Rebels and the Raj (1857 Revolt)

2.1 Core concepts

• On the afternoon of 10 May 1857, sepoys in the cantonment of Meerut broke out in mutiny — beginning in the lines of the native infantry, spreading to the cavalry and the city; sepoys captured the bell of arms, attacked white people, destroyed records, the jail, court, post office, treasury and cut the telegraph line to Delhi (NCERT §Intro, p. 258).
• Sepoys arrived at the gates of the Red Fort on the morning of 11 May 1857 during Ramzan, told Bahadur Shah they had come from Meerut "after killing all the Englishmen there" because they were asked to bite bullets coated with the fat of cows and pigs which corrupted the faith of Hindus and Muslims alike; surrounded by sepoys, Bahadur Shah agreed and the revolt acquired legitimacy in the name of the Mughal emperor (NCERT §Intro, p. 258).
• Pattern of the uprising (§1.1): sepoys began with a signal — firing of the evening gun or sounding of the bugle; they seized the bell of arms, plundered the treasury, attacked the jail, treasury, telegraph office, record room, bungalows, burnt all records; proclamations in Hindi, Urdu and Persian called on Hindus and Muslims to "rise and exterminate the firangis" (NCERT §1.1, p. 259).
• Once ordinary people joined, targets widened — in Lucknow, Kanpur and Bareilly, moneylenders and the rich became objects of rebel wrath; peasants saw them as oppressors and as allies of the British; the mutiny in sepoy ranks "quickly became a rebellion" with general defiance of all kinds of authority and hierarchy (NCERT §1.1, p. 259).
• Lines of communication (§1.2): the 7th Awadh Irregular Cavalry, after refusing the new cartridges in early May, wrote to the 48th Native Infantry that "they had acted for the faith and awaited the 48th's orders"; sepoys or emissaries moved from station to station; panchayats were a nightly occurrence in the Kanpur sepoy lines — decisions were taken collectively (NCERT §1.2, pp. 260–261).
• Leaders and followers (§1.3): in Delhi Bahadur Shah was made nominal leader; in Kanpur sepoys gave Nana Sahib, successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II, "no choice save to join the revolt"; in Jhansi the Rani was forced by popular pressure to assume leadership; Kunwar Singh, a local zamindar in Arrah in Bihar, was likewise pushed; in Lucknow the populace hailed Birjis Qadr, young son of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah; Begum Hazrat Mahal (wife of the Nawab) led the fight there (NCERT §1.3, p. 262; §2.3, p. 269).
• Local leaders — Shah Mal mobilised Jat cultivators of pargana Barout (chaurasee des, 84 villages) in UP, was locally acknowledged as Raja, turned an English officer's bungalow into a "hall of justice", and was killed in battle in July 1857; Gonoo, a tribal cultivator of Singhbhum in Chotanagpur, became a rebel leader of the Kol tribals; Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah (Danka Shah), educated in Hyderabad, preached jehad, defeated Henry Lawrence in the Battle of Chinhat after being elected leader by the mutinous 22nd Native Infantry (NCERT §1.3, pp. 262–263).
• Rumours and prophecies (§1.4): the greased-cartridge rumour around the Enfield rifle spread "like wildfire"; Captain Wright traced the rumour's origin to a January 1857 incident at the magazine in Dum Dum where a "low-caste" khalasi told a Brahmin sepoy he would "lose his caste" by biting cartridges greased with fat of cows and pigs; rumours that the British had mixed bone dust of cows and pigs into the atta (flour); prophecy that British rule would end on the centenary of the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1857; mysterious nightly circulation of chapattis read as an omen of upheaval (NCERT §1.4, pp. 264–265).
• Why people believed the rumours (§1.5): policies of "reform" by Governor General Lord William Bentinck from the late 1820s — Western education, English-medium schools, abolition of sati (1829) and permission for the remarriage of Hindu widows; annexation of Awadh, Jhansi, Satara on pleas of misgovernment and refusal to recognise adoption; activities of Christian missionaries created uncertainty (NCERT §1.5, p. 265).
• Subsidiary Alliance (§2.1): devised by Lord Wellesley in 1798; imposed on Awadh in 1801; the Nawab had to disband his military force, allow British troops in the kingdom, act on advice of the British Resident; disarmed, the Nawab grew dependent on the British (NCERT §2.1, p. 266).
• Annexation of Awadh: Lord Dalhousie described Awadh in 1851 as "a cherry that will drop into our mouth one day"; Nawab Wajid Ali Shah was dethroned and exiled to Calcutta in 1856 on the plea of misgovernment; he was widely loved — "the life was gone out of the body" was one contemporary record of grief (NCERT §2.2, pp. 266–267).
