revolt of 1857-causes and nature

7/27/2019 Revolt of 1857-causes and nature

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UNIT 30 REVOLT OF 1 8 5 7 C A U S E S ANDNATUREStructure30.0 Objectives30.1 Introduction30.2 Background of the Revolt

30.2.1 The Army'30.2.2 The Colonial Context30.2.3 Land Revenue Settlements

30.3 Annexations30.4 Religion and Culture30.5 The Nature of the Revolt : Debate

30.5.1 Sepoy Mutiny?30.5.2 National Struggle or Feudal Reaction?

30.6 'Web of Motives'30.7 Against Generalisation30.8 Elitist Movement or Popular Resistance?30.9 Let Us Sum Up30.10 Key Words30.11 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

30.0 OBJECTIVESThe purpose of this unit is to briefly discuss the background of the revolt of 1857 in itscore areas and the conflicting interpretations of the nature of the revolt. This Unitshould na b l e you to:

know the grievances of the sepoys,see the revolt in the context of the colonial economy,examine the impact of the land revenue settlements in the core areas of the revolt,undetstand the resentment against annexations,assess the role of religious sentiments in the revolt, andundertstand the nature of the revolt and the shifting issues of debate.

30.1 INTRODUCTIONThe discussion of tribal and peasant uprisings in Unit 29 has given you evidence of theresistance offered at each stage of the colonization of Indian society and economyfrom the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. In 1857 in much of northern and centralIndia, thle linkage of the revolt of the army with that of the people proved to be adangerous combination for colonial rule. The causes of the revolt have therefore to bestudied:- o locate the roots of the revolt in the army and rural society,- o understand the links between the two, and as well as the manner in which

resistlance found expression.The background Sections (30.2 to 30.4) will help us for the second part of the Unit(30.5 to 30.(3),which touches upon questions regarding the nature of the revolt thathave prepccupied historians from the centenary year of the revolt, down to the 1980s.


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30.2 BACKGROUND O F THE REVOLTTh e following Un it (30) will reveal the rapidity with which the revolt had s prea dbetwe en May and Jun e 1857. It was the action of the sepoys of the BritishHrmy th atprecipitated th e revolt of the people. He re we focus first on th e grievances of t hesepoys of the Be ngal Arm y, the im pact of colonial rule an d then th e details of the landrevenu e settlem ents, to establish the exte nt to which they explain the revolt of 1857.

30.2.1 The ArmyO n 29th March 1857 in Barrackpore near Calcutta, there too k place a disturbancewhen a sepoy, Mangal Pandey killed one o f the Europ ean officers. This disturbancewas easily suppressed but in the next few weeks disturbanc es in the a rmy gath eredmom entum . The mutiny of the Me erut sepoys who killed their Europ ean officers on10 May 1857 and crossed over to Delhi o n the 11th to appeal to Ba hadur Shah 11, thepensioner Mughal em pero r, to become their lead er, led to the revolt of 1857. Almosthalf of the 2,32,224 sepoys of the E ast India C om pany rebelled. Th e bulk of thesepoys were uppe r caste Hindus from th e North W estern Provinces and Awadh.Nearly one-third cam e from Awadh, thus forming a hom ogeneous group within thearmy . Over the years the u pper caste sepoys had found their religious beliefs inconflict with their service conditions:In 1806 the replacement of th e turban by a leather cockade caused a mutiny atVellore.in 1824 the sepoys at Barrac kpore refused to go'to Bu rma because crossing the seawould me an loss of cas te,in 1844 there was a m utinous outbreak of the Bengal army sepoys for being sent t ofar away Sind. Crossing th e Indu s was perceived as causing loss of caste.

3. Mangal Pandey 4. Bahadur Shah I1

Closer to th e revolt of 1857 there ha d bee n reports of bon e dust in the atta (flour)ration. Th e cartidges of the Enfield rifles ( introduced around Ja nuary 1857) phic hhad to be bitten off before loading were reportedly greased with pork a nd beef fat .This seemed to confirm fears abou t their religion being in danger.In addition th ere was professional discontent:

an infantry sepoy got only seven rupees per m onth ,and a covalry sawar 27 rupees, ou t of which he had to Day for his uniform , food an dthe upkeep of the mountthere was racial discrimination in ma tters of prom otion , pension an d terms ofservice,annexations had deprived the sepoys of batta (extra pay) fo r foreign servicethere we re fears of being edged out by new recruits from Pu njab .


