NATURE OF THE REVOLT OF 1857

The Revolt of 1857 began on 10th May 1857 when the 11th and 20th Native Cavalry of the Bengal Army, assembled in Meerut, turned on their commanding officers. They then made their way to Delhi and on 11th May captured the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah Zafar II, who had been reduced to being a pensioner of the English East India Company, was proclaimed the Emperor of Hindustan and leader of the rebellion. Following this, the revolt spread to several other parts of India. By the end of 1857, however, the British began to regain ground. The revolt finally came to an end in 1858. 

The Revolt of 1857 was fundamentally different from earlier instances of rebellion by the soldiers in the 19th century. Prior to this, the mutinies had remained sporadic or local affairs. However, unlike these, the scale and spread of the Revolt of 1857 was larger – sepoys at many centers mutinied and this was accompanied by civil disturbances. The extent of the revolt was mostly over North, Central and Western India. Southern India, Punjab and Bengal did not witness any serious disturbance. Some of the leaders of the revolt were – Nana Sahib, the adopted son of the Peshwa Baji Rao II, at Kanpur; Begum Hazrat Mahal at Lucknow; Khan Bahadur at Rohilkhand; Rani Lakshmibai at Jhansi; the zamindar, Kunwar Singh at Arrah; and Tantia Tope at Bareilly.

The nature of the Revolt of 1857 has been extensively written about and debated. It has been called a sepoy mutiny, a civil rebellion, a ‘National War of Independence’ or even a feudal uprising. However, Rudrangshu Mukherjee feels that such accounts are constricted in their scope since there is very little effort to move away from such a concern with labels and deal with questions of social composition and material background. The first major break with this historiographical tradition came with the work of Eric Stokes, who focused on the upper and central Doab and showed how the impact of British land-revenue policy was connected with “rural political affiliation in the hour of crisis”. S.B. Chaudhuri analyzed the areas of ‘civil’ rebellion in 1857. Recently, scholars have concentrated on region-specific studies, for instance, R. Mukherjee’s study of Awadh and Tapti Roy’s work on the Bundelkhand region. 

In dealing with the controversy on the interpretation of the nature of the revolt, three basic issues arise – firstly, whether the revolt was a civil rebellion or a sepoy mutiny; secondly, whether it was a revolt or the first War of Indian Independence; and thirdly, whether it was elite or popular in character. This essay will now attempt to review these issues. However, while arriving at a conclusion, the problems in studying the revolt must be kept in mind. Given the vast and heterogeneous character of the people involved in the revolt, it is difficult to form any conclusions that will apply even in a general way to all. More importantly, the rebels themselves have left no accounts of their activities and we are thus dependent mostly on the accounts of the British. Also, the personal prejudices and aims of the scholars involved also make it difficult to analyze the nature of the revolt.

 

The first issue relates to the characterization of the Revolt of 1857 as a mere military mutiny or a civil rebellion. The official British version was that the Bengal Native Army had alone mutinied and that any civil disturbances were the natural by-products of the breakdown of law and order. Civilian officials indicted the army officials for long-standing indiscipline and inefficiency that had rendered the Bengal Army mutinous. They refused to acknowledge the existence of any deep-seated discontent against the British Rule. The British mercantile community, however, placed the blame on Governor-General Canning and his officials for failing to recognize the fact that they were facing a formidable civil rebellion. G.B. Malleson agreed, saying that the administration “persisted in governing as though there was no disorder in the civil districts”.

Yet, even as early as July 1857, Disraeli questioned whether the possible character of the revolt was indeed national. He said that the revolt was a conspiracy that had been brewing for along time and that the Indians were merely waiting for a pretext or occasion. He saw the alienation of the subject population by the British, and the alienation of the propertied classes due to annexation, especially Awadh, and finally their tampering with the religion of the masses as the chief causes for the outbreak of the revolt. J.W. Kaye, the chief historian of the mutiny as Eric Stokes calls him, also argued that the explosion came from deep within the civil society and the British had alienated the aristocracy and the priesthood while failing to reconcile the peasant proprietary classes.