• Summary Settlement of 1856 (§2.3): assumed taluqdars were interlopers with no permanent stakes; taluqdars were disarmed and forts destroyed; villages held by taluqdars fell from 67% pre-British to 38% by the Summary Settlement; revenue demand was overassessed (30–70% increase in some places); ties of loyalty between peasant and taluqdar (who was earlier a "generous father figure") broke down (NCERT §2.3, pp. 268–269).
• Awadh was called the "nursery of the Bengal Army" — most sepoys came from villages of Awadh and eastern UP, many Brahmin or "upper" caste; from the 1840s white officers developed a sense of racial superiority — abuse, physical violence and distance between sepoys and officers grew; the greased-cartridge episode was "a classic example of this" (NCERT §2.3, pp. 269–270).
• What the rebels wanted (§3): rebel proclamations (ishtahars) appealed across caste and creed, harked back to the pre-British Hindu-Muslim past, glorified coexistence under the Mughals; Bahadur Shah's proclamation called on people to fight under the standards of both Muhammad and Mahavir; in Bareilly in December 1857, the British spent Rs 50,000 to incite Hindus against Muslims and failed (NCERT §3.1, p. 271).
• The Azamgarh Proclamation, 25 August 1857, condemned British rule across five sections — Zamindars (exorbitant Jumas, public auction), Merchants (monopoly of indigo, cloth), Public Servants (low pay, no influence), Artisans (weavers, cotton-dressers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers thrown out of employ by English imports), and Pundits, Fakirs and learned persons (the European enemy of both religions) (NCERT §3.1 Source 5, pp. 271–272).
• The rebels tried to set up alternative structures of authority in Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur — appointments to court posts, land-revenue collection, payment of troops, chains of command — harking back to the eighteenth-century Mughal world; in Awadh, plans of counter-attack and hierarchies of command continued into the early months of 1858 (NCERT §3.3, p. 274).
• Repression (§4): in May and June 1857 the British passed Acts that placed North India under martial law and empowered military officers and ordinary Britons to try and punish Indians suspected of rebellion — rebellion had "only one punishment — death"; British mounted a two-pronged attack — one force from Calcutta, the other from the Punjab — and recovered Delhi in late September 1857 after heavy losses; Awadh was brought under control only in March 1858; in present-day UP the British broke peasant-landholder unity by promising to return estates to big landholders — rebel landholders were dispossessed and the loyal rewarded (NCERT §4, pp. 275–276).
• Images of the revolt (§5): "Relief of Lucknow" by Thomas Jones Barker (1859) celebrates the moment when Colin Campbell rescued the besieged British garrison after James Outram and Henry Havelock had first reinforced it on 25 September; the painting places Campbell, Outram and Havelock at the centre as heroes (NCERT §5.1, pp. 277–278).
• "In Memoriam" by Joseph Noel Paton (1859) shows English women and children huddled helplessly, with British rescue forces arriving in the background; "Miss Wheeler defending herself against sepoys in Kanpur" shows a woman defending her honour with the Bible lying on the floor — a battle to save Christianity (NCERT §5.2, pp. 278–280).
• Punch cartoons — "Justice" (12 September 1857) with sword and shield trampling sepoys after the "terrible massacre at Cawnpore"; "The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger" (1857); "The Clemency of Canning" (24 October 1857) mocked Governor General Canning's plea for leniency (NCERT §5.3, §5.5, pp. 280–282).
• The "performance of terror" — rebels were blown from guns or hanged; Illustrated London News, 3 October 1857, showed executions in Peshawar with 12 rebels hanged in a row surrounded by cannons — theatrically performed in the open to instil fear (NCERT §5.4, pp. 281–282).
• Nationalist imageries (§5.6): the twentieth-century national movement drew inspiration from 1857 — celebrated as the First War of Independence; Rani of Jhansi was represented as a masculine figure with sword and reins, slaying British soldiers; Subhadra Kumari Chauhan's lines "Khoob lari mardani woh to Jhansi wali rani thi" became famous (NCERT §5.6, p. 283).
• Timeline highlights: 1801 Subsidiary Alliance in Awadh; 1856 Wajid Ali Shah deposed, Awadh annexed; 10 May 1857 Mutiny starts in Meerut; 11-12 May Delhi garrisons revolt, Bahadur Shah accepts nominal leadership; 30 May Rising in Lucknow; 30 June British defeat at Chinhat; 25 Sept Havelock and Outram enter the Residency; July 1857 Shah Mal killed; June 1858 Rani Jhansi killed (NCERT Timeline, p. 284).

