Here is your short essay on the Revolt of 1857 (India)

Was the Revolt of 1857 spontaneous and unplanned or the result of careful and secret organisation? It is not easy to answer this question with certainty. A peculiar aspect of the study of the history of the Revolt of 1857 is that it has to be based almost entirely on British records. The rebels have left behind no records.

As they worked illegally, they perhaps kept no records. Moreover, they were defeated and suppressed and their version of events died with them. Lastly, for years afterwards, the British suppressed any favorable mention of the Revolt, and took strong action against anyone who tried to present the rebels’ side of the story.

One group of historians and writers has asserted that the Revolt was the result of a widespread and well-organised conspiracy. They point to the circulation of chappattis and red lotuses, propaganda by faqirs and madaris.

Other writers equally forcefully deny that any careful planning went into the making of the Revolt. They point out that not a scrap of paper was discovered before or after the Revolt indicating an organised conspiracy, nor did a single witness come forward to make such a claim.

The Revolt began at Meerut, 58 km from Delhi, on 10 May 1857 and then, gathering force rapidly, it cut across northern India as if like a sword.

It soon embraced a vast area from the Punjab in the north and the Narmada in the south to Bihar in the east and Rajputana in the west.

Even before the outbreak at Meerut, Mangal Pande had become a martyr at Barrackpore. Mangal Pande, a young soldier, was hanged on 29 March 1857 for revolting single-handed and attacking his superior officers.

This and many similar incidents were a sign that discontent and rebellion were brewing among the sepoys. And then came the explosion at Meerut. On 24 April, ninety men of the 3rd Native Cavalry refused to accept the greased cartridges.

On 9 May, eighty-five of them were dismissed, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment and put into fetters. This sparked off a general mutiny among the Indian soldiers, stationed at Meerut. The very next day, on 10 May, they released their imprisoned comrades, killed their officers, and unfurled the banner of revolt.

As if drawn by a magnet, they set off for Delhi after sunset. When the Meerut soldiers appeared in Delhi the next morning, the local infantry joined them, killed their own European officers, and seized the city.

The rebellious soldiers now proclaimed the aged and powerless Bahadur Shah, the Emperor of India. Delhi was soon to become the centre of the Great Revolt and Bahadur Shah its great symbol.

This spontaneous raising of the last Mughal king to the leadership of the country was recognition of the fact that the long reign of the Mughal dynasty had made it the traditional symbol of India’s political unity. With this single act, the sepoys had transformed a mutiny of soldiers into a revolutionary war.

This is why rebellious sepoys from all over the country automatically turned their steps towards Delhi and all Indian chiefs who took part in the Revolt tended to proclaim their loyalty to the Mughal emperor.

Bahadur Shah, in turn, under the instigation and perhaps the pressure of the sepoys, and after initial vacillation, wrote letters to all the chiefs and rulers of India urging them to organise a confederacy of Indian states to fight and replace the British regime.

The entire Bengal army soon rose in revolt which spread quickly. Awadh, Rohilkhand, the Doab, the Bundelkhand, central India, large parts of Bihar, and the East Punjab all shook off British authority. In many of the princely states, rulers remained loyal to their British overlord but the soldiers revolted or remained on the brink of revolt.

Many of Indore’s troops rebelled and joined the sepoys. Similarly over 20,000 of Gwalior’s troops went over to Tantia Tope and the Rani of Jhansi.

Many small chiefs of Rajasthan and Maharashtra revolted with the support of the people who were quite hostile to the British. Local rebellions also occurred in Hyderabad and Bengal.

The tremendous sweep and breadth of the Revolt was matched by its depth. Everywhere in northern and central India, the mutiny of the sepoys triggered popular revolts among the civilian population.

After the sepoys had destroyed British authority, the common people rose up in arms often fighting with spears and axes, bows and arrows, lathis and sickles, and crude muskets. In many places, however, the people revolted even before the sepoys did or even when no sepoy regiments were present.

It is the wide participation in the Revolt by the peasantry, the artisans, shopkeepers, day labourers, and zamindars which gave it real strength as well as the character of a popular revolt, especially in the areas at present included in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Here the peasants and zamindars gave free expression to their grievances by attacking the moneylenders and new zamindars that had displaced them from the land.

They took advantage of the Revolt to destroy the moneylenders’ account books and records of debts. They also attacked the British-established law courts, revenue offices (tehsils) and revenue records, and thanas.

It is of some importance to note that in many of the battles, commoners far surpassed the sepoys in numbers. According to one estimate, of the total number of about 150,000 men who died fighting the English in Awadh, over 100,000 were civilians.

It should also be noted that even where people did not rise up in revolt, they showed strong sympathy for the rebels. They rejoiced in the successes of the rebels and organised a social boycott of those sepoys who remained loyal to the British.

They showed active hostility to British forces, refused to give them help or information, and even misled them with wrong information. WH. Russel, who toured India in 1858 and 1859 as the correspondent of the London Times, wrote that:

In no instance is a friendly glance directed to the white man’s carriage.Oh that language of the eye! Who can doubt? Who can misinterpret it? It is by it alone that I have learnt our race is not even feared at times by many and that by all it is disliked.

