The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857: Causes, Events, & Legacy

In 1857, British control over the Indian subcontinent was challenged as violence erupted all over the colonial possession. The people of India had found a sense of national pride so powerful that they were willing to fight to free themselves from oppression.

After decades of clashing cultures and draconian laws enforced by the British East India Company, the fire of rebellion was lit, and a war for the future of India began.

As far back as the early 17th century, the British began operating in India under the control of the British East India Company. As the decades turned into centuries, this operation expanded from a commercial to a territorial empire. The territory initially confined to the eastern parts of the subcontinent was enlarged westward.

The company established a solid foothold in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, after which the company annexed huge parts of Bengal. Seven years later, the British defeated the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II at the Battle of Buxar, further establishing a path for complete British dominance.

This expansion continued throughout the 19th century. The Policy of Paramountcy was introduced, which allowed the company to annex any territory to protect its interests. The British fought against the Marathas in the early 19th century and annexed considerable territory before dealing with the Sikh rulers a few decades later.

Between 1845 and 1849, the British fought two wars against the Sikhs, which resulted in the annexation of the Punjab. Meanwhile, the annexation of other lands continued unabated. Though the exact dates for each annexation are contested, Satara was taken around 1848, Sambalpur around 1850, Udaipur around 1852, Jhansi around 1853, and Nagpur around 1854.

Rising Tensions 

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 was not caused by a single event but rather a series of events that eroded the relationship between the British and their Indian subjects, as well as the Indian soldiers in their employ (sepoys).

British expansion was accompanied by Western policies, and many Indians resisted these changes as they felt they did not take into account the cultural practices and history of the Indian people.

With the influx of the British and their policies also came the threat posed by the expansion of Christianity. To help spread the religion among the Indians, Lord Dalhousie, who ruled as Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856, introduced a decree that allowed Hindus who converted to inherit property. This challenged Hindu practice, which was restrictive in this regard.

Christian proselytization led to a series of violent incidents, including murder, as many Hindus felt the need to resist what they saw as a holy war being waged by the British to Christianize India.

In addition to the religious aspect, the British economic policy was not well-liked by the locals. High taxation and policies that led to the financial disenfranchisement of commoners led to rebellious sentiment in many parts of India.

Of primary importance was the rising tensions between the British administration and their sepoy soldiers. By the mid-1850s, the East India Company employed around 300,000 Indians in the army in addition to the 50,000 British troops.

Over the course of the first half of the century, the British enjoyed an easy path to power and authority. Being a sepoy in the employ of the East India Company was seen as a sign of great honor, and the Company had gone from strength to strength on a seemingly invincible path of success. This perception was challenged after the British losses during the First Anglo-Afghan War, a war in which three Bengal regiments were massacred by the Afghans.

From a cultural perspective, there was growing friction between Indian and British practices. Modernization of the army’s practices had caused rebellion before. In 1806, the Vellore Mutiny arose from forcing sepoys to adhere to dress codes and practices that were considered unsuitable according to the soldiers’ cultural and religious sensibilities. This also served to further the belief that the British were intent on breaking down India’s caste system, which had been in place for thousands of years.

Such dynamics persisted despite the fact that the British understood that they caused discontent among the sepoy ranks.

By the mid-1850s, tensions had been slowly building to a dangerous level. What finally caused these tensions to boil over was the introduction of the new Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle-musket and the cartridges they used.

According to rumor, these cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat and required the user to bite them open to pour the gunpowder down the barrel. This offended both Hindus and Muslims, who were forbidden from eating beef and pork, respectively.

The rumor, whether true or not, snowballed and became a foundation for other rumors to find purchase. Suggestions that the British wanted to destroy Indian religions and supplant them with Christianity became widespread.

Mangal Pandey

Considered by many to be the act that started the rebellion that spread across India, the first act of rebellion was taken by a sepoy named Mangal Pandey on March 29, 1857. Under the influence of a narcotic called bhang (derived from cannabis) and possibly opium, Pandey attacked a British officer and tried to instigate a revolt. His efforts proved futile at the time, and he was arrested and put on trial along with fellow trooper Ishwari Prasad, who was accused of not following orders during the incident.

They were both sentenced to death by hanging, and most of the companies of his regiment, the 34th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry, were disbanded in disgrace. Among calls for a stay of execution from Indian society, fervor against the British was growing. To stem the tide, the British executed Pandey ten days before his execution date, but this only served to turn him into a martyr.

While Pandey was on trial, sepoy troops in Meerut showed solidarity by refusing the Enfield cartridges. They were arrested and thrown in jail. On May 10, just two days after Pandey’s execution, fellow soldiers in Meerut rose up, shot their British officers, and marched to Delhi.  They captured the city and restored Mughal Emperor Bahādur Shah II to power over the region. Over the next few days, the uprising spread. Delhi, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Jhansi, and Gwalior became the centers of resistance. British officials and their families were killed along with Christian Indians as the revolt grew out of control.

This sent a shockwave of concern through the British administration as Delhi was a vital connection between Calcutta and the East India Company’s recently acquired territories in the North. Recapturing Delhi became a top priority. A force was hastily assembled to strike back at the mutineers.

