture of the event as it involved many sections of the civilian population and not just the sepoys. The discontent of the sepoys was just one cause of the disturbance. This interpretation ignored the colonial context in which the revolt had occurred and of which it was a reflection.
- The cumulative effect of British expansionist policies, economic exploitation and administrative innovations over the years had adversely affected the positions of almost all the sections of society.
- V.D.Savarkar, J.L. Nehru and S.B. Chaudhuri had viewed it as a national revolt and as a first war of independence.
- From Delhi the uprising soon spread to other army centres in the North-Western Provinces and Awadh and soon took the shape of a civil rebellion.
- Also, the revolutionaries were given hero welcome at different places. e.g. Kunwar Singh was arrival celebrated at various places by the civilian populace.
- According to one estimate, of the total number of about 1,50,000 men who died fighting the English in Awadh, over 1,00,000 were civilians.
- The deposed princes and zamindars offered leadership to the rebels in their respective regions which provided legitimacy to the revolt. e.g. Nana Sahib in Kanpur, Begum Hazrat Mahal in Lucknow, Khan Bahadur Khan in Rohilkhand, Rani Lakshmibai in Jhansi, Babu Kunwar Singh in Bhojpur.
- Similarly, in Awadh, bound by ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, the villagers were happy to acknowledge the claims of the taluqdars and joined hands against their common enemy.
- The sepoy, in fact, was a ‘peasant in uniform‘ whose consciousness was not divorced from that of the rural population. “The Army voiced grievances other than its own; and the movement spread beyond the Army”, observes Gopal.
- Some contemporary personalities like L.E.R. Rees and T.R. Holmes have also viewed it as a war of fanatic religionists against Christians and a conflict between civilisation and barbarism. But, there is not much evidence to support such views.
- Karl Marx had said,”the struggle of the soldier-peasant democratic combine against foreign as well as feudal bondage”.
- However, this view does not stand scrutiny in the light of the fact that the leaders of the revolt themselves came from a feudal background.
Thus, the coalition of the Revolt of the sepoys and that of the civil population made the 1857 movement an unprecedented popular upsurge.
Further, the response of sepoy and civilians also widely varied. The regions and people who were beneficiaries of colonial rule did not revolt. The merchants, intelligentsia and Indian rulers not only kept aloof, but actively supported the British. Bengal and Punjab remained peaceful; the entire south India remained unaffected too. The different classes had different grievances and the nature of grievances also varied from region to region.
To conclude, it is difficult to bound the nature of 1857 revolt to any one view. As C.A. Bayly had said, “The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was not one movement, … it was many”.