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PoprrhrRevoltsa d -P 30.2.2 The Colonial ContextT o analyse the revolt bf 1857 it is impo rtant that we shift our focus to the natbre ofcolonial rule as it had a n adve rse effect on the in terests of almost all levels of society.

Indians were excluded from well paid, higher administrative posts . Racialdiscrimination in this regard was mention ed in several rebel proclam ations.Artisans and handicqaftsmen were hit both by the pro mo tion of Britishm an ufa ~tu red oods and the loss of patronage du e to the annexat ions of Indianstates.Th e land revenue set t lements meant loss of es tates to the landholders and heavyrev enu e assessments for different strata of rural society.Every pear theXp roprietary ights oflandlords an d peasants cam e under sale lawsfor arrears of revenue or ev en simple contract debts.In several places these rights were bought up by banias who weremostly outsiders.

Th ere wa$ thus antipathy towards the revenu e as well as the judicial systemsintroduced by th e colonial gov ernment as will become evident from o ur considerationof the pa ttern of the revolt of 1857.\

CheckYour Progress 11) Ma rk which of the following stateme nts is right ( d ) r wrong ( x )a) Enfield was the nam e of a placeb) Sepoy recruits cam e mostly from Punjab.c) Th ere we re sepoy mutinies even be fore 1857d) A nnexations affected only princes.e) Bania purcha sers of rural property were no t resented.

2) Sum up sepoy grievances in 5 l ines.

3) Me ntion a ny 3 aspects of colonial rule.

30.2.3 Land Revenue SettlementsMuch of the co ntrove rsies regard ing the na ture of the revolt of 1857 rcholve on th eoutcome of the land revenu e settlements of the No rth Western Provinces and Awa dhand th e conditions of the talukdars and peasants in both areas. Le t us now exam inet h e m .North Western ProvincesA key figlure of the settlem ent in this region was Holt M acke nzie, Secre tary in theTerritorial Dep artm ent. H is proposals embod ied in regulation VII of 1822 had a biasagainst talukdars an d favoured direct settlements with village zamindars an d pa ttidarsin ord er to preserve village comm unities. In th e 1840s his proposals were workedupon by R.M . Bird, Hea d of the Revenue Board and Jam es Thom ason, Lt . Governorof the North W estern Provinces. The bias against talukdars continued in what came tobe called the Thoma sonian Settlem ent. With the precise definition of prop erty rightsf r o 6 arou nd 1840 there was increasing investment in them by outsiders thus leadingto th e transfer an d parti t ion of joint holdings.Th e outaome of the revenue se ttlemen ts in the North W estern Provinces can bes u m m e d u p t hu s:


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due to the anti-talukdar bias almost all talukdars found themselves stripped of the Revolt of 1857bulk of their estates within less than a decade. This left many lineage taluqs CaumandNaturedismantled.Even the village zamindars (individualljoint), the intended beneficiaries, pressedwith heavy assessments, if not reduced to tenants, were on the brink of bankruptcyand at the mercy of creditors. Even as late as 1852-3, 104,730 acres were'sold forarrears in one year in the North Western Provinces.

AwadhIn Awadh which was annexed in February 1856 the summary settlement of 1856-7 wasmade on the Thomasonian pattern mentioned above and produced the followingresults:

While the overall assessment was reduced (in places by 37O/0), there wasoverassessment in pockets, varying from 28 to 63%.Some talukdari'estates were reduced by about 44-55%.Before British annexation there was a system of grainsharing of the peasant withthe talukdar, after the former's subsistence needs were satisfied; the Britishintroduced a system of fixed revenue demand in money terms which sometimesmeant overassessment, and particularly so in years when harvests were bad or pricewere low; thus peasants suffered.

It may be mentioned that there were about 14,000 petitions from the Awadh sepoysabout the hardships relating to the revenue system.30.3 ANNEXATIONSBy 1818, with the defeat of the Marathas and the conclusion of subsidiary alliancesthe East Indian Company made claims to the status of paramount power. DuringDalhousie's tenure several states were annexed through the enforcement of hisdoctrine of lapse: Satara (1848), Nagpur, Sambalpur and Baghat (1850); Udaipur(1852) and Jhansi (1853). The failure of the Rani of Jhansi to get him to reverse thedecision despite her offer to keep Jhansi 'safe' for the British, ranged her against theCompany in 1857.In February 1856 when Wajid Ali Shah refused to hand over the administration to theEast India Company, Awadh was annexed on grounds of misgovernment. However,British presence since 1765, had already begun the drain and dislocation of theAwadh economy. Company and European traders siphoned away its economicresources, thus eroding Awadh's administrative viability.The British had seen Awadh not just as a source of additional revenue but a field forthe investment of private capital for the cultivation of indigo and cotton and as apotential market. There was widespread outrage against the annexation of Awadhbecause:

the king had been deported to Calcutta,there was wholesale disarming of the talukdars and demolition of their forts,the disruption of the court meant unemployment for retainers and the army and anend to patronage of artisans producing luxury items,the land revenue settlements intensified this discontent.