For T.R. Holmes, however, the civil rebellion was a secondary phenomenon, as a general outbreak that promised the unruly and discontented elements with an outlet “for gratifying their selfish instincts”. R.C. Majumdar agreed that the civil disturbance arose in the political vacuum caused by the military mutiny. Lawrence also said that it was a purely military mutiny, caused due to the ill-disciplined Bengal Army, the casual system of recruitment and a feeling of brotherhood amongst soldiers.

Talmiz Khaldun has criticized the labeling of the revolt as a mere sepoy mutiny for it fails to explain why at several places there were civilian revolts even before the sepoys had mutinied. Moreover, he argues that “if it was a purely military insurrection, why was it deemed necessary to punish the country people and citizens by fines and hanging for complicity in acts which they of their own accord had nothing to do”. The British retribution was severe – not only was martial law proclaimed, but civilians suspected of complicity were severely punished after summary trials. Instead, he says that it was a civil rebellion, which spread from Delhi in the North-west to Bihar in the East, and from the foothills of the Himalayas to Jhansi. Excepting the western-educated intelligentsia and certain sections of zamindars, the rebels had the support of the country people. Official papers recount how villagers fed the rebels and brought them hourly information in Awadh. Several villagers also joined the rebels’ army. Also, some districts saw prolonged resistance to the British, even after their re-occupation by the British e.g. Sambalpur and Chakradharpur on the borders of Bengal.

In nationalist historiography, there is a tendency to gloss over the activities of the sepoys, in order to prove that 1857 was much more than a mere mutiny. Thus, S.B. Chaudhuri calls it a “rising of the people”. That the sepoys struck the first blow is not denied, but their fears about British intentions to destroy their caste and religion must also have troubled the civilian population. When the sepoys had attained a certain measure of success, civil elements put themselves at the head of the movement, with the result that the military complexion of the insurrection was changed and it resulted in popular disturbances. He also provides evidence to show that people in general were in sympathy with the rebels. For example, the villagers did not betray their rebel leaders and kept them acquainted with the movement of the enemy troops. Military communications bear out the fact that the British punitive forces were constantly misled and misinformed as they went out to elicit information about the rebels.

Eric Stokes holds that the Revolt of 1857 began as a military mutiny but was converted into a civil rebellion, as with the breakdown of the British authority, peasant grievances surfaced in the form of rural rebellion. He, however, maintains that the military mutiny and rural rebellion were not concerted. Consequently, the sepoys made no attempt to lead the rural revolts and concentrated in the 3 urban centres of Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur.

  1. Mukherjee has argued that both these approaches – whether a civil rebellion or a sepoy mutiny – are flawed, since they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of sepoy action, thereby also missing the crucial interconnections between the sepoy mutinies and the popular rebellion. He sees a definite pattern in the geographical spread of the revolt. Regiments of sepoys in North India revolted once Delhi was captured by mutineers and soon the mutiny acquired a popular base, with the success of the mutineers.

He points out the general characteristics that formed the actions of the sepoys – collectivity as revealed in planning and coordination; a destruction that discriminated and extended itself by the logic of association; a violence whose chief modality was arson; and direct actions spurred on by rumours. Also, according to him, all these features have parallels with the general features of peasant insurgency in the colonial period. This similarity is explained by the fact that the sepoys of the Bengal Army were mostly drawn from the agricultural families of Southern Awadh and Eastern U.P. This common background also explains the easy communication across sepoy lines in North India and the similar reaction of the sepoys to rumours. The sepoys were ‘peasants in uniform’, and so when they rebelled they did so in exactly the same manner as the peasants in the villages did. Further, the sepoy-peasant continuum explains why the sepoys’ actions found such a direct and immediate echo in the countryside. Once the mutinies had struck and British administration had collapsed, the rebellion spread rapidly in the countryside. The common people were waiting for the mutinies to initiate the uprising.

Thus it can be said that the Revolt of 1857 began as a military mutiny but soon acquired a popular colour, especially in areas such as Sindh and North West Provinces. As the mutineers captured towns, cumulating in the fall of Delhi which was taken as the symbol of the fall of British authority in India, the countryside rose in rebellion. It should also be noted that the army as a whole did not join the revolt but a considerable section actively fought on the side of the Government.

