India, India is a country of riches, not only the riches in terms of wealth and jewels but also in terms of prosperity and diversity. We believe “Unity in diversity”, in India we all are different belonging to different communities, religions, caste, etc. but then the thing that binds us together is India (Bharat). We are all Indians regardless of our diverse culture and roots. India has a vast history and it is hardly possible to cover all aspects of Indian history in just an essay therefore it is beneficial that instead of discussing the entire history of India, we just discuss one important chapter of it, the chapter that changed entire book of Indian history, The Great Rebellion or The Uprising of 1857. We all might have read it in our history textbooks in our academic life. However, here we are not merely discussing it as in a history textbook but analyzing it from a perspective of an Indian teenager and that’s what makes this essay unique.
To start with, we need to understand the political scenario of India then, we all know the Battle of Plassey (23 June 1757) in which Nawab of Bengal (Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah) due to betrayal by his commander-general Mir Jafar was defeated. Therefore British got control of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and after the Battle of Buxar (October 1764) the British got Diwani rights and a dual government was established in which British had all the powers but no responsibility while the Nawab had all the responsibilities but no power. Soon, British began introducing laws, revenue systems and various acts which were against the benefit of Indians, the prominent ones were the Subsidiary alliance (introduced in 1798), the rulers who signed this alliance lost their independence and their armies were disbanded. Soon, a very ruthless system of annexation started with the introduction and implementation of Doctrine of Lapse (in 1848) according to which any Indian ruler who died without a male biological heir would have his territories annexed thereafter his death. Adopted heirs were NOT allowed. It is needless to say, that the British who came to India just as a trading company were now controlling the administration and political scenario in India. British had also made a plan to end the rule of the Mughals by declaring that after Bahadur Shah Zafar ‘s (the Mughal emperor at that time) death, his successors would be moved out of Red fort and stripped off their imperial titles. This was a very sly move by Britishers.
We have discussed many things above, but everything that we have discussed is from an elite class/ruler class perspective, now we will look into the scenario in India from a common perspective. Firstly, the peasants, the introduction of the land revenue systems, the Permanent settlement (1793), The Mahalwari settlement (1822) and Ryotwari settlement (1820) were very exploitive on the peasants, since the revenue fixed was very high. But then a critic might argue that the revenue taxes are taken even in Independent India however, the problem is not there in revenue, the problem is there in utilization of the money, the British took money from the peasants not to improve their condition or to make their lands fertile or to invest in nation’s well being but only to satisfy their demands, therefore tax and revenue were resented by Indians then. Another major problem of the common people of India then was the unfair competition from abroad and ruining of traditional industries of India, the British set up a system where their goods which would be exported to India will not have to pay any duty but the Indian goods which would reach Britain would have to pay duty which was too high therefore the Indian goods became less demanded and people even in India preferred the manufactured goods from Britain. This was a mass scale exploitation!
We all know our country is a religious one and anyone trying to meddle (interfere) with our religious and social customs is not forgiven. The same happened with the British which was the immediate cause of the rebellion of 1857. The British had introduced the Enfield Rifle for their army, the cartridge of the rifle consisted of a paper wrapper which had to be bitten off before loading the cartridge into the rifle, news spread (though it is a debated news) that the cartridge of this rifle were covered with fats of pigs and cows and we already may be knowing that cows are very sacred in Hinduism and we call term “Goumata” and in Islam, pigs are considered unholy and impure. Therefore it hurt the religious sentiments of the sepoys working under the British East India Company. The sepoys could not bear that much disrespect to their religious sentiments and as a result Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of 34th Native Infantry Regiment stationed at Barrackpore started the mutiny and fired at his officer, he was however hanged on 8th April, 1857. The hanging of Mangal Pandey however caused great unrest in army camps across India and the next month sepoys in Meerut refused to use those cartridges, as a result they were sentenced to jail after humiliation in public. The other sepoys stationed at Meerut however called for a mutiny on 10th May 1857 and released them, killing the British officers and seizing the arms and ammunition and subsequently travelling towards Delhi for seeking help from Bahadur Shah Zafar. Bahadur Shah Zafar who was a poet king and never liked wars however had to agree with them and this was the beginning of the biggest armed resistance against the ‘Company’.
