greased cartridges revolt of 1857

This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. Rumors began to spread that the grease used to make the cartridges was derived from pigs and cows, which would be highly offensive to Muslims and Hindus. each other as brothers.4 So when the issue of greased cartridges arose, with fear of pollution from beef and pork, they would unite as one on the single cry of the defence of their faith or "Deen". The grease used was tallow, probably containing both cow and pig fat. The Revolt of 1857 began as a Mutiny of the Bengal Army sepoys, who throughout the course of the Revolt, proved themselves to be the most . Such measures were considered a valid negotiating tactic by the sepoys, likely to be repeated every time such issues arose. Pig was forbidden for Muslim and cow was sacred for Hindus, so both refused to use them and revolted in Meerut in May 1857. And when the Indian independence movement gained momentum in the 20th century, events of the Revolt of 1857 were viewed as having been an early battle for independence, while individuals such as Mangal Pandey were hailed as early national heroes. The Company had upgraded to the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle, which used greased paper cartridges. Loading the Enfield often required tearing open the greased cartridge with one's teeth, and many sepoys believed that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. There was also a general feeling that English officers were losing touch with the Indian troops under them. is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings To be loaded, this cartridge had to be torn open so that the powder it contained could be poured down the barrel of the muzzle-loading gun; because the soldiers hands were full, this was done with the teeth. Many sepoys believed that the victory was the destruction of cartridges that were standard issue with the new rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims and tallow (cow fat) which angered the Hindus as cows were equal to a goddess to them. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana. In Britain and in the West, it was almost always portrayed as a series of unreasonable and bloodthirsty uprisings spurred by falsehoods about religious insensitivity. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 186 and 313 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Beyond that, however, opinions remained divided. What are the oldest known civilizations of India? The revolt failed in overthrowing British Rule. Nationalist historians have seen in it the first Indian war of independence. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. These recalcitrant troops were placed in irons, but their comrades soon came to their rescue. A hardcore corporate, he initially worked for Hindustan Unilever and was later Director of Brooke Bond, India. Thereafter he headed the National Mineral Water Company in Muscat, Oman. [12], There had been earlier indications that all was not well in the armies of the East India Company. One of the first officials to encounter it was Mark Thornhill, magistrate in the little Indian town of Mathura, near Agra. Match the following: Answer: In spite of their apparently desperate situation, the British possessed long-term advantages: they could and did receive reinforcements from Britain; they had, thanks to the resolution of Sir John Lawrence, a firm base in the Punjab, and they had another base in Bengal, where the people were quiet; they had virtually no anxiety in the south and only a little in the west; and they had an immense belief in themselves and their civilization, which gave resolution to their initial desperation. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. India at the time of the 1857 rebellion. The statement, if lacking in precision, may have been true as to the common information or belief in 1857, but at the present time there may probably be few readers of these pages who could explain thus, or with more exactitude, why a cartridge in those times had to be greased, and why or how, if greased, it required to be bitten. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. This event and Pandey's subsequent punishment led to more resentment among the sepoys of the Bengal Army ultimately aiding in the Revolt of 1857.. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. I had no conversation with the King on the subject; but others talked in his presence about it, wondering what could be the object. The greased cartridge - what was it all about? Saul, David (2003), page 294 "The Indian Mutiny", Penguin Books. More disturbing to traditional sensibilities were the interventions, in the name of humanity, in the realm of Hindu custome.g., the prohibition of suttee, the campaign against infanticide, the law legalizing remarriage of Hindu widows. Hostname: page-component-7f44ffd566-7cttp Britain, of course, would rule India well into the 20th century. Wild stories circulated freely in the panic-stricken atmosphere of 1857, and there were enough real massacres and murders to make almost anything seem possible. Pandey, it should be noted, is considered a hero in India, and has been portrayed as a freedom fighter in films and even on an Indian postage stamp. To load the rifle, the end of the cartridge containing the powder had to be bitten off so that the charge would ignite. From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. The revolt of 1857, which the British call the Indian Mutiny but many Indians prefer to think of as the First War of Independence, was the defining event in British imperial history. Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. Thousands of entirely blameless Indians who found themselves caught up in the hysterical aftermath of the rebellion were flogged, or blown from cannon, or forced to clean bloodied paving stones using only their tongues before being summarily hanged. Stbere im grten eBookstore der Welt und lies noch heute im Web, auf deinem Tablet, Telefon oder E-Reader. Musket cartridges circa 1858 The Sepoys in the East India Company were first issued with the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket in 1857. However much of this sense of the invincibility of the British was lost in the First Anglo-Afghan War where poor political judgment and inept British leadership led to the massacre of Elphinstone's army (which included three Bengal regiments) while retreating from Kabul. The particular reason, the greased cartridges for the Enfield rifles, was a mistake rectified as soon as it was discovered; but the fact that explanations and reissues could not quell the soldiers suspicions suggests that the troops were already disturbed by other causes. Measures of prevention of future crises naturally began with the army, which was completely reorganized. Before Smithsonian.com, Dash authored the award-winning blog A Blast From the Past. But something important was required to provoke so many to seize the opportunity of a military uprising to stage a war of independence. The greased cartridges had to be opened by biting off the top with your teeth. And, historically, much the same thing had happened before in times of trouble. Economically and socially, there had been much dislocation in the landholding class all over northern and western India as a result of British land-revenue settlements, setting group against group. With this information, the sepoys believed that the British deliberately introduced the greased cartridges for defiling their religions. The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. It began on a point of caste pollution; its leaders were traditionalists who looked to reviving the past, while the small new Westernized class actively supported the British. [7] Several years before the sepoys' mutiny, Lord William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in western Bengal. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. In 1877, outside Delhi, essentially in the spot where bloody fighting had taken place 20 years earlier, an event called the Imperial Assemblage was held. The uprising was officially declared over on July 8, 1859. In the Punjab were some 10,000 British troops, which made it possible to disarm the Indian regiments; and the recently defeated Sikhs were so hostile to the Muslims that they supported the British against the Mughal restoration in Delhi. Prior to the outbreak of the Revolt, Bahadur Shah Zafar lived in Delhi as a Pensioner of the British. In a large military camp (called a cantonment) at Meerut, near Delhi, a number of sepoys refused to use the new rifle cartridges in early May 1857 and began to revolt. It was against this backdrop of uneasiness in which the mutiny erupted in 1857. However, in those two years, they were not ordered to use them. Outraged by events such as the massacre of women and children at Cawnpore, some British officers believed that hanging mutineers was too humane. One popular story, widely believed, suggested that the British were attempting the mass conversion of their subjects to Christianity by adulterating their flour with bone meal from cows and pigs, which was forbidden to Hindus and Moslems, respectively. Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. Partly owing to this, Bengal sepoys were not subject to the penalty of flogging as were the European soldiers. With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. [20], In 1857, the Bengal Army contained 10 regular regiments of Indian cavalry and 74 of infantry. Furthermore, the superstitious impulse that still encourages the transmission of chain letters clearly applied in 1857: Although the original specific meaning of the chapattis had been lost early in the distribution, the dire consequences of breaking the chain of transmission remained, and thus ensured their successful circulation over an immense area. The mysterious appearance of chapatisloaves of an Indian unleavened breadspooked the British administrators of the Raj shortly before the outbreak of rebellion in 1857. As further evidence, he observes that the Urdu sources of the pre- rebellion and post- rebellion periods usually refer to the British not as angrez (the English), goras (whites) or firangis (foreigners), but as kafir (disbeliever) and nasrani (Christians). This meant that when they came to be threatened by modernizing regimes in Calcutta, from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status, and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. Find out more about saving to your Kindle. Though the revolt was suppressed later, it shook the foundation of British rule in India. Has data issue: true Thornhill came into his office one morning to find four dirty little cakes of the coarsest flour, about the size and thickness of a biscuit lying on his desk. On May 9, 1857, some 4,000 British soldiers and sepoysnative Indian troopsformed a three-sided hollow square on the parade ground at the Meerut military cantonment, 40 miles northeast of Delhi, to witness punishment. In another, however, the appalling atrocities visited by the Companys armies on the people of northern India were far from justified, since the British proved to be just as prone to rumors and panics as their Indian subjects. In 1885, however, the founding of the Indian National Congress marked the beginnings of effective, organized protest for national self-determination. ), Find out more about saving to your Kindle, Book: The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857, Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511563386.003. The whole episode falls into three periods: first came the summer of 1857, when the British, without reinforcements from home, fought with their backs to the wall; the second concerned the operations for the relief of Lucknow in the autumn; and the third was the successful campaign of Sir Colin Campbell (later Baron Clyde) and Sir Hugh Henry Rose (later Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi) in the first half of 1858. 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