Another question that is discussed is whether the revolt was a planned conspiracy or a spontaneous unorganized outbreak. In the 19th century, in the British narratives of the mutiny, the activities of the sepoys were written about as something disorderly and chaotic – the work of disloyal soldiery. Malleson claimed to demonstrate that the 1857 outbreak had a premeditated design at a level of leadership outside and above that of the sepoy regiments, a plot which misfired only in its actual timing. More recently, Eric Stokes has argued that the mutinies were “the work of a small minority; the mutinies were the product of ‘designing men” – a conspiring few substituted for collective action.

The story that chapattis were distributed over a large area in Northern India is used by some scholars to support to the theory of prior preparation and propaganda. There is also a similar account of the circulation of a lotus flower among the regiments of the Bengal Army. But there is no definite evidence to prove this. It is not mentioned in official records. Also, the lotus did not grow everywhere where the Bengal army was stationed. Moreover, it was a seasonal flower and blossoms only in autumn. As to the purpose of the circulation of lotus and chapattis, nothing definite is known. Chick suggested that “some superstition connected with the previous sickly season” may be the most probable origin of “the strange procedure”. Some believed that it was being circulated by an order of the government “to force Christianity on the people by interfering with their food”, as was mentioned by some of the witnesses during Bahadur Shah’s trial in Delhi. It is thus unlikely that the chapattis or lotuses had any connection with the Mutiny.

  1. C. Majumdar, after an exhaustive study of available official and non-official records, concluded that available evidence did not prove the existence of any political or military organization which “a general revolt or a war of independence necessarily implies”. Nor did it appear feasible that a conspiracy was conducted through the circulation of chapattis. So the revolt could not be considered a premeditated one.
  1. Mukherjee proposes a new understanding about the organization of the revolt. He says that the revolt may have been sparked off by mutinies in the sepoy lines but a considerable degree of organization and administration went into maintaining the struggle. According to him, there was a pattern in the chronological order of the mutinies. The first outbreak takes place on 10th May at Meerut, after which the soldiers went towards Delhi. Between 10th and 14th May, there were no mutinies. It is only after the sepoys in Delhi had mutinied (11-12 May) that the other garrisons in North India suit, “as if in chain reaction”. Thus we see a contagion of movement facilitated by the fact that there was a degree of communication between the sepoy lines. Propaganda and rumour were cleverly circulated and, buttressed by an appeal to religious feelings, spurred men on to fight an alien order.

 

The outbreak of the mutinies, according to him, was not chaotic or disorganized. On the contrary, the sipahis showed a remarkable degree of planning and coordination in the way the mutinies were carried out. The mutinies began at a pre-appointed signal: in Bareilly, Lucknow and Meerut the signal was the firing of the evening gun. Moreover, when Mangal Pandey opened fire, only one sepoy tried to stop him. They were thus conscious agents and their acts were marked by deliberation and planning. The destruction was not indiscriminate. Property owned, used or lived by the British was always the first to be attached, followed by government offices, post-offices, telegraph lines, records of the tahsil and jails as the most obvious symbols of British domination.

 

Thus the Revolt of 1857 was not a mere spontaneous sepoy mutiny but an organized revolt started in the military ranks, which gave the opportunity for a civil rebellion. Once again, there is debate over the nature of this civil rebellion. British officials serving in the North West Provinces were convinced of the Islamic character of the revolt. Alfred Lyall, who served in the Bulandshahr district, wrote, “The whole insurrection is a great Mohomedan conspiracy and the sepoys are merely the tools of the Mussulmans.” It was felt that the old Muslim elite had conspired to ferment political rebellion among the masses. However, it must be remembered Muslims alone had not arisen in rebellion. Rumours about greased cartridges, forcible conversion to Christianity and other such instances created an alarm about a deliberate plot to despoil the religion of Hindus and Muslims alike. The people were convinced that there was a move afoot to destroy their caste and religion. The programme of reform and westernization so eagerly propagated by British administrators only fuelled such a belief. The British, and Christianity, by extension, were identified as the common threat to their familiar way of life. Thus religion served as the source of solidarity and fraternity, contrary to British expectations. In fact, the only instance of communal distemper was witnessed in Rohilkhand.