2.2 Definitions to memorise

2.3 Diagrams / processes to remember

• Fig. 10.1 Portrait of Bahadur Shah (p. 258) — the old Mughal emperor who was made nominal leader of the revolt at the Red Fort on 11 May 1857.
• Fig. 10.2 Ordinary people join the sepoys in attacking the British in Lucknow (p. 259) — illustrates how the mutiny widened into popular rebellion.
• Fig. 10.3 Rani Lakshmi Bai, a popular image (p. 262) — the Rani of Jhansi forced by popular pressure to lead.
• Fig. 10.4 Nana Sahib (p. 262) — successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II who led the Kanpur revolt and escaped to Nepal at end of 1858.
• Fig. 10.5 Henry Hardinge, by Francis Grant, 1849 (p. 264) — as Governor General attempted to modernise army equipment; the Enfield rifles he introduced used the greased cartridges sepoys rebelled against.
• Map 1 Territories under British control in 1857 (p. 267) — shows the extent of British dominion.
• Map 2 Centres of revolt and lines of British attack (p. 275) — important rebel centres and British counter-attack routes.
• Fig. 10.8 A mosque on the Delhi Ridge, Felice Beato, 1857-58 (p. 276) — British photography recorded "innumerable images of desolation and ruin".
• Fig. 10.9 Secundrah Bagh, Lucknow, Felice Beato, 1858 (p. 276) — Campbell's forces killed over 2000 rebel sepoys here; skeletons shown as "cold warning of the futility of rebellion".
• Fig. 10.10 "Relief of Lucknow", Thomas Jones Barker, 1859 (p. 278) — celebrates Campbell, Outram, Havelock as heroes who rescued the besieged Residency.
• Fig. 10.11 "In Memoriam", Joseph Noel Paton, 1859 (p. 279) — English women and children huddled awaiting violence; rescue forces in background.
• Fig. 10.12 Miss Wheeler defending herself against sepoys in Kanpur (p. 280) — woman defending honour and Christianity; Bible on floor.
• Fig. 10.13 "Justice", Punch, 12 September 1857 (p. 280) — allegorical female with sword trampling sepoys after the Cawnpore massacre.
• Fig. 10.14 "The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger", Punch, 1857 (p. 281).
• Figs. 10.15–10.16 Execution of mutineers in Peshawar, Illustrated London News, 3 October 1857 (pp. 281–282) — blowing from guns and hanging as "performance of terror".
• Fig. 10.17 "The Clemency of Canning", Punch, 24 October 1857 (p. 282) — mocks Canning's plea for leniency.
• Fig. 10.18 Rani Lakshmi Bai as masculine warrior (p. 283) — nationalist imagery of resistance.

2.5 Timeline / Key events

2.4 Common confusions / NTA trap points

• Mutiny vs Revolt: NCERT distinguishes them precisely — mutiny is the sepoys' collective disobedience inside the army; revolt/rebellion is of the civilian population (peasants, zamindars, rajas, jagirdars). NTA often offers these as alternate distractors.
• Subsidiary Alliance vs Doctrine of Lapse: Subsidiary Alliance was devised by Wellesley in 1798 and imposed on Awadh in 1801; Awadh's final annexation in 1856 was under Dalhousie on the plea of misgovernment (not Doctrine of Lapse — Lapse applied to states like Jhansi and Satara for refusal to recognise adoption).
• Origin of greased-cartridge rumour: traced by Captain Wright to Dum Dum magazine, third week of January 1857 (low-caste khalasi to Brahmin sepoy) — not to Meerut or Barrackpore as students sometimes assume.
• Sequence of relief of Lucknow: Henry Lawrence (killed) → Colonel Inglis (defended Residency) → Outram and Havelock entered on 25 September → Colin Campbell twenty days later as new Commander. NTA likes to scramble this order.
• Painters and painting dates: "Relief of Lucknow" — Thomas Jones Barker, 1859; "In Memoriam" — Joseph Noel Paton, 1859 (painted two years after the mutiny); both are 1859 but by different artists.
• Year of sati abolition: 1829 (under Bentinck) — not 1828 or 1830.
• Pre-British vs post-Summary Settlement taluqdar shares: 67% → 38% of villages — both numbers are tested.