Indian mutiny why

They also had little in common with the high caste Hindu sepoys of the Bengal Army. The Rani of Jhansi lost her lands when her husband died without a male heir; and failed to regain them in the British courts. The Nawab of Furukabad reluctantly joined the revolt after sepoys arrived at his palace in June Most notorious was the deposition of the Nawab of Oudh on the grounds that he was unfit to rule.

Equally unpopular was the policy of lapse, which said that the lands of any ruler who died without a male heir would be forfeit to the Company. Princes and maharajahs, along with their courtiers and soldiers, found themselves unemployed and humiliated. These marginalised people, seen as having the authority to lead a campaign against the British, were in many cases a natural focal point for mutineers.

And although they may have preferred to deal differently with the British, the arrival of rebel sepoys at their gates often forced them to take up the cause. Thousands of common people joined the revolt. Some for religious reasons, others out of loyalty to their old rulers or simply to engage in looting.

Many wanted to destroy the system by which the Company collected taxes. Peasants, who had been forced to switch from subsistence farming to export crops in order to meet increasing tax demands, needed little encouragement to rebel. It was not a unified revolt. Most of the sepoys hoped to restore Mughal rule under Bahadur Shah. But the inhabitants of Oudh wanted their Nawab back, and the people of Jhansi wanted their old state restored.

The revolt was also divided on religious lines. Most sepoys were Hindus, but other rebels were Muslims fighting a holy war. Following the outbreak at Meerut, uprisings by soldiers and civilians alike occurred across northern and central India.

The future of India would be decided on these battlefields. The rising was the biggest threat to Britain's colonial power during its rule of the Indian subcontinent. A rare tunic from the Indian Mutiny holds a death-defying tale of gruesome gunshots, troublesome timepieces and a remarkable recovery.

Robert Clive's victory at Plassey on 23 June led to the British becoming the greatest economic and military power in India.

A courageous, resourceful and ruthless military commander, Major-General Robert Clive helped secure India for Britain. But he was also seen as a greedy speculator who used his political and military influence to amass a fortune. He later led a relief army with great distinction during the Indian Mutiny of Thoroughly enjoyed it. Be the first to hear about our latest events, exhibitions and offers.

Simply enter your email address below to start receiving our monthly email newsletter. To find out more about how we collect, store and use your personal information, read our Privacy Policy. National Army Museum 10am - 5. Toggle navigation.

Indian Mutiny Why did the Indian Mutiny happen? View this object. Rebel sepoys, East India Company In the midth century, India was very different from the nation state we know today. To those who have thought most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that would have been strong enough to have broken these ties, — those, namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice.

The overt ground of the general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the cartridges are not prepared as stated, and they form the mere handle for designing men to work with.

They are, I believe, equally innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being Christianized has by some means or other been created is without doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the government itself has any accurate information on the subject. The immediate cause was the punishment of eighty-five troopers of the 3d Light Cavalry, who had refused to use the obnoxious cartridges, and had been sentenced by a native court-martial to ten years' imprisonment.

On Saturday, the 9th, the men were put in irons, in presence of their comrades, and marched off to jail. On Sunday, the 10th, just at the time of evening service, the mutiny broke out. Three regiments left their lines, fell upon every European, man, woman, or child, they met or could find, murdered them all, burnt half the houses in the station, and, after working such a night of mischief and horror as devils might have delighted in, marched off to Delhi en masse, where three other regiments ripe for mutiny were stationed.

On the junction of the two brigades, the horrors of Meerut were repeated in the imperial city, and every European who could be found was massacred with revolting barbarity. In fact, the spirit was that of a servile war. Annihilation of the ruling race was felt to be the only chance of safety or impunity; so no one of the ruling race was spared.

Many, however, effected their escape, and, after all sorts of perils and sufferings, succeeded in reaching military stations containing European troops. The country round is in utter confusion. Bands of robbers are murdering and plundering defenceless people. Civil government has practically ceased from the land. The most loathsome irresolution and incapacity have been exhibited in some of the highest quarters. A full month will elapse before the mutineers are checked by any organized resistance.

A force is, or is supposed to be, marching on Delhi; but the outbreak occurred on the 10th of May, and this day is the first of June and Delhi has seen no British colors and heard no British guns as yet. It is not five or six thousand mutinous mercenaries, or ten times the number, that will change the destiny of England in India. Though we small fragments of the great machine may fall at our posts, there is that vitality in the English people that will bound stronger against misfortunes and build up the damaged fabric anew.

So far the letter from which we have quoted. For four weeks the mutineers had been left in undisturbed possession of the city, a possession which was of incalculable advantage to them by adding to their moral strength the prestige of a name which has always been associated with the sceptre of Indian empire. The masters of Delhi are the masters not only of a city, but of a deeply rooted tradition of supremacy. The delay had told. Almost every day in the latter half of May was marked by a new mutiny in different military stations, widely separated from each other, throughout the North-Western Provinces an Bengal.

The tidings of the possession of Delhi by the mutineers stimulated the daring madness of regiments that had been touched by disaffection. Some mutinied from mere panic, some from bitterness of hate. Some fled away quietly with their arms, to join the force that had now swelled to an army in the city of the Great Moghul; some repeated the atrocities of Meerut, and set up a separate standard of revolt, to which all the disaffected and all the worst characters of the district flocked, to gratify their lust for revenge of real or fancied wrongs, or their baser passions for plunder and unmeaning cruelty.

The malignity of a subtle, acute, semi-civilized race, unrestrained by law or by moral feeling, broke out in its most frightful forms. Cowardice possessed of strength never wreaked more horrible sufferings upon its victims, and the bloody and barbarous annals of Indian history show no more bloody and barbarous page. The course of English life in those stations where the worst cruelties and the bitterest sufferings have been inflicted on the unhappy Europeans has been for a long time so peaceful and undisturbed, it has gone on for the most part in such pleasant and easy quiet and with such absolute security, that the agony of sudden alarm and unwarned violence has added its bitterness to the overwhelming horror.

It is not as in border settlements, where the inhabitants choose their lot knowing that they are exposed to the incursions of savage enemies, — but it is as if on a night in one of the most peaceful of long-settled towns, troops of men, with a sort of civilization that renders their attack worse than that of savages, should be let loose to work their worst will of lust and cruelty.

The details are too recent, too horrible, and as yet too broken and irregular, to be recounted here. Although, at the first sally of the mutineers from Delhi against the force that had at length arrived, a considerable advantage was gained by the Europeans, this advantage was followed up by no decisive blow. The number of troops was too small to attempt an assault against an army of thirty thousand men, each man of whom was a trained soldier.

The English force was unprovided with any sufficient siege battery. It could do little more than encamp, throw up intrenchments for its own defence, and wait for attacks to be made upon it, — attacks which it usually repulsed with great loss to the attackers. The month of June is the hottest month of the year at Delhi; the average height of the thermometer being 92 degrees. There, in such weather, the force must sit still, watch the pouring in of reinforcements and supplies to the city which it was too small to invest, and hear from day to day fresh tidings of disaster and revolt on every hand, — tidings of evil which there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms.

A position more dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian government, and the procrastination of the home government in the forwarding of the necessary reinforcements.

Simply enter your email address below to start receiving our monthly email newsletter. To find out more about how we collect, store and use your personal information, read our Privacy Policy. National Army Museum 10am - 5. Toggle navigation. Indian Mutiny. Featured Why did the Indian Mutiny happen? Read this story. Explore Indian Mutiny stories. A lucky escape A rare tunic from the Indian Mutiny holds a death-defying tale of gruesome gunshots, troublesome timepieces and a remarkable recovery.