The second issue of debate is whether the revolt can be characterized as a ‘National War of Indian Independence’. The origins of this debate can be traced back to the conflicting interpretations of J.B. Norton and Charles Raikes. Norton held that the rebellion had a popular base whereas Raikes was of the opinion that the revolt was primarily a mutiny of the sepoys, though it did acquire a popular character in certain areas. Malleson said that the revolt seemed, at first, to be a mere military mutiny, but “speedily changed its character, and became a national insurrection”. This prepared the way for the nationalist interpretation by V.D. Savarkar in his ‘The Indian War of Independence of 1857’, published in 1909, where he saw “the brilliance of a War of Independence shining in the mutiny of 1857”. He claimed that the people had revolted to defend their swadharma (one’s own religion) and to win back swarajya (self-government). However it must be noted that his main attempt was to infuse Indian people with a desire to rise against the British. According to Eric Stokes, the work was written as a tract for the times. Thus it presented 1857 as a National War of Independence, to relive the glorious tradition of resistance against the British. Nationalist historians further popularized this interpretation, especially during the period of Indian freedom struggle, making 1857 to be the year when nationalist feelings, suppressed by British occupation, flared into violence.

However, not all Nationalist historians agreed with this view. S.N. Sen did not see it as a nationalist war, although he wrote that “what began as a fight for religion ended as a war of independence”. Yet he was clear that there was no prior conspiracy and no question of a nationalist uprising except in the limited sense of local patriotism in Awadh. 

R.C. Maujumdar too denied existence of nationalism in the revolt. He argued that only a narrow geographical region was affected and that the civil population revolted only when British authority and administration itself had broken down. Secondly, there was no coordination or common cause amongst the different rebel groups, who acted mostly for self-interest. Also, many ruling chiefs had remained loyal to the British and mostly ‘goonda elements’ (criminals) participated. Thus, the revolt could not be termed as ‘national’. Instead, he saw it as the “dying groans of an obsolete aristocracy”.

S.B. Chaudhuri countered Majumdar’s arguments to prove that nationalist feelings were indeed the driving force behind the upsurge of 1857, which had definite precedents in earlier uprisings and which anticipated the later struggle for national freedom. Criminal elements certainly joined in the Indian revolt as happens whenever law and order is threatened. But the majority were not robbers by profession but people of decent social status to whom the revolt appeared to be the only legitimate means of redressing their grievances. The destruction of ancient land system by so-called goondas turned the uprising into a social war of the rural classes against the new landed powers. The loyalty of the princely order only reiterates the universal rebellion that threatened their existence.

He argued that it was the civil rebellion that resulted in the subversion of the British administration. Moreover, the revolt was an organized one and except a narrow margin of the eastern, western and southern fringe of India, there was hardly any part of the country that did not witness any overt rebellion on the part of the people. Also, it can be seen that there was greatest dislike of British authority where it had not yet been long established, for instance Punjab and Awadh; and conversely, there was the least effort towards change in those parts of India which had longest been subject to British rule, e.g. Bengal and Bombay. Further, he says that the rebel leaders did not confine their activities merely to their respective regions but moved to the neighouring areas to carry on the general struggle against the English. For instance, Madho Singh of Bhognipur was reported to have joined the rebels at Kalpi after the re-occupation of Kanpur by the British. Finally, the leaders of 1857 saw the British not merely as a symbol of ruling authority or of a heretic religion, but as alien rulers – the kafirs and feringhis – whose expulsion because they were foreigners became the primary object in the struggle for independence.

According to him, the aristocracy of India was neither dying nor had it become obsolete. Though fighting for their lands and rights, the local landed chiefs still could function on a national plane since they brought together an alliance of the diverse people of all classes who made common cause with them in complete disregard of the forces of estrangement, which might otherwise exist in the social and economic life. Thus old feudal instincts and the anti-alien patriotism became mixed up in 1857 in a curious process. The insurgency was a ‘national’ outburst caused by intense economic and religious discontent.

Talmiz Khaldun also rejects the existence of a ‘national feeling’ in the modern sense due to the absence of a central organization and the narrow geographical scope of the revolt. He points out that the revolt affected only one-sixth of the total area of the country and less than one-tenth of its population. Moreover, he points out that a revolt suppressed with the active help of Indians themselves could hardly have been ‘national’ in nature.