The popular character of the Revolt of 1857 also became evident when the British tried to crush it. They had to wage a vigorous and ruthless war not only against the rebellious sepoys but also against the people of Delhi, Awadh, North-Western Provinces and Agra, central India, and western Bihar, burning entire villages and massacring villagers and urban people.

They had to fight and conquer many parts of northern India, village by village. They had to cow down people with public hangings and executions without trial, thus revealing how deep the revolt was in these parts.

Much of the strength of the Revolt of 1857 lay in Hindu-Muslim unity. Among the soldiers and the people as well as among the leaders there was complete cooperation as between Hindus and Muslims. All the rebels recognised Bahadur Shah, a Muslim, as their emperor.

Also the first thoughts of the Hindu sepoys at Meerut were to march straight to Delhi. The Hindu and the Muslim rebels and sepoys respected each other’s sentiments. For example, wherever the Revolt was successful, orders were immediately issued banning cow- slaughter out of respect for Hindu sentiments.

Moreover, Hindus and Muslims were equally well represented at all levels of the leadership. The role of Hindu-Muslim unity in the Revolt was indirectly acknowledged later by Aitchison, a senior British official, when he bitterly complained: “In this instance we could not play off the Mohammedans against the Hindus.” In fact, the events of 1857 clearly bring out that the people and politics of India were basically not communal in medieval times and before 1858.

The storm-centers of the Revolt of 1857 were at Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly, Jhansi, and Arrah in Bihar. At Delhi the nominal and symbolic leadership belonged to the Emperor Bahadur Shah, but the real command lay with a Court of Soldiers headed by General Bakht Khan who had led the revolt of the Bareilly troops and brought them to Delhi.

In the British army he had been an ordinary subedar of artillery. Bakht Khan represented the popular and plebeian element at the headquarters of the Revolt.

The Emperor Bahadur Shah was perhaps the weakest link in the chain of leadership of the Revolt. His weak, personality, old age and lack of qualities of leadership created political weakness at the nerve centre of the Revolt and did incalculable damage to it.

At Kanpur the Revolt was led by Nana Sahib, the adopted son of Baji Rao II, the last Peshwa. Nana Sahib expelled the English from Kanpur with the help of the sepoys and proclaimed himself the Peshwa. At the same time he acknowledged Bahadur Shah as the emperor of India and declared himself to be his Governor.

The chief burden of fighting on behalf of Nana Sahib fell on the shoulders of Tantia Tope, one of his most loyal servants. Tantia Tope has won immortal fame by his patriotism, determined fighting and skilful guerrilla operations. Azimullah was another loyal servant of Nana Sahib.

He was an expert in political propaganda. Unfortunately, Nana Sahib tarnished his brave record by deceitfully killing the British garrison at Kanpur after he had agreed to give them safe conduct.

The revolt at Lucknow was led by Hazrat Mahal, the Begum of Awadh, who had proclaimed her young son, Birjis Kadr, as the Nawab of Awadh. Helped by the sepoys at Lucknow, and by the zamindars and peasants of Awadh, the Begum organised an all-out attack on the British.

Compelled to give up the city, the latter entrenched themselves in the Residency building. In the end, the seige of the Residency failed, as the small British garrison fought back with exemplary fortitude and valour.

One of the great leaders of the Revolt of 1857, and perhaps one of the greatest heroines of Indian history, was the young Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi.

The young Rani joined the rebels when the British refused to acknowledge her right to adopt an heir to thins giddy, annexed her state, and threatened to treat her as an instigator of the rebellion of the sepoys at Jhansi. The Rani vacillated for some time.

But once she decided to throw in her lot with the rebels, she fought valiantly at the head of her troops. Tales of her bravery and courage and military skill have inspired her countrymen ever since.

Driven out of Jhansi by the British forces after a fierce battle in which “even women were seen working the batteries and distributing ammunition”, she administered the oath to her followers that “with our own hands we shall not our Azadshahi [independent rule] bury”.

She captured Gwalior with the help ofTantia Tope and her trusted Afghan guards. Maharaja Sindhia, loyal to the British, made an attempt to fight the Rani but most of his troops deserted to her.

Sindhia sought refuge with the English at Agra. The brave Rani died fighting on 17 June 1858, clad in the battle dress of a soldier and mounted on a charger. Beside her fell her life-long friend and companion, a Muslim girl.

Kunwar Singh, a ruined and discontented zamindar of Jagdishpur near Arrah, was the chief organiser of the Revolt in Bihar. Though nearly 80 years old, he was perhaps the most outstanding military leader and strategist of the Revolt. Maulavi Ahmadullah of Faizabad was another outstanding leader of the Revolt.

He was a native of Madras where he had started preaching armed rebellion. In January 1857 he moved towards the north to Faizabad where he fought a large-scale battle against a company of British troops sent to stop him from preaching sedition. When the general revolt broke out in May, he emerged as one of its acknowledged leaders in Awadh.

The greatest heroes of the Revolt were, however, the sepoys, many of whom displayed great courage in the field of battle and thousands of whom unselfishly laid down their lives.

More than anything else, it was their determination and sacrifice that nearly led to the expulsion of the British from India.

In this patriotic struggle, they sacrificed even their deep religious prejudices. They had revolted on the question of the greased cartridges but now to expel the hated foreigner they freely used the same cartridges in their battles.