Significantly, rebel propaganda was directed against British annexations in north andcentral India.30.4 RELIGION AND CULTUREBefore the revolt of 1857 there had been a growing suspicion among orthodox Hindusand Muslims that the British were trying to destory their religion and culture throughsocial legislation. Examples of this were seen in the abolition of sati, the legalisationof widow remarriage, the 1850 law enabling a convert to Christianity to inheritancestral property, etc.


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popahu Revoltsaduprisbom This anxiety was expressed explicitly in several rebel proclamations. A proclamationissued in Delhi indicated that the English designed to destroy the religion of the

sepoys and then force conversion to Christianity on the people. Thus the preservationof religion became a rallying cry in the revolt which was seen as a war of religion bythe sepoyslas well as those in the countryside.This does dot mean that religion was all there was to the 1857 revolt but itundoubtedly shaped the expression of grievances. The defence of religion and thefight against the British were seen as being closely linked to each other and a strugglein which bpth Hindus and Muslims had an equal stake. Bahadur Shah's proclamationemphasizqd the standard of Mohammed and the standard of Mahavir.Check Your Progress 21) Sum up the essence of the Thomasonian settlements in five lines.

liIIces) Comment briefly on the changes in agrarian society in the North Western Pro\.and Awadh on the eve of the revolt.

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........ ...................................................................................................3) Why did religion become a rallying cry of the revolt?

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30-5 THE NATURE OF THE REVOLT :DEBATE -Between the 1950s and 1960s historians focused much of their attention on whetherthe revolt was a sepoy mutiny, national struggle or a manifestation of feudal reaction.Let us slum up the essential argaments of this earlier debate.30,.5.1 SepoyMutinyAnxioUs.to minimize Indian grievances, for many years, British historians hadmaintained that the revolt had been nothing more than a sepoy mutiny. Hence the .name. Such accounts generally narrated:

details of the greased cartridges,the activities of rebel sepoys,andithe British campaigns of 1857-8 that suppressed the revolt.

Not only was the rebellion of the people made light of, but the civil rebellion wasattributed to merely the selfish interests of landholders and princes. In essence, thisinterpretation ignored the colonial context in which the revolt had occurred and ofwhich it was a reflection.


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30.5.2 National Struggle or Feudal Reaction? l+ltorlasrCausedand NatarcWith the emergence of nationaEsT agitations against the colonial government therevolt of 1857 came to be looked upon as part of that struggle and the focus shiftedform the greased cartridges to the oppressions of the British. V.D. Savarkhr's TheIndian War of Independence of 1857 published anonymously in 1902 remained bannedin India almost till the end of ~r i t i shule.However, several works coinciding with the centenary year of the revolt arguedvariously:

that the absence of a general plan of rebellation went against such aninterpretation,that the leaders were not imbued with national sentiment and 'would have put theclock back',that 1857 was not the inauguration of a freedom movement but 'the dying groans ofan obsolete aristocracy'.On the other hand there were objections to the restrictive use of the term 'national'and the implicit minimization of the anti-imperialist content of the revolt and of theevidence of the Hindu-Muslim unity during 1857-8.More recently it has been noted that though the rebel mission may not have been'national,' their political horizon was not restricted to their ilaqas. Also that the aimof the rebels was not so much an attempt to establish a new social order as to restore aworld that was familiar i.e. the traditional world of hierarchy, lineage, patronage and'deference.30.6 'WEB OF MOTIVES'By the 1970s historians had moved away from the debate about whether to name it a'sepoy mutiny' or 'national revolt' etc. to examining the social roots of the revolt of1857 through detailed areawise studies, most of which concentrated 03 the NorthWestern Provinces and Awadh. Some studies have discounted the relation betweenthe land revenue settlements and the revolt by arguing that