Rajat Kanta Ray remarks that three basic overlapping sentiments shaped the political mass of 1857, i.e. race, religion and realm. These are closely intertwined essential constituents of the religious-patriotic consciousness that charged and activated this mass. In the reams of contemporary literature on the mutiny, there lurk several inchoate ideas, hardly amounting to a political ideology as such, that, upon close observation, may be seen to fit into an identifiable view of the country and its people. Perhaps the most significant of these, according to him, is the idea embedded in the term, ‘the Hindus and Musalmans of Hindustan’, an expression made repeatedly in the proclamations. The idea was not simply communal harmony, but something different, a confederation of two separate peoples tied into one political unit by the social perception of Hindustan as one land. Racial humiliation was bound with the fear of conversion to Christianity and the consequent loss of cherished values, beliefs and practices Associated with all this was a sense of the land being lost at all levels – peasants, zamindars, princes, and the alienation of the indivisible sovereign realm of Hindustan which belonged to the Emperor of Delhi. Conceptually, then, the Mutiny is a peculiarly difficult phenomenon to define – a war of the races that was not a race war because the subject race conceived it as a war of religion; a religious war that can not be called truly and purely a war of religion because what was being opposed was not so much the creed of the master race as their political dominion; as such, then, a patriotic war of the Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, or the inchoate social nationality of Hindustan; yet not a national war either.

He continues that the emotions that went into the making of Indian nationalism later on were visible in the antagonism towards the British in 1857, in the expressions of antagonism to the British in 1857, though the inchoate sense of nationality had not yet taken the conceptual form of the modern political nation and thus had to express its identity in the older familiar idioms of religion and realm. Patriotism that signifies spontaneous desire for independence from alien rule among those who mutinied in 1857 expressed itself in the specific form of a combined religious crusade. And what the Congress leaders later called ‘the Indian nation’, the rebel leaders already spoke of distinctly as ‘the Hindus and Musalmans of Hindustan’. 

Eric Stokes, however, rejected both the frameworks that he felt had caused a certain “mental cramp” among both imperialist and nationalist historians. He classified resistance to oppressive colonial rule as ‘primary resistance’ consisting of the hostile reaction of traditional society, ‘secondary resistance’ of the moderate voicing of opinion through associations and unions, and finally modern political parties. He believes that these three kinds of resistance form a continuum, but can also occur in parallel. He classified the Revolt of 1857 as a “post-pacification revolt falling between primary and secondary resistance”. The post-pacification revolt was precipitated thus – “the power superstructure having been dismantled at pacification, colonial rule engages society more directly and evokes in consequence a more widespread reaction should a revolutionary conjuncture occur. But the reaction will be a rally of heterogeneous elements, reflecting compartmentalism and uneven development and held together loosely by an anti-foreigner sentiment expressed in the form of religious ideology”.

Hence we may conclude that though in many cases the revolt arose as a result of the personal grievances of local leaders, it acquired a popular character due to the general disaffection among the population against British institutions and practices. Patriotism had to be reinforced by an appeal to religious passion before the people rose. But one cannot argue for a “nationalist” sentiment in this uprising and a question still remains as to what extent was it a precursor to the Indian freedom struggle.

The third issue is the debate on whether the revolt can be characterized as elitist or popular in character. This is connected to the issue of whether it was a revolt against the combine of sarkar, sahukar and zamindar.

Scholars who have termed the revolt as popular emphasize the role of the peasantry in the revolt. They show that more than the action of disaffected rural magnates and gentry, it was the peasant masses that were at the forefront of rebellion. It touches upon the disturbance caused among the people by the fears for religion and caste, springing from British interference in customs like widow remarriage or sati. But one can question the impact these legal reforms on the peasants. One must also see the effects of the introduction of the institution of private property rights in land. Under this system, if the landholder defaulted on his dues, his holding could be taken away or transferred to a new holder. The peasant, caught in a rigid tax system which required him to transfer a substantial portion of his produce to the state in cash payments and tempted by his new credit worthiness, it is supposed, fell into the hands of the moneylender and the forces of “mercantile and usury capitalism”. The outcome was transfer by mortgage and forced sale of land titles to urban merchant or money-lending classes. It was this loss of land rights that led to the revolt of 1857, it is argued. In fact, so struck were many senior British officials by the agrarian character of the uprising that in the immediate post-Mutiny years, discussions were carried on to restrict the power of land transfer. 