In June, 4,000 company troops arrived near Delhi and took up positions on a ridge overlooking the city. They did not have the numbers to retake the city, so they dug in and waited for reinforcements. Over the next few weeks, they came under repeated attacks by the mutineers, while cholera and heat stroke also took their toll.

In mid-September, however, the British position was in much better shape. Reinforcements had bolstered the force to 9,000 men, who were now supported by a significant number of artillery pieces.

After volleys of artillery fire, the British stormed the city and retook it after a week of extremely brutal fighting.

To the northwest, in the part of the Punjab province now located in Pakistan, actions also took place. A column of British soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot (the same regiment that took part in the Battle of Rorke’s Drift) was sent to disarm the Bengal Native Infantry in Rawalpindi and Jhelum. Five hundred sepoys of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry in Jhelum resisted, and the resultant battle on July 7, 1857, was a victory for the British.

While the situation near Delhi was developing, Cawnpore (now Kanpur) became another focal point for the attention of the mutineers and the British. Cawnpore was a major crossing point on the Ganges River. In June, two regiments of sepoys mutinied, laying siege to the local garrison of British soldiers who had retreated to an encampment outside the city, which also contained women and children.

When Nana Sahib, commanding the mutineers, learned of a British relief column nearby, he offered the besieged soldiers safe passage out of the encampment. They took him up on the offer, but they were ambushed, and the British soldiers were massacred. One hundred twenty women and children were imprisoned and then murdered, their bodies hacked to pieces and thrown down a well in circumstances that remain unclear to this day. Many of the Sepoys refused their orders to kill women and children.

“Remember Cawnpore!” became a rallying cry for the British, and little quarter was given.

On July 16, the relief force under the command of Major-General Sir Henry Havelock arrived in Cawnpore and carried out indiscriminate reprisals. When trials were held, many were executed by being blown apart by a cannon.

Most of the British troops then left the city in September and advanced northeast to relieve troops in Lucknow under the command of Sir Henry Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of Oudh. A garrison was left behind in Cawnpore.

In November, another relief force under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell left the city to rescue the besieged forces in Lucknow.

By the end of November, the rebels had laid siege to the city again and driven the garrison to the original encampment on the city’s outskirts. By early December, the main British force returned and drove the rebels off, eventually defeating them north of the city.

In the northern region of Oudh (now Awadh), the fires of rebellion were also stoked. Sir Henry Lawrence fortified his residence and led an attack on the rebels at Chinhat in late June, but being outnumbered 10 to 1, he was defeated. On July 4, with his residence now under siege, Lawrence was killed in an explosion when a cannon shell found its way into his room.

On September 26, Havelock’s force of soldiers arrived, but the fighting was fierce, and they could not rescue the troops besieged in the Lucknow residence. His forces had encountered considerable difficulty. Having ferried 1,500 soldiers across the Ganges, he won an engagement at Unnao, but the casualty rate was high. Disease and heat stroke also took their toll. The failure of the British here became widespread news in the region and prompted others to rebel.

By mid-November, a larger force of British under the command of Colin Campbell arrived and stormed the defenses. They drove off the rebels and were able to begin evacuations on November 19. The news of the massacre at Cawnpore was still fresh in their memory, and the British showed no mercy.

Having rescued the British in Lucknow, Campbell then marched back to Cawnpore to relieve the besieged British there. After this was achieved, Campbell returned to Lucknow in March and defeated the rebels there, finally capturing the city.

Jhansi

While most of the fighting occurred in the north, Central India also encountered its fair share of troubles, centered around the region of Jhansi. Here, Rani Lakshmi Bai used the opportunity to launch a rebellion against the British, who had annexed her territory which had been part of the Maratha Empire.

The British campaign here started in December when Major-General Sir Hugh Rose’s troops set out from Bombay (now Mumbai). He relieved the town of Saugor before marching on Jhansi, where the 12th Bengal Native Infantry had seized the city, massacring British officers and their families in the process.

On March 23, 1858, the British began their siege of Jhansi. Within two weeks, The British had defeated a relief force under the command of Tantia Tope, and the city had fallen. Amongst the carnage of the massacres that followed, Rani Lakshmi Bai escaped but would die several months later from wounds received in battle at Kotah ki Serai near the city of Gwalior, which the British captured on June 19.

Despite their significant superiority in numbers, the rebels struggled to find victory in the field. By mid-1858, their forces were spent, and the British had recaptured all the major towns and cities the rebels had seized. From then on, the war incurred negligible losses on the British, and operations continued in order to “mop up” the last of the resistance. Tantia Tope continued to fight a guerilla campaign but was eventually captured and executed in 1859.

Formal peace was declared on July 8, 1859.

The rebellion caused the British to rethink their administrative policies. Control over India was ceded from the East India Company to direct control by the British government. Importantly, the British realized that their lack of respect for Indian culture had been a prime cause for the rebellion.

A new council was established in 1861 that involved an Indian element, and Indians were allowed to take a much bigger part in the administrative aspects of British rule. Efforts were made to stamp out the insensitive British attitudes and policies, but the racist attitudes could not be completely eliminated and remained a part of British rule.

With the rebellion’s failure, it was clear to Indian society that there could be no return to the old way of life. The country would become Westernized. Nevertheless, a nationalist sentiment continued to grow in the country, boiling over intermittently until India finally won independence in 1947.