Despite the fact that the revolt of 1857 failed, it gave a severe jolt to the British administration in India. The structure and policies of the re-established British rule were, in many respects, drastically changed.

Transfer of power

The first major change was that the power to govern India passed from the East India Company to the British Crown through an Act of 1858. Now a Secretary of State for India aided by a Council was to be responsible for the governance of India. Earlier this authority was wielded by the Directors of the Company.

Changes in military organisation

The second drastic change was affected in the army. Steps were taken to prevent any further revolt by the Indian soldiers. Firstly, the number of European soldiers was increased and fixed at one European to two Indian soldiers in Bengal Army and two to five in Bombay and Madras armies. Moreover, the European troops were kept in key geographical and military positions. The crucial branches of the army like artillery were put exclusively in European hands. Secondly, the organisation of the Indian section of the army was now based on the policy of “divide and rule”. Regiments were created on the basis of caste, community and region to prevent the development of any nationalistic feeling among the soldiers.

Divide and rule

This policy of “divide and rule” was also introduced in the civilian population. Since the British through that the revolt was a conspiracy hatched by the Muslims the latter were severely punished and discriminations made against them in public appointments and in other areas. This policy was later reversed and a belated appeasement of Muslims began. A policy of preferential treatment of the Muslims was adopted towards the end of the 19th century. These policies created problems for Indian freedom struggle, and contributed to the growth of communalism.

New policy towards the princes

Another important change was in the British policies towards the Princely states. The earlier policy of annexation was now abandoned and the rulers of these states were now authorised to adopt heirs. This was done as a reward to those native rulers who had remained loyal to the British during the revolt.Thus Britishers used Princely states as ‘Breakwaters in the storm ‘. However, this authority of the Indian rulers over particular territories was completely subordinated to the authority of the British and they were converted into a Board of privileged dependents.

Search for new friends

Besides these changes, the British now turned to the most reactionary groups among the Indians, like the zamindars, princes and landlords, for strengthening their fortune in the country. They started respecting and even promoting their traditional status and claims so as to make new allies among the Indians to act as breakwaters in case of any subsequent unrest.

Between the 1950s and 1960s historians focused much of their attention on whether the revolt was a sepoy mutiny, national struggle or a manifestation of feudal reaction. Let us sum up the essential arguments of this earlier debate.

Sepoy mutiny

Anxious to minimize Indian grievances, for many years, British historians had maintained that the revolt had been nothing more than a sepoy mutiny and hence the name. Such accounts generally narrated:

Details of the greased cartridges,

The activities of rebel sepoys,

And the British campaigns on 1857-58 that suppressed the revolt.

Not only was the rebellion of the people made light of, but the civil rebellion was attributed to merely the selfish interests of landholders and princes. In essence, this interpretation ignored the colonial context in which the revolt had occurred and of which it was a reflection.

National struggle or feudal reaction?

With emergence of nationalist agitations against the colonial government the revolt of 1857 came to be looked upon as part of that struggle and the focus shifted from the greased cartridges to the oppressions of the British. V.D. Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence of 1857 published anonymously in 1902 remained banned in India almost till the end of British rule.

However, several works coinciding with the centenary year of the revolt argued variously:

That the absence of a general plan of rebellion went against such an interpretation

That the leaders were not imbued with national sentiment and ‘would have put the clock back’,

That 1857 was not the inauguration of a freedom movement but ‘the dying groans of an obsolete aristocracy’.

On the other hand there were objections to the restrictive use of the term ‘national’ and the implicit minimization of the anti-imperialist content of the revolt and of the evidence of the Hindu-Muslim unity during 1857-58.

More recently it has been noted that though the rebel mission may not have been ‘national,’ their political horizon was not restricted to their ilaqas. Also that the aim of the rebels was not so much an attempt to establish a new social order as to restore a world that was familiar i.e. the traditional world of hierarchy, lineage, patronage and deference.

The army and the revolts

On 29th March 1857 in Barrackpore near Calcutta, there took place a disturbance when a sepoy, Mangal Pandey killed one of the European officers. This disturbance was easily suppressed but in the next few weeks, disturbances in the army gathered momentum. The mutiny of the Meerut sepoys who killed their European officers on 10 May 1857 and crossed over to Delhi on the 11th to appeal to Bahadur Shah II, the pensioner Mughal emperor, to become their leader, led to the revolt of 1857. Almost half of the 2,32,224 sepoys of the East India Company rebelled. The bulk of the sepoys were upper caste Hindus from the North Western Provinces and Awadh. Nearly one-third came from Awadh, thus forming a homogeneous group within the army. Over the years the upper caste sepoys had found their religious beliefs in conflict with their service conditions.

In 1806 the replacement of the turban by a leather cockade caused a mutiny at Vellore.

In 1824 the sepoys at Barrackpore refused to go to Burma because crossing the sea would mean loss of caste,

In 1844 there was a mutinous outbreak of the Bengal army sepoys for being sent to far away Sind. Crossing the Indus was perceived as causing loss of caste.

Closer to the revolt of 1857 there had been reports of bone dust in the atta (flour) ration. The cartridges of the Enfield rifles (introduced around January 1857) which had to be bitten off before loading were reportedly greased with pork and beef fat. This seemed to confirm fears about their religion being in danger.

In addition there was professional discontent:

1.    An infantry sepoy got only seven rupees per month, and a cavalry sawar 27 rupees, out of which he had to pay for his uniform, food and the upkeep of the mount

2.    There was racial discrimination in matters of promotion, pension and terms of service,

3.    Annexations had deprived the sepoys of bhatta (extra pay) for Foreign Service.

4.    There were fears of being edged out by new recruits from Punjab.

Select opinions on the revolt of 1857

1. “The crisis came: at first as a mere military mutiny, it speedily changed its character and became a national insurrection” — G.B. Malleson

2. “The decline and fall of empires are not affairs of greased cartridges. Such results are occasioned by adequate causes and by the accumulation of adequate causes” — Benjamin Disraeli

3. “It is a mutiny or is it a national revolt?”                                       —Benjamin Disraeli

4. “The entire movement lacked a unified and forward looking programme to be implemented after the capture of power.” — Bipin Chandra

5.  “It is in fact an anachronism to describe the mutiny as the first essay towards modern independence. It was rather, in its political aspect, the last effort of the old conservative India”.                                     —Percival Spear   

6." The so called first national war of Independence of 1857 is neither first ,nor National nor war of Independence"--- R.C .Mazumdar.  

7. "Wholly unpatriotic and selfish sepoy mutiny with no native leadership and no popular support"                       —            John Seeley