THE Rebellion of 1857

Made by Ranjeet [9160392]

Piyush [9160390]

Contents

• Origins Of The Rebellion• Timeline Of The Rebellion• Suppression of Rebellion• Interpretations of Rebellion• Pattern Of The Rebellion• Leadership Of The Rebellion • Rebellion of Subaltern: Sepoys, Peasants and Artisans• Awadh In Revolt• Firangi Raj And The End Of A World• What The Rebel Wanted• Against The Symbols Of Oppression• The Search For Alternative Power• Repression• Images Of Revolt• Celebrating The Saviours• Vengeance And Retribution• No Time For Elemency• Natonalist Imageries• Movies Inspired By Independence War• Movies Inspired By This Revolt• Administrative Changes

Certificate

• This is to certify that this project has been made by Ranjeet and Piyush of class XII-F on the topic of The Rebellion Of 1857 under the guidence of our Respected History teacher Mr.K Ramesh and have been completed it successfully. Yours truly Ranjeet And Piyush

Acknowledgement

• At the onset, We would like to thank the Almighty God without which this project would not have been possible. I thank our Respected History Teacher Mr. K Ramesh who gave us this golden opportunity to do this project on the topic of The Rebellion Of 1857. And we also thanks for his cordial support, exemplary guidance, monitoring and constant encouragement. We obliged to our friends and parents for their valuable guidance and co-operation during the period of this task. The blessing help and guidance was a deep inspiration to us.

Origins Of The Rebellion

• Military Causes:• Grievances over pay and Promotion among Sepoys• Special Allowance and Overseas Duties• Enfield Rifle and Concern over the Cartridge

• Concerns of Civilian Population• Theory of Doctrine of Lapse• Unemployed Artisans and Court Employees• Occupation of Avadh: Local Patriotism • Land Tax Policies• Progressive Imperialism and Concern over Religious Identities

Timeline Of The Rebellion

On February 26, 1857 Discontent among the 19th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) regiment.At Barrackpur near Calcutta, on March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey of the 34th BNI attacked and injured his British sergeant on the parade ground.On 9 May, 85 troopers of the 3rd Light Cavalry at Meerut refused to use their cartridges. They were imprisoned, sentenced to ten years of hard labour, and stripped of their uniforms in public. On 11 May the rebels reached Delhi, where they were joined by other Indians from the local bazaar, and attacked and captured the Red Fort (Lal Qila), killing five British, including a British officer and two women. Lal Qila was the residence of the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II and the sepoys demanded that he reclaim his throne. At first he was reluctant, but eventually he agreed to the demands and became the leader of the rebellion.Rebellion erupted in the state of Awadh (also known as Oudh, in modern-day Uttar Pradesh) very soon after the events in Meerut. The British commander of Lucknow, Henry Lawrence, had enough time to fortify his position inside the Residency compound. British forces numbered some 1700 men, including loyal sepoys. Rebellion in Kanpur in June 1857

Suppression of Rebellion

Absence of Military LeadershipLack of Co-ordinationLimited Area of the RebellionConflicting Aims and Confusing MobilizationSikhs, Gurkhas and Loyal Punjabi TroopsBengali Elites, Bombay Businessmen and Tamil Educated Elites supported British Rule Failure to Dismantle British Line of InformationMassive Repression

Interpretations of Rebellion

•Sepoy Mutiny•War of National Independence

•Restorative Rebellion•Subaltern Rebellion•Rebels without Causes

Pattern Of The Rebellion

If one were to place the dates of these mutinies in chronological order, it would appear that as the news of the mutiny in one town travelled to the next the sepoy there took up arms. The

sequance of events in every cantonment followed a similar pattern.

Leadership Of The Rebellion

• Bahadur Shah Jafar ((1775-1862)• Nana Saheb (1824-)• Tantia Tope• Rani Laxmibai (1830-1858)• Kunwar Singh

Rebellion of Subaltern: Sepoys, Peasants and Artisans

•Bakth Khan•Moulavi Imdiadullah•Nature of Peasant Rebellion•Rebellion of Artisans

Awadh In Revolt

• In 1851 Governor General Lord Dalhousie described the kingdom of Awadh as “a cherry that will drop into our mouth one day”. Five years later, in 1856, the kingdom was formally annexed to the British Empire. The conquest happened in stages. The Subsidiary Alliance had been imposed on Awadh in 1801. By the terms of this alliance the Nawab had to disband his military force, allow the British to position their troops within the kingdom, and act in accordance with the advice of the British Resident who was now to be attached to the court. Deprived of his armed forces, the Nawab became increasingly dependent on the British to maintain law and order within the kingdom.

