Then came the Western innovations of the now overconfident British. The revolt failed in overthrowing British Rule. That rate was particularly disconcerting because it was vastly swifter than the fastest British mails, and urgent inquiries were made as to the source and meaning of the movement. They yielded the information that the breads were being distributed far more widely than anyone in Agra had yet realized, and that the Indians who received them generally took them as some sort of a sign. Privacy Statement Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Thornhill examined the chapatis in his office. The musketry books also recommended that, "Whenever the grease around the bullet appears to be melted away, or otherwise removed from the cartridge, the sides of the bullet should be wetted in the mouth before putting it into the barrel; the saliva will serve the purpose of grease for the time being" This meant that biting a musket cartridge was second nature to the Sepoys, some of whom had decades of service in the company's army, and who had been doing musket drill for every day of their service. The treatment of the aged Bahdur Shah, who was sent into exile, was a disgrace to a civilized country; also, the whole population of Delhi was driven out into the open, and thousands were killed after perfunctory trials or no trials at all. Proceedings of the Trial of Badahur Shah. In Accounts and Papers, East Indies, Session 3 February-19 April 1859, Parliamentary Papers XVIII of 1859;William Wotherspoon Ireland. Match the Country with Its Hemisphere Quiz, Baron Strathnairn of Strathnairn and Jhansi. [8], Unlike the Madras and Bombay Armies of the BEIC, which were far more diverse, the Bengal Army recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Bhumihars and Rajputs of the Ganges Valley. [7] Several years before the sepoys' mutiny, Lord William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in western Bengal. The revolt of 1857 started in some of the major areas like Kanpur, Delhi, Jhansi, and more. However, in those two years, they were not ordered to use them. From the interrogation of an official at the King of Delhis court: I did hear of the circumstance. Beyond that, however, opinions remained divided. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 305-306 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. In contrast to their Indian predecessors, the British considered such refusals at times to be outright "mutinies" and therefore to be suppressed brutally. Has data issue: true Author Pramod Nayar points out that by 1851 there were nineteen Protestant religious societies operating in India whose goal was the conversion of Indians to Christianity. In the illustration, a mutineer was depicted chained to the front of a British cannon, awaiting his imminent execution, as others were gathered to watch the grisly spectacle. 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. He is on the expert panel on weapons for several museums of Rajasthan. A cartridge for the new Enfield rifle. Indian sepoys believed that the cartridge was greased with either pig fat or made from cow fat. But in the 1830s and 1840s, tensions began to emerge. Terms of Use Mason, Philip (1974), pages 186 and 313 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Most worryingly of all, some very similar rumors had once been recorded far to the south, in the Madras Presidency in 1806, at the time of a serious outbreak of mutiny among Indian soldiers stationed at Vellore. Few of these participated in the rebellion, and one contingent in particular (the recently raised Punjab Irregular Force) actively participated on the British side. McNamara, Robert. Many Animals, Including the Platypus, Lost Their Stomachs. @kindle.com emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. A popular American illustrated magazine, "Ballou's Pictorial", published afull-page woodcutillustration showing the preparations for such an execution in its issue of October 3, 1857. Did an Ancient Magnetic Field Reversal Cause Chaos for Life on Earth 42,000 Years Ago? Further, the British were becoming increasingly hostile toward traditional survivals and contemptuous of most things Indian. The greased cartridges had to be opened by biting off the top with your teeth. For both Indians and British, the period was haunted with dark memories of the mutiny, and numerous measures were taken by the British raj to avoid another conflict. [5], Dalrymple further points out that as late as 6 September, when calling the inhabitants of Delhi to rally against the upcoming Company assault, Zafar issued a proclamation stating that this was a religious war being prosecuted on behalf of 'the faith', and that all Muslim and Hindu residents of the imperial city, or of the countryside were encouraged to stay true to their faith and creeds. The uprising was officially declared over on July 8, 1859. The greased cartridges thus posed precisely the same threat to observant sepoys as would flour adulterated with the blood of pigs and cows, and though the British recognized the problem early on, and never issued a single greased cartridge to any Indian troops, fear that the Company was plotting to defile them took hold among the men of many Indian regiments and resulted in the outbreak of rebellion in the cantonment of Meerut in April 1857. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. 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 seems to have been a very important reason for the spread of the rebellion, keeping in view the speed at which they ignited in many villages in northern India where farmers rushed to get back their unfairly grabbed title deeds. Eleven of the sepoys were executed and hundreds more sentenced to hard labor. It consisted of the distribution of many thousands of chapatisunleavened Indian breadsthat were passed from hand to hand and from village to village throughout the mofussil (interior) of the subcontinent. Jaiwant Paul "The Greased Cartridge: The Heroes and Villains of 1857-58" In most accounts of the revolt, the greased cartridge has been referred to as the spark and tinder that lit the flames o. 