Soon, after Zafar’s agreement to support the mutineers, unrest began to occur in many parts of the country, the prominent ones were Kanpur (Nana Saheb), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmi Bai), Jagdishpur and Arrah (Babu Kunwar Singh) and many more. We all know about them, perhaps fortunately our history books list them but then we must never think that these were the only people who fought in the Uprising, there were many, in fact there were countless unsung and unknown warriors, who did not fight to gain fame but to make their motherland independent. A British officer also wrote “Our men are cowed by the numbers opposed to them and the endless fighting. Every village is held against us, the zamindars have risen to oppose us.” Which suggests that the British were greatly outnumbered and were then afraid because everyone, regardless of their status, religion and caste were fighting for their motherland, to end the rule of the British in India.
Everything was fine enough and independence was not far but then there were many reasons, most of which we already know, lack of unified leadership, the presence of internal spies or traitors, fear of return of the Mughals and many other reasons. It is pointless to discuss the suppression of the mutiny. It was brutally suppressed and thousands and lakhs of innocent civilians and also mutineers were killed. By 1859, British had gained control over entire India and the mutiny was fully suppressed. The thing we would like to discuss is that about its nature and its result. Well, I must and I will admit that the mutiny was lost perhaps I cannot decline it, it is a truth and truth is always cold. However it is wrong to say that it was a failure because it had led to some consequences, the Government of India Act of 1858 transferred all the administrative powers to the British Crown and British had to accept direct responsibility to rule India and going out of history textbooks, analyze, “Was it not a fearful move by the British?” “Why would it need to take over the administration directly?” Well, according to me, it was, it was a fearful move by the British, the mutiny of 1857 was such a long lasting and widespread one that they had to be more careful next time. They feared that if the ‘Crown’ does not take over the administration of India in its own hands then perhaps any other widespread rebellion would result in overthrow of the British.
There was another major change that British had implemented after this rebellion’s suppression, it was following the ‘divide and rule’ policy. We already discussed and we know it too that in the rebellion people belonging to different religions, different communities and different castes fought together side by side supporting each other, the most threatening unity for the British were the two major religious groups in India, the Hindus and the Muslims, the British felt fully threatened by this unity and they started the policy of dividing them so that the British can rule easily, they started to accuse Muslims for starting the uprising and started discriminating against them which promoted hatred towards one another’s religion and this was also according to me a ‘fearful’ move by the British.
Now every time we talk of 1857, a major doubt comes in our mind and this is quite obvious, many historians proclaim it as “The First War of Independence” like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar while modern historians like R.C. Majumdar and S.N. Sen openly criticize that fact. While I would not like to discourage anyone’s opinion but then we cannot merely say that it was just a mutiny. It was a large scale rebellion and no less than the French Revolution. It however lacked the ideals of Democracy which French Revolution advocated for, the rebellion was just shifted towards overthrowing the British but there was no plan made how would the government in India run after that. Though Bahadur Shah Zafar was made the Emperor of India but then the problem was that not all rulers liked Mughal rule and Jahan Panah’s authority, there was no concept of Democracy. Therefore we cannot even characterise it as a “coordinated war of independence” like French revolution or American Civil War nor we can merely describe it a resentment among sepoys. This is a dilemma, however at this time we can only make conjectures about it.
However, talking about its merits, it taught the citizens of India that British were not superior to them and even a common man or woman can fight against them. This sowed the seeds of nationalism which however lacked ideas like democracy and constitution but a legacy of nationalism was perhaps created and it was that inspired many freedom fighters like Vinayak Damodar Savarkar to join the struggle for freedom so it was not ‘lost’ but in fact it was ‘won’ if seen from a different perspective.
The British tried to sow the seeds of disunity so that we cannot unite being diverse but then we should be aware that they failed, their evil intentions could not be successful. After the rebellion we started to unite and that unity consequently gave us the freedom in 1947 and it is not a mistake to say that that unity is maintained even today in modern India and it is our duty to maintain it forever. It is perhaps us who can decide whether the Uprising was a failure or a success. If we can follow the ideal of ‘Unity in Diversity’ and promise to serve our nation, India (Bharat) together then perhaps we already made them triumph, we made the Uprising a grand victory, however if we cease to do so, it is very sad to say that the Uprising was certainly a failure. The people who led the Uprising not only dreamt of an independent India (Bharat) but of India where there is no discrimination, no jealousy and there is unity because when we are united no one can break us but if we are divided as British wanted, we can certainly be broken easily. The decision, however, is for us to take! When we talk of history we just do not discuss or read it like a textbook but we also look for what we can do NOW and how we can improve the present and the future learning from the history, that’s the true essence of history. Perhaps history never ceases to repeat itself!
Jai Hind!
By: Riyan Dutta
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