Firangi Raj And The End Of A World

A chain of grievances in Awadh linked prince,

taluqdar, peasant and sepoy. In different ways they came to identify firangi raj with the end of their world – the breakdown of things they valued, respected and held dear. A whole complex of emotionsThe annexation displaced not just the Nawab.

It also dispossessed the taluqdars of the region. The

countryside of Awadh was dotted with the estates

and forts of taluqdars who for many generations had

controlled land and power in the countryside

What The Rebel WantedAs victors, the British recorded their own trials and

tribulations as well as their heroism. They dismissed

the rebels as a bunch of ungrateful and barbaric

people. The repression of the rebels also meant

silencing of their voice. Few rebels had the

opportunity of recording their version of events.

Moreover, most of them were sepoys and ordinary

people who were not literate. Thus, other than a few

proclamations and ishtahars (notifications) issued

by rebel leaders to propagate their ideas and

persuade people to join the revolt, we do not have

much that throws light on the perspective of the

rebels. Attempts to reconstruct what happened in

1857 are thus heavily and inevitably dependent on

what the British wrote. While these sources reveal

the minds of officials, they tell us very little about

what the rebels wanted.

Against The Symbols Of Oppression

The proclamations completely rejected everything

associated with British rule or firangi raj as they called

it. They condemned the British for the annexations they

had carried out and the treaties they had broken. The

British, the rebel leaders said, could not be trusted.

What enraged the people was how British land

revenue settlements had dispossessed landholders, both

big and small, and foreign commerce had driven artisans

and weavers to ruin. Every aspect of British rule was

attacked and the firangi accused of destroying a way of

life that was familiar and cherished. The rebels wanted

to restore that world.

The Search For Alternative Power

Once British rule had collapsed, the rebels in places

like Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur tried to establish

some kind of structure of authority and

administration. This was, of course, short-lived but

the attempts show that the rebel leadership wanted

to restore the pre-British world of the eighteenth

century. The leaders went back to the culture of the

court. Appointments were made to various posts,

arrangements made for the collection of land revenue

and the payment of troops, orders issued to stop loot

and plunder. Side by side plans were made to fight

battles against the British. Chains of command were

laid down in the army. In all this the rebels harked

back to the eighteenth-century Mughal world – a

world that became a symbol of all that had been lost.

Repression

It is clear from all accounts that we have of 1857

that the British did not have an easy time in putting

down the rebellion.

Before sending out troops to reconquer North

India, the British passed a series of laws to help

them quell the insurgency. By a number of Acts,

passed in May and June 1857, not only was the

whole of North India put under martial law but

military officers and even ordinary Britons were

given the power to try and punish Indians

suspected of rebellion. In other words, the ordinary

processes of law and trial were suspended and it

was put out that rebellion would have only one

punishment – death.

Images Of Revolt

As we have seen, we have very few records on

the rebels’ point of view. There are a few rebel

proclamations and notifications, as also some

letters that rebel leaders wrote. But historians till

now have continued to discuss rebel actions

primarily through accounts written by the British. One important record of the mutiny is the pictorial

images produced by the British and Indians:

paintings, pencil drawings, etchings, posters,

cartoons, bazaar prints

Celebrating The Saviours

British pictures offer a variety of images that were

meant to provoke a range of different emotions and

reactions. Some of them commemorate the British

heroes who saved the English and repressed the

rebels. “Relief of Lucknow”, painted by Thomas Jones

Barker in 1859, is an example of this type. When

the rebel forces besieged Lucknow, Henry Lawrence,

the Commissioner of Lucknow, collected the

Christian population and took refuge in the heavily

fortified Residency. Lawrence was killed but the

Residency continued to be defended under the

command of Colonel Inglis. On 25 September James

Outram and Henry Havelock arrived, cut through

the rebel forces, and reinforced the British

garrisons.