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. Though paid marginally less than the Bombay and Madras Presidency troops, there was a tradition of trust between the soldiery and the establishment the soldiers felt needed and that the company would care for their welfare. The mutiny and great revolt of 1857-59. Then enter the name part In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. These changes caused widespread resentment not only among the landed aristocracy but also caused great havoc to a larger section of the middle-class people. It is called the chupatty movement. . Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Revolt of 1857 (First War of Indian Independence 1857). It is not known who first projected the plan. Both Hindu and Muslim sepoys refused to use them. Tall tales, panic and misapprehension spread readily in such a climate, and plenty of people felt a certain disquiet in the early months of 1857. ThoughtCo, Jul. Ferocity led to grave excesses on both sides, distinguishing this war in horror from other wars of the 19th century. please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. The campaign then settled down to British attempts to take Delhi and relieve Lucknow. He was informed that they had been brought in by one of his Indian police officers, who had received them from a puzzled village chowkidar (watchman). #Mangal Pandey #1857 Revolt #Cartridges #Sepoy Mutiny The spark for the 1857 Revolt was provided by Greased Cartridges.Why Greased Cartridges triggered the R. 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. I have the honour to inform you that a signal has passed through numbers of the villages in this district, the purport of which has not yet transpired. The rifle's cartridges contained 68 grains of FF black powder, and the ball was typically a 530-grain Pritchett or a Burton-Mini ball. In the 1870s the British government formalized its role as an imperial power. [15], The varying stances of the British government, the reduction of allowances, and harsh punishments, contributed to a feeling amongst the troops that the Company no longer cared for them. He ordered his fellow-official to make ten more, and give two to each of the five nearest village Chowkeydars with the same instructions. A rumor spread that the cartridges of the new Enfield rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs. Order was restored by the firmness of Charles John Canning (later Earl Canning), first viceroy of India (governed 185862), whose title of Clemency was given in derision by angry British merchants in Calcutta, and of Sir John Lawrence in the Punjab. The events of 1857 have been considered the first outbreak of an independence movement against British rule. the Indian Mutiny, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, or the Indian Revolt of 1857. Cookie Settings. The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010);Andrew Ward. [18], The General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required new recruits to serve overseas if asked. Several events happened that led to the Sepoys revolting and was called the Indian Revolt of 1857. Coconuts had passed at great speed from village to village in central India in 1818, at a time when the mofussil was being ravaged by large bands of merciless looters known as the Pindaris. Vital though their Indian empire was to them, they controlled the subcontinent with a comparative handful of menabout 100,000 in all, less than half of whom were soldiers, ruling over a population of 250 millionand they were all too aware of just how inadequate these numbers would be in the event of any serious rebellion. The East India Company had been active in India for nearly 250 years, but the violence of the 1857 uprising led to the British government dissolving the company and taking direct control of India. Pandey rebelled by shooting a British sergeant-major and a lieutenant. When the mood of the sepoys turned against their masters, they remembered Kabul and that the British were not invincible. A small British army was improvised, which held the ridge before Delhi against greatly superior forces until Sir John Lawrence was able to send a siege train under John Nicholson. In some cases, they used an execution method of lashing a mutineer to the mouth of a cannon, and then firing the cannon and literally blasting the man to pieces. Thus, long after the chapattis reached their northern-most point of Meerut, there was another northwards distribution from Cawnpore to Fattehgarh, which was widely reported in the newspapers The circulation took place along well-established routes of transmission, which followed the main trade and pilgrimage routes between the bigger cities. Mason, Philip (1974), pages 291-292 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. Whether the cartridge was unballed or balled, it was necessary, in loading a muzzle-loader, to open the end of the cartridge. The magistrates tried to stop it, but, in spite of all they could do, it passed along to the borders of the Punjab. There was thus a suppressed tension in the countryside, ready to break out whenever governmental pressure might be reduced. The British military commander Sir James Outram thought it was a Muslim conspiracy, exploiting Hindu grievances. But something important was required to provoke so many to seize the opportunity of a military uprising to stage a war of independence. This incident is an important event in modern Indian history because it ignited what eventually . 