talukdar participation in the revolt cannot be attributed to the Thomasoniansettlement alone, because, for example, some enterprising talukdars who hadmade good their loss of land from commercial crops (cotton and indigo) showed note'ndency to rebel.also the resentment against the bania (who profited from enforced sales) was rarelythe sole or even primary cause of rural rebellion. In fact the principal elements ofrevolt in Saharanpur and Meerut came from castes and areas where the mahajanhold was lightest and the land revenue heaviest.Participation of the talukdars in 1857 has been explained thus: the unexpected anarchycreated by the revolt provided a convenient area in which pre-existent caste (Rajputsvs Jats and vice versdAhirs vs Chauhans and vice versa) and family antagonisms werefought afresh. In other words the institutional innovations of the Thamasonian erawere but 'a single strand in the web of motive' that led some talukdars to remain loyalandothers to rebel.30.7 AGAINST GENER ALIZATIONIt has also been suggested that the roots of the revolt lay (a) in the pockets of relativepoverty caused by ecological factors such as poor and thirsty soil d ( b ) evere'revenue assessments which assumed tbat all occupied land was capable of arablecultivation. Those hardest hit by tlps combination, for example, the Gujars andRajputs in the North Western provinces, were more predispos5d to rebel. Also thatresistance came from groups such as Gujars of Saharanpur and Rajputs of Etawahand Al lah ~b ad ho had preserved their social cohesion. Less homogeneous villagebodies remained passive.However, the focus of variegated political response in different geographical


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PopularRevolts sub-zones led to the argument that the revolt of 1857 was 'not one movement butandUprkhgs many', that! t is impossible to generalise.

30.8 ELITIST MOVEM ENT OR POPULARRIESISTANCE?

In this section we will deal with the question of elitist or conversely, popular characterof the revolt. Some historians are of opinion that during the revolt, the talukdars werethe decision makers and that much of the shape of the revolt was determined by thepresence or the absence of a thriving magnate element committed to British rule. Forexample, in Aligarh the heavily assessed Jats and Rajputs were held back by residentmagnates. No such,brakes could be applied by the absentee magnates in the Doabbelow Kanpur. Likewise the talukdars who rebelled carried their peasants with them.Probably this overstates the role of talukdars and underestimates mass participation.It has be'en pointed out that initiative could and did come from many quarters otherthan landed magnates. There were instances of non-magnate leaders such as'ghairatiKhan, Shaq Ma1 and Maulvi AhmadullahShah being accepted as leaders. Admittedlymore work is required on the role of rural society below that of the village elite.However, it is.clear that peasants and clansmen could, and often did, act outsidemagnate initiative and in several areas they insisted on continuing with the revolt evenafter their ualukdars made peace with the British.In the case of Awadh there was united action between talukdars and peasants (basedon commoaality of interest preceding the annexation of Awadh) which explains therevolts popular character. There was near universal participation by big and smalltalukdars (34% fought the British in south Awadh). 60% of the fighting force was thegeneral rurJ population. Probably 314 of the adult male population of Awadhparticipated in the revolt. The depth of the popular resistance is evident from thenumber of Spears, swords and firearms seized from even ordinary homes.CheckYour Progress31) Sum up in 10 lines the debate regarding the nature of the revolt of 1857.

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..........................................................................................................2) Comment on the motives attributed to talukdar participation.

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.........................................................................................................3) What was the nature of the 1857 revolt? Answer on a separate sheet .\


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30.9 LET US SUM UP--After going through this unit you should be able to delineate the details of sepoy ar~dcivil grievances in the context of colonial policies:

to notice the link between revolt of the sepoys and the rebellion of the people.the controversies rcgarding the nature of the revolt are meant to initiate you to thewriting of the history of the revolt as well as introduce you to the dimensions ofpopular participation.

30.10 KEY WORDSBania - Money-lender ,Ilaqa - Area of landLineage - AncestralPattidar - Joint ownership of villageTalukdar - Holder of a taluk (estate in which the holder is responsible for

revenue collection from a number of dependent villages).

30.1 1 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESSEXERCISES

Check Your Progress 11) (a) x (b) (dl x (el x2) See Sub Sec. 30.2.13) See Sub Sec. 30.2.2Check.Your Progress 21) See Sub-sec. 30.2.32) See Sub-sec. 30.2.33) See Sec. 30.4Check Your Progress 31) See Sec. 30.52) See Sec. 30.63) See Sec. 30.5 to 30.8

Revolt of 1857CmlsesandNature

revolt of 1857-causes and nature

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