Vengeance And Retribution

As waves of anger and shock spread in Britain,

demands for retribution grew louder. Visual

representations and news about the revolt created a

milieu in which violent repression and vengeance were

seen as both necessary and just. It was as if justice

demanded that the challenge to British honour and

power be met ruthlessly. Threatened by the rebellion,

the British felt that they had to demonstrate their

invincibility. In one such image (Fig. 11.13) we see

an allegorical female figure of justice with a sword in

one hand and a shield in the other. Her posture is

aggressive; her face expresses rage and the desire for

revenge. She is trampling sepoys under her feet while

a mass of Indian women with children cower with fear.

No Time For Elemency

At a time when the clamour was for vengeance, pleas

for moderation were ridiculed. When Governor

General Canning declared that a gesture of leniency

and a show of mercy would help in winning back

the loyalty of the sepoys, he was mocked in the

British press.

In one of the cartoons published in the pages of

Punch, a British journal of comic satire, Canning is

shown as a looming father figure, with his protective

hand over the head of a sepoy who still holds an

unsheathed sword in one hand and a dagger in the

other, both dripping with blood (Fig.11.17) – an

imagery that recurs in a number of British pictures

of the time.

Natonalist Imageries

The national movement in the twentieth century drew

its inspiration from the events of 1857. A whole world

of nationalist imagination was woven around

the revolt. It was celebrated as the First War of

Independence in which all sections of the people of

India came together to fight against imperial rule. In popular prints

Rani Lakshmi Bai is usually portrayed in battle

armour, with a sword in hand and riding a horse – a

symbol of the determination to resist injustice and

alien rule.

Movies Inspired By Independence War

•Shaheed is a 1965 Hindi film starring Manoj Kumar depicting Bhaghat Singh's life. At the 13th National Film Awards, Shaheed claimed the award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, the Nargins Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration and the award for Best Screenplay for B. K. Dutt and Din Dayal Sharma.

Incredible Fact:

The screenplay inputs in this version of the film were in fact contributed by Bhagat Singh's close supporter Batukeshwar Dutt himself adding to the classicality of the film.

Movies Inspired By This Revolt•Mangal Pandey: The Rising starring Aamir Khan as Mangal Pandey, Rani Mukherjee as a prostitute and Amisha Patel as a woman about to die under “Sati pratha” and saved later, was ace director Ketan Mehta’s attempt to unroll real life incidences of the first freedom revolutionary of the nation.

Incredible Fact:

The Bharatiya Janata Party had sought a ban on the film, saying it depicts fabrication and includes character assassination of Mangal Pandey by showing him stopover at the house of a prostitute. The film was damned for presenting twisted history, use of too much music and over-publicised Aamir Khan’s hair-do. But the film opened to mixed reviews and is still considered one of the worthy period “freedom” films made in the country.

Movies Inspired By Independence War•This iconic portrayal is depicted in the shining performance of Sachin Khedekar in Shyam Benegal’s (2004) Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero (aka Bose: The Forgotten Hero). The film begins with Netaji giving up the post of president of the Indian National Congress, then heads to Europe to meet Hitler requesting the latter’s support and his success in forming the Indian National Army comprising Indian POWs with the support of Japan. The film culminates with India gaining freedom on 15th August 1947, but the legend to which India had due so much, vanished.

Incredible Fact:

Bose’s posthumous Bharat Ratna Award (1992) was withdrawn due to lack of evidence of his death, which has been the subject of arguments. Although, it was announced by Japan that Netaji died in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945, there have been three Government of India commissions to find out if Subhas Chandra Bose died in the plane crash. The third Indian commission that was chosen for enquiring into this stated in its report tabled in the Parliament in May 2006 that the news about Bose's "death" was dramatic to assist a flee to the USSR. It has been suspected that the Indian government and political leadership were attentive that Bose may have been alive and in custody in Soviet Union, but opted to overlook this concept post-Independence.

Administrative Changes

•The Transfer of Power •Declaration of Queen Victoria•No rise in Land Revenue•Decline of Muslim Aristocracy in Indo-Gangetic Plains•Military Changes and the Idea of Martial Race•Indian Army for Imperial Cause•Arms Act and Vernacular Press Act of 1878•Criminal Tribes Act of 1871•Technocratic State•Alliance with conservative forces•Racial Tensions•New Empire

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