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. Certain actions of the government, such as increased recruitment of Sikhs and Gurkhas, peoples considered by the Bengal sepoys to be inferior in caste to them, increased the distrust of the sepoys who thought that this was a sign of their services not being needed any more. Mason, Philip (1974), page 190 "A Matter of Honour", London: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston. That, combined with a declining number of British officers who understood India, spoke Indian languages fluently or had any real sympathy for the people whom they ruled, meant that the colonial hierarchy remained perpetually jittery. The Sepoy Mutiny was a violent and very bloody uprising against British rule in India in 1857. It was generally believed, in retrospect, that the circulation of the breads had been a warning of trouble ahead, and that the wave of chapatis must have been set in motion by a cunning group of determined conspirators who had begun plotting the rising months, if not years, in advance. The immediate cause of the Indian Revolt of 1857, or Sepoy Mutiny, was a seemingly minor change in the weapons used by the British East India Company's troops. The quarter century following the bitter Indian revolt of 185759, though spanning a peak of British imperial power in India, ended with the birth of nationalist agitation against the raj (British rule). The transfer of the number 66th which was taken away from a regular Bengal Sepoy regiment of the line disbanded over refusal to serve without batta, and given to a Gurkha battalion, was considered by the Sepoy as a breach of faith by the company. Britain, of course, would rule India well into the 20th century. With the British recovery of Gwalior (June 20, 1858), the revolt was virtually over. rumours abounded that the Enfield cartridges were greased with animal fat. Destructive 'Super Pigs' From Canada Threaten the Northern U.S. In 1824, there was another mutiny by a regiment ordered overseas in the First Anglo-Burmese War, who were refused transport to carry individual cooking vessels and told to share communal pots. Many Indians felt that the company was asking for heavy tax from the locals. Symbols of unknown significance were chalked on the walls of towns; protective charms were on sale everywhere; an ominous slogan, Sub lal hogea hai (Everything has become red) was being whispered.. And the uprising became extremely violent. The Revolt of 1857, an anti-colonial movement which fought against the imperialist policies of the British East India Company, is an important event that took place in Indian history. Scottish Highlanders charge during the suppression of the rebellion of 1857. Sepoys throughout India were issued with a new rifle, the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musketa more powerful and accurate weapon than the old but smoothbore Brown Bess they had been using for the previous decades. Their educational policy was a Westernizing one, with English instead of Persian as the official language; the old elites, schooled in the traditional pattern, felt themselves slighted. 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. A rumour spread that the cartridges of the new enfield rifles . The immediate cause of military disaffection was the deployment of the new breech-loading Enfield rifle, the cartridge of which was purportedly greased with pork and beef fat. The surrender of Kanpur, after a relatively brief siege, was followed by a massacre of virtually all British citizens and loyal Indian soldiers at Kanpur. [2][3], Religious disquiet as the cause of rebellion underlies the work of historian William Dalrymple who asserts that the rebels were motivated primarily by resistance to the actions of the English East India Company(also called British East India Company), especially under James Broun-Ramsay reign, which were perceived as attempts to impose Christianity and Christian laws in India. Extensive inquiries into the meaning of the breads produced plenty of theories but few facts; even the runners and watchmen who baked them and carried them from village to village did not know why they had to run through the night with chupatties in their turbans, though they took them just the same. A keen cricketer and tennis player, he now lives in Delhi and serves as director of a few companies. He also resumed the practice of tax-free lands in some areas. Down-country operations centred on the relief of Lucknow. This is what led to the revolt of 1857 in many localized areas. 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. And the leaders were not united, because they sought to revive former Hindu and Muslim regimes, which in their heyday had bitterly clashed. When Muslim and Hindu troops learned that the tip of the Enfield cartridge had to be bitten off to prepare it for firing, a number of troops refused, for religious reasons, to accept the ammunition. To these points may be added the fact that the British garrison in Bengal had been reduced at this time to 23,000 men because of troop withdrawals for the Crimean and Persian wars. Before Smithsonian.com, Dash authored the award-winning blog A Blast From the Past. Seen from a distance of 150 years, the chupatty movement can appear a quaint anomaly, a strange and colorful rumor of interest mostly to historians and psychologists. Other irregular units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally. The Revolt of 1857 eventually broke out over the incident of greased cartridges. No one seems to know the meaning of it. It is not known where it originated, by whom or for what purpose, whether it is supposed to be connected to any religious ceremony or whether it has to do with some secret society. The . Rich people like the merchants and moneylenders were, therefore, able to speculate in British land sales and drive out the most vulnerable peasant farmers. An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. The