Some Marxist historians have taken the argument further to say that the peasantry was the truly revolutionary force. They argue that the while in the initial stages economic grievances and anti-foreigner sentiment led the disaffected gentry into rebellion, they were the first to give up the struggle as pressure from below and its accompanying destructiveness threatened their own property rights. Ranajit Guha, a Marxist historian, places emphasis on peasant participation. He says that caste aided mobilization during the revolt. The nature of violence was purposive, with only the visible symbols of power of sarkar, sahukar and zamindar being destroyed. Therefore the revolt was not proto-nationalist, since even oppressive Indian elements were attacked. Talmiz Khaldun says that the revolt was crushed so easily precisely because the propertied class betrayed it. Thus, the rebellion ended as a peasant war against indigenous landlordism and foreign imperialism. This implies that it was a revolt against the sarkar, sahukar and zamindar. Even Rudrangshu Mukherjee agrees with this view.

Such an interpretation, however, strips the movement of all the claims to proto-nationalism and has found little favour. Even the Marxist scholar P.C. Joshi points out that the peasantry attacked only the new British-created landlords. There was no struggle against the landlords as a class, so it cannot be called a class war. Here he is in agreement with the non-Marxist S.B. Chaudhuri, who says that the public sale of land rights for default of revenue uprooted the ordinary people from their small holdings and destroyed the gentry of the country, and thus both the orders united in the revolt against the British, to recover what they had lost.

Thomas Metcalf agrees that 1857 was a broad, popular uprising directed against the new landlord class. According to him, as a result of the agrarian grievances arising from British over-assessment and the passage of landed property to the moneylender, the people of the North West Provinces gave their support to the rebel cause. However, the revolt can be called popular only in Awadh, where the talukdars and peasants participated together in favour of the royal court.

Eric Stokes thus maintains that the only way to understand the uprising of 1857 in North India is to study its local differences. But the one common agenda was the vital link between military mutiny and rural turbulence. In a sense, the revolt was essentially the revolt of a peasant army breaking loose from its foreign masters. Thus, the peasant revolts occurred due to the loss of land control to “new men” or urban money-lending castes. He says that the talukdari settlements had burdened the village communities with the additional increment of malikana, leaving them prey to banias and village sahukar.

Yet he says that the movement was elitist in nature in which he gives importance to the role of magnates, who he calls ‘effective decision makers’. He says that the proprietary body that participated in the revolt was very much elite. In urban centres, the masses may have played a role but in the countryside, they either remained passive or tamely followed the behests of their caste superiors. He also points out that the dominant castes and communities that took lead in the rebellion were a minority of the population and therefore the owners of land were a still smaller group. Hence the notion that the traditional elite was driven en bloc into rebellion needs a critical reexamination. In fact, he sees no direct proportional relationship between rural indebtedness and the revolt. He says that the moneylender (sahukar) was not responsible for the revolt, and that revenue demand was the most important factor. The Revolt was a series of local rebellions in which local and caste factors were important.

An example of how local and caste factors gave a unique character to the revolt in each region is shown by Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s study of the revolt in Awadh. A specific characteristic of the revolt in Awadh was the revolt pertained to the people as a whole and was carried on by the people, especially talukdars and peasants who fought together against a common foe. This he explains in terms of the role of the peasant and talukdars in the revolt and analyses the relationship between these two classes in the pre-annexation period and shows how they had a complementary and symbiotic relationship. Mukherjee argues that forms of practical cooperation between various strata of rural society were in-built within the functioning of Awadh rural society. He goes on to show that the Summary Settlement of 1856-57 alienated both the classes, as they dispossessed the talukdars and exposed the peasants to over-assessment. The dispossession of talukdars meant not only a loss of power and status but also the loss of control over surplus from which such power and status grew. It also meant a threat to a certain lifestyle that held together, however loosely, the talukdar retainer and the peasant. As a result, they joined hands to restore the rule of the Nawab in Awadh.

