Chapter 10 — Rebels and the Raj: The Revolt of 1857

The revolt began in the afternoon of 10 May 1857 at the cantonment of Meerut. It started in the lines of the native infantry, spread to the cavalry, and then to the city. The sepoys reached the gates of the Red Fort in Delhi early in the morning on 11 May 1857.

Sepoys believed the cartridges were greased with the fat of cows and pigs, which would corrupt the faith of both Hindus and Muslims. Captain Wright traced the rumour's origin to the third week of January 1857 at Dum Dum, where a low-caste khalasi told a Brahmin sepoy he would soon have to bite cartridges coated with cow and pig fat. Despite British assurances, no amount of explanation could stop the rumour's spread across sepoy lines in North India.

The sepoys turned to Bahadur Shah, the old Mughal emperor, because pre-British rulers could give the rebellion legitimacy. Bahadur Shah's first reaction was 'horror and rejection.' Only when sepoys entered the Mughal court within the Red Fort in defiance of normal court etiquette did he, realising he had very few options, agree to be the nominal leader. The revolt thus acquired legitimacy as it could be carried on in the name of the Mughal emperor.

Shah Mal lived in pargana Barout, Uttar Pradesh, and belonged to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des (eighty-four villages). He mobilised headmen and cultivators, moving at night from village to village. He attacked government buildings, destroyed a bridge, stopped official communication between British headquarters and Meerut, and set up a 'hall of justice' in an English officer's bungalow where he settled disputes. Locally acknowledged as Raja, he also established an intelligence network. Shah Mal was killed in battle in July 1857.

Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was educated in Hyderabad. From 1856 he moved from village to village preaching jehad against the British, travelling in a palanquin with drumbeaters in front — hence the popular name Danka Shah (the maulvi with the drum). He was jailed in Faizabad in 1857. Upon release he was elected leader by the mutinous 22nd Native Infantry and fought in the Battle of Chinhat on 30 June 1857, in which British forces under Henry Lawrence were defeated. Many people believed he was invincible and had magical powers.

Awadh had a chain of grievances linking prince, taluqdar, peasant, and sepoy. The Subsidiary Alliance imposed in 1801 dismantled the Nawab's army. In 1856, Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was deposed and exiled to Calcutta, depriving musicians, poets, artisans, and officials of their livelihoods. The Summary Settlement of 1856 cut taluqdars' share of villages from 67 per cent to 38 per cent, and revenue demand rose 30 to 70 per cent in some areas. Awadh was also called the 'nursery of the Bengal Army,' so the sepoys' rural grievances and the region's anger fed directly into one another.

The Subsidiary Alliance was devised by Lord Wellesley in 1798. Under it, an ally had to accept a British armed contingent on their territory at their own cost, disband their own military forces, and act on the advice of a British Resident. The alliance was imposed on Awadh in 1801. Deprived of his armed forces, the Nawab became increasingly dependent on the British to maintain law and order and could no longer assert control over rebellious chiefs and taluqdars.

Issued on 25 August 1857, the Azamgarh Proclamation addressed five sections of society. It said zamindars were ruined by exorbitant revenue demands and public auctions of their estates. It accused the British of monopolising trade in indigo and cloth, leaving merchants only 'the trade of trifles.' It pointed out that public servants received little respect and low pay. It charged that English goods had thrown weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and shoemakers out of employment. And it called pundits and fakirs to join a religious war. It promised restoration of a Badshahi (imperial) government with lighter revenue and open trade for all.

After the 7th Awadh Irregular Cavalry refused the new cartridges in early May, they wrote to the 48th Native Infantry saying they 'had acted for the faith and awaited the 48th's orders,' showing inter-regimental communication. Sepoys and their emissaries moved between stations, and people were planning and talking about rebellion. Charles Ball noted that panchayats were a nightly occurrence in the Kanpur sepoy lines, showing collective decision-making. The account of François Sisten, a native Christian police inspector, further illustrates that rebel networks extended across districts, with a Muslim tahsildar from Bijnor later identified as the principal rebel leader of that area.

There was a prophecy that British rule would come to an end on the centenary of the Battle of Plassey — on 23 June 1857. This was one of several rumours circulating in North India in early 1857, alongside the greased cartridge story and claims that the British had mixed bone dust of cows and pigs into flour sold in the market. Rumours spread because they resonated with deeper fears about British intentions to destroy caste and religion.

By acts passed in May and June 1857, the British placed all of North India under martial law, giving military officers and even ordinary Britons the power to try and punish suspected rebels, with death as the only punishment. They launched a two-pronged attack — one force from Calcutta and another from Punjab — to reconquer Delhi, which fell only in late September 1857. In Awadh, where a British official estimated three-fourths of adult men were in rebellion, the area was brought under control only in March 1858. The British also broke rebel unity by promising to restore estates to loyal landholders while dispossessing rebels.

British paintings like Thomas Jones Barker's 'Relief of Lucknow' (1859) celebrated heroes such as Campbell, Outram, and Havelock and reassured the public that order was restored. Joseph Noel Paton's 'In Memoriam' (1859) portrayed English women and children awaiting violence, stirring demands for retribution. The Punch journal mocked Governor General Canning when he called for clemency. By contrast, the national movement of the twentieth century celebrated 1857 as the First War of Independence. Subhadra Kumari Chauhan's poem — 'Khoob lari mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi' (Like a man she fought, she was the Rani of Jhansi) — and popular prints depicting Rani Lakshmi Bai in battle armour shaped the nationalist imagination.

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