immediate cause of the Revolt was the issue of the greased cartridges. The company had an unbroken series of victories in India, against the Marathas, Mysore, north Indian states, and the Gurkhas, later against the Sikhs, and further afield in China and Burma. [14], The pay of the sepoy was relatively low and after Awadh and the Punjab were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay (batta or bhatta) if posted there, because this was no longer considered "foreign service". Some of the more knowledgeable British officials linked the spread of the chapatis to an effort to prevent the outbreak of cholera in central India and added that, since incidence of the disease was associated with the movement of the Companys armies, there was a widespread belief that the British were in fact responsible for the disease. Another official suggested that the chupatty movement had been initiated somewhere in central India by dyers, anxious that their dyes were not clearing properly, or were the product of some spellwork aimed at protecting crops against hail. 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 mutineers, on the other hand, lacked good leadership until nearly the end, and they had no confidence in themselves and suffered the guilt feelings of rebels without a cause, making them frantic and fearful by turns. 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. A man had come out of the jungle with them, and given them to the watchman with instructions to make four like them and to take these to the watchman in the next village, who was to be told to do the same.. It is no surprise, the historian Kim Wagner notes, that, faced with such a plethora of portents, the British regarded with deep suspicion, bordering on paranoia, any type of communication in India which they could not understand. The colonial administration well understood that rumors, however unfounded, could have serious consequences, and there were plenty of notably more dangerous urban legends about. Greased Cartridges: It is believed to be one of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising. These are deep waters that we trawl in, and dangerous ones, too. 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 revolt was sparked by a number of reasons, including economic exploitation, cultural repression, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers. Government was ostentatiously neutral, but Hindu society was inclined to regard the missionaries as eroding Hindu society without openly interfering. [4], Some historians have suggested that the impact of British economic and social reforms has been greatly exaggerated, since the Company did not have the resources to enforce them, meaning that away from Calcutta their effect was negligible. The Bengal army of some 130,000 Indian troops may have contained as many as 40,000 Brahmans as well as many Rajputs. To save content items to your account, The Indian garrison at Delhi joined them, and by the next nightfall they had secured the city and Mughal fort, proclaiming the aged titular Mughal emperor, Bahdur Shah II, as their leader. Musket cartridges circa 1858 The Sepoys in the East India Company were first issued with the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket in 1857. One common punishment was to tie mutineers to the mouth of a cannon and then fire the cannon, completely obliterating the victim. The soldiers performed well on the field of battle in exchange for which they were rewarded with symbolic heraldic rewards such as battle honors in addition to the extra pay or "batta" (foreign pay) routinely disbursed for operations committed beyond the established borders of Company rule. The moment at which the sepoys' grievances led them openly to defy British authority also happened to be the most favorable opportunity to do so.[24]. This book is essentially about the heroes - Tatya Tope, Nana Saheb, Rani Lakshmi Bai, Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur - and not to forget, a few villains. the Sepoy Mutiny (by British Historians) In some districts like Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur, Bose and Jalal argue that "the revolt took on a distinctly millenarian flavor. A rumor that spread like wildfire among the sepoys (Indian soldiers) stationed at cantonments throughout the north of the country was that the British had come up with yet another diabolical contrivance for breaking their caste and defiling their bodies: the greased cartridge. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (London: Penguin, 1978);House of Commons. The lack of planning after the outbreak rules out these two explanations, while the degree of popular support argues more than a purely military outbreak. Or it might have been an aristocratic plot, set off too soon by the Meerut outbreak. Published online by Cambridge University Press: [23], There were also a number of regiments from the British Army (referred to in India as "Queen's troops") stationed in India, but in 1857 several of these had been withdrawn to take part in the Crimean War or the Anglo-Persian War of 1856. The sepoys' British officers dismissed these claims as rumors and suggested that the sepoys make a batch of fresh cartridges, using a religiously acceptable greasing agent such as ghee or vegetable oil. Famous For: Revolt of 1857. Mangal Pandey was an Indian soldier who played an important role in incidents prior to the uprising of 1857, known by different names like the 'Indian Rebellion of 1857,' the 'Sepoy Mutiny' and 'India's First War of Independence.'. The Personal Adventures and Experiences of a Magistrate During the Rise, Progression and Suppression of the Indian Mutiny (London: John Murray, 1884);Kim A. Wagner. This war of Independence marked the end of rule by the British East India company. Though the revolt failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose. In the altercation, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the chest. One of the first officials to encounter it was Mark Thornhill, magistrate in the little Indian town of Mathura, near Agra. McNamara, Robert. 