Sepoy mutiny2/27/2023 ![]() ![]() They also had no way of knowing that many Indians thought this was part of a British plot to destroy their faith - just as some Muslims today see some aspects of Western culture as a threat to Islam. The manufacturers of the rifle had no idea that their product would, with one fell swoop, offend followers of the two dominant religions on the Indian subcontinent. "You had to bite off the end of the cartridge, and then it would bring pollution into your body." ![]() To them, it was "ritual defilement," Ramusack said. The Hindus held the cow to be sacred, and saw anything that would entail tasting beef fat product as an attempt to break their caste. "The troops saw it as one more example of foreigners having no sensitivity to them."įor Muslim sepoys - the term for a native soldier - serving in the British army, pork was unclean, forbidden by the Koran. "The choice of technology wasn't the cause, but it certainly was the trigger," said Glynn Wood, professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. The introduction of the Lee-Enfield rifle, seen by the British as just a nifty new piece of technology, sparked the Sepoy Rebellion - also known as the Indian mutiny or the First Indian War of Independence. In May of 1857, a misunderstanding over a piece of weaponry proved to be the last straw for Muslims and Hindus already smoldering with resentment against the British in India. To the prisoners, a Muslim was being denied his right to pray with a turban - albeit a makeshift one - covering his head. To the guards, the inmate was defying regulations and creating a security risk. Late last month, detainees from the Afghan war went on a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when American guards ripped a bed sheet from a prisoner's head. When two cultures clash, misunderstandings over seemingly small things can flare into larger clashes or even violence. Chaudhuri, Theories of the Indian Mutiny (1965).Ma- Sometimes, it only takes a little bit of grease to really throw the fat into the fire. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny (3 vol., 1904–12) A. Malleson, History of the Indian Mutiny (6 vol., 1896) T. Although it is too much to say that the mutiny constituted a nationalist uprising, it was at that time that the first stirrings of active Indian nationalism began to be felt. Military precautions against further uprisings included increasing the proportion of British to native troops and restricting artillery service to Britons. However, the rebellion was long remembered with bitterness by the British. ![]() Expropriation of land was discontinued, religious toleration was decreed, and Indians were admitted to subordinate positions in the civil service. Revoltĭespite the army's sometimes savage reconquest, the British government did recognize the urgent need for reform, and in 1858 the East India Company was abolished and rule assumed directly by the British crown. The British replaced the cartridges when the mistake was realized but suspicion persisted, and in Feb., 1857, began a series of incidents in which sepoys refused to use the cartridges. This belief was strengthened when the British furnished the soldiers with cartridges coated with grease made from the fat of cows (sacred to Hindus) and of pigs (anathema to Muslims). The Indian soldiers were dissatisfied with their pay as well as with certain changes in regulations, which they interpreted as part of a plot to force them to adopt Christianity. In 1853, Nana Sahib, leader of the Marathas, was denied his titles and pension by the British, and the aged Bahadur Shah II, last of the Mughal emperors, was informed that the dynasty would end with his death. The political expansion of the East India Company at the expense of native princes and of the Mughal court aroused Hindu and Muslim alike, and the harsh land policies, carried out by Governor-General Dalhousie and his successor, Lord Canning, as well as the rapid introduction of European civilization, threatened traditional India. In the years just prior to the mutiny many factors combined to create a climate of social and political unrest in India. It is also known as the Sepoy Rebellion, sepoys being the native soldiers. Indian Mutiny, 1857–58, revolt that began with Indian soldiers in the Bengal army of the British East India Company but developed into a widespread uprising against British rule in India. ![]()
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