The Great Rebellion of 1857

The British called it the 'Sepoy Mutiny'. After Independence, historians rejected that name, and this book follows many scholars in calling it the 'Great Rebellion of 1857'.

The new name is an argument. A 'mutiny' means soldiers rebelling against their officers, a discipline problem inside an army. The event was far wider than that.

Anger had a long history. The 'Vellore Mutiny' of 1806 broke out when new uniform rules went against the religious practices of Hindu and Muslim sepoys alike: forbidding religious marks on foreheads, and ordering beards to be shaved.

And most sepoys came from farming families already suffering under British land tax policies. The grievance was not only military.

In 1857 rumours spread that the new rifle cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat, offending both Hindu and Muslim sepoys. At Barrackpore, the sepoy Mangal Pandey attacked British officers; his execution spread the anger further.

At Meerut, sepoys killed their officers and marched to Delhi, declaring the elderly, powerless Bahadur Shah Zafar their leader. The revolt spread across northern and central India, and Kanpur, Lucknow and Jhansi were captured. At Kanpur, rebels under Nana Saheb first promised safe passage to British civilians and then killed over 200 men, women and children, for reasons still debated.

The British response was planned and extremely brutal: house-to-house massacres when they retook Delhi, mass executions at Kanpur meant to spread terror, and a long campaign of burning villages and destroying crops, causing far more deaths than the rebels had caused.

Historians suggest it failed for lack of united leadership and a clear plan. But it planted the idea that foreign rule was unacceptable, a seed that grew in the 20th century into the freedom struggle. In 1858 the British Crown took direct control from the Company, beginning the British Raj. Two heroines stand out: Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, called by the British officer who attacked her "the best and bravest of the rebels", and Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh, who led the defence of Lucknow and warned Indians not to trust Queen Victoria's promises.