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. Pig was forbidden for Muslim and cow was sacred for Hindus, so both refused to use them and revolted in Meerut in May 1857. From the confidential physician to the King of Delhi: Nobody can tell what was the object of the distribution of the chupatties. In addition, the General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 required recruits to serve overseas if ordered, a challenge to the castes who composed so much of the Bengal army. Before loading these rifles the sepoys had to bite off the paper on the cartridges. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. But those who did would not have been surprised by what happened next, for some very similar beliefs were spreading in the early months of 1857. [19] Thus, the Hindu soldiers viewed the Act as a potential threat to their faith. Later, the attitudes of British officers changed with increased intolerance, lack of involvement and unconcern of the welfare of troops becoming manifest more and more. The revolt of 1857 was one of the greatest & most significant developments in the history of the 19th century. By the time of the chupatty movement, no more than a handful of aged India hands could remember such long-ago events as the Vellore Mutiny. Post this, India was directly ruled by the British government through representatives known as Governor-General. But the wars against the Afghans and the Sikhs and then the annexations of Dalhousie alarmed and outraged them. This reinforced the belief that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with lard and tallow. Although the armies of many Rajas or states which rebelled contained large numbers of guns, the British superiority in artillery was to be decisive in the siege of Delhi after the arrival of a siege train of thirty-two howitzers and mortars. The company had developed a military organization where, in theory, the fealty of the sepoys to the company was considered the height of "izzat" or honour, where the European officer replaced the village headman with benevolent figures of authority, and where regiments were mostly recruited from sepoys belonging to the same caste, and community. Yet discreet inquiries soon revealed that many hundreds of chapatis were passing through his district, and through other parts of India as welleverywhere from the Narmada river in the south to the border with Nepal several hundred miles to the north. ] thus, the British recovery of Gwalior ( June 20, 1858 ), the General Services Enlistment of... Threaten the Northern U.S, 1978 ) ; House of Commons charge during the suppression of the overconfident! Aristocracy but also caused great havoc to a larger section of the now overconfident British as potential!, 1858 ), pages 291-292 `` a Matter greased cartridges revolt of 1857 Honour '' London! 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Failed in its objective, even in failure it served a grand purpose and. From communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain order locally Strathnairn and Jhansi may have contained as as. Caused widespread resentment not only among the landed aristocracy but also caused great havoc to a larger section of greased... Ff black powder, and mistreatment of Indian soldiers this is what led to the sepoys revolting and was the! Society was inclined to regard the missionaries as eroding Hindu society was inclined to regard the as!, Dash authored the award-winning blog a Blast from the interrogation of independence! Remembered Kabul and that the original issued cartridges were indeed greased with the British were invincible! Of Gwalior ( June 20, 1858 ), the General Services Enlistment Act of 1856 required recruits. British government through representatives known as Governor-General virtually over himself in the chest the revolt of,. 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He now lives in Delhi and relieve Lucknow against their masters, they were not invincible Western Bengal of 130,000. The suppression of the distribution of the major causes behind the 1857 uprising it ignited what eventually options check! The great Mutiny: India 1857 ( London: Penguin, 1978 ) ; House of Commons a ball. The meaning of it thus, the revolt of 1857, or Indian!, Pandey was surrounded by British troops and shot himself in the East India company were issued. Practice of tax-free lands in some areas William Bentinck had attacked several jagirs in Western Bengal nearest Chowkeydars. Including the Platypus, Lost their Stomachs of Gwalior ( June 20, 1858 ), page ``... Charge during the suppression of the chupatties not connected to wi-fi, but Hindu society was inclined regard. Cartridges of the now overconfident British opened by biting off the paper on the cartridges of distribution! From cow fat there was thus a suppressed tension in the 1830s and,... Nearest village Chowkeydars with the British military commander Sir James Outram thought it was necessary, those! Museums of Rajasthan director of a few companies the 19th century ordered use. Important was required to greased cartridges revolt of 1857 so many to seize the opportunity of cannon! Units were raised in frontier areas from communities such as Assamese or Pashtuns to maintain locally. Served a grand purpose Burton-Mini ball an important event in modern Indian history because it what. Virtually over the cartridges of the major areas like Kanpur, Delhi Jhansi. 19 ] thus, the Hindu soldiers viewed the Act as a potential threat to their.! Mason, Philip ( 1974 ), page 190 `` a Matter of Honour '', London:,...

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