In Awadh, a symbiotic and cooperative relationship existed between the peasant and the talukdar. The way the talukdar appropriated the surplus produce involved a process of pooling of resources, which gave the appearance of sharing rather of extraction. Within the estate each person was entitled to a share in the produce when the grain was distributed. This whole mechanism bolstered the close relationship that existed between the talukdar and his peasants. The peasant’s loyalty was best revealed in his support to the talukdar by the fact that the peasants stood guarantors for payment of revenue when the raja had failed to pay. However it was not an idyllic or egalitarian situation. It must not be assumed that the talukdars looked after their peasants out of sheer altruism. They found it expedient to do so – the peasant titled his land, paid his dues and provided fighting men. The peasants on their part received protection, security and occasional help in times of trouble. Such a situation of mutual dependence included anger and rapacity but perhaps preluded affirmative rebellion of the peasant against the talukdar. Thus there was a base for united action in Awadh.

The arbitrary annexation of Awadh in 1856 caused distress among the masses. There was an increase in prices along with loss of employment due to the end of patronage by the Lucknow court. This was further added to by the Summary Settlement of 1856-57, which reflected an anti-talukdari bias. It was a misreading of the situation by British administrators who regarded the village community as the main administrative body within a village and talukdars as unwanted imposers from outside and sought to remove them through this settlement. This shook the peasant-talukdar relationship. The peasant lost his protector (talukdar) and he had now no one to share with him the losses of the crop due to bad climate or low prices. Some talukdars joined the resistance because they suffered under the economic impositions of the British and also because of the subconscious attachment to a traditional status and a way of life.

Mukherjee terms the events of 1857 as a military mutiny, sparked off by certain fears about caste and religion, merging itself with disaffection created by the interventions in the traditional rural world of Awadh, using the loss of land, loss of a king and threats to religion as a rallying cry, seeking its identity in the traditions of the former despotism and finding its popular base in rural co-fraternity held together by bonds of mutual interdependence.

Keeping in mind the difficulties involved in the study of the Revolt of 1857, the controversy about the exact nature of the revolt continues. In the light of available evidence, we can conclude that the uprising of 1857 was not a mere sepoy mutiny since many other sections of the population participated. The revolt cannot be conveniently termed the First War of Indian Independence for such a definition requires evidence that it was a pre-planned political and military uprising, organized with the aim of overthrowing the British. But evidence shows that it took place not due to careful planning or the conspiracy of a few individuals or groups – it had its origin in sepoy discontent and derived its strength from the widespread disaffection among the civil population. Modern nationalism did not yet exist. However, there was a sense of the British being foreign. The debate on whether it was elitist or popular requires a case study of each region to be undertaken sequentially. The work of Ruudrangshu Mukherjee on Awadh bears testimony to the fact that this aspect requires more extensive regional research. In fact, of the rebellion as a whole, it is not quite easy to present a uniform pattern as it differed considerably from region to region, and political and social motives got mixed up in the process. To conclude, we quote C.A. Bayly – “The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was not one movement, be it a peasant revolt or a war of national liberation; it was many. The lineaments of revolt differed vastly from district to district, even village to village, and were determined by a complex counterpoint reflecting ecology, tenurial forms, and the variable impact of the colonial state”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

  1. Eric Stokes – The Peasant Armed
  2. Rudrangshu Mukherjee – Awadh In Revolt, 1857-1858 (A Study Of Popular Resistance)
  3. Sashi Bhushan Chaudhuri – Civil Rebellion In The Indian Mutinies (1857-1859)
  4. Surendra Nath Sen – Eighteen Fifty-Seven
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  6. C. Joshi (ed.) – 1857: A Symposium
  7. Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta (ed.) – India’s Colonial Encounter: Essays In Memory Of Eric Stokes
    1. The Sepoy Mutinies Revisited – Rudrangshu Mukherjee
    2. Race, Religion And Realm: The Political Theory Of ‘The Reigning Crusade’, 1857 – Rajat Kanta Ray
  8. Christopher Hibbert – The Great Mutiny, India, 1857
  9. A. Chick – Annals Of The Indian Rebellion, 1857-58
  10. Pratul Chandra Gupta – Nana Sahib And The Rising At Cawnpore
  11. Class Notes