The Mutiny : Karandikar: Though British rule had been established in many parts of India by 1835, the only uniformity to which the conquered territories could lay claim was their common subjection to foreign rule…. As the English rulers gradually turned their attention to Sind & the Punjab, the growing confidence emboldened them to annex territories, who independence they had recognised earlier for political reasons. Dalhousie’s ‘Doctrine of Lapse’ & the uprising of 1857 are…cause & effect. …. That Doctrine decreed: If a native kingdom lacks a natural heir or can be ‘proved’ to be ‘misgoverned’, it becomes British property with the adopted bearing all the expenses of British occupation. This filled native kings with justifiable dread, while dependents of dispossessed rulers were reduced to penury, distress & bitterness. ─ The uprising was the first organised challenge to British rule in India, which held the country in its tentacles like an octopus. That Nana Sahib Peshwa (adopted son of Peshwa Bāji Rao II), Tātyā Tope & Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi supplied the leadership was bur natural, looking to the political consciousness among the Mahrattas. The Muslim aristocracy in north India (esp. Oudh, see also Justice Prinsep) had gradually realised that, along with the Emperor of Delhi, it had been reduced to impotence…. [They] secretly & successfully spread disaffection far & wide. It was, however, mainly the Indian personnel of the Army which formed the spearhead of the challenge. Bhattacharya: The native sepoys who formed four-fifth of the British army’s foot-soldiers (fodder) were paid far less than just recruited Brit squaddies; & even with far more expertise & experience the blacks were rarely promoted while the whites got quick promotions; on expeditions to distant lands, the blacks lugged their arms & duffels at their own expense, not so the whites; the senior-most blacks had to kowtow the lowest-ranking whites. The last straw to both Muslim & Hindu sepoys is believed to have been the deliberately pork-greased cartridges which insulted their religious practices. That led to the first flash of the rebellion on 10 May 1857 at Meerut – sepoy Mangaḷ Pandey killed the gloating white officer & was immediately shot dead. That day the rebels captured Delhi, the next day they declared the old Moghul Bahadur Shah II its emperor. In the next two months rebellions sprang up all over Oudh, in Rohilkhand under Lakshmi Bai, & in places in Rājputāna, Gwalior, Bareilly, Lucknow, Benares, Kanpur. Fissures began when Nana Sahib was declared Peshwa. The Muslims aimed for a restoration of Mohammedan rule under the Moghul; the Hindus wanted the restoration of the Maratha Empire under the Peshwa.” Karandikar: The uprising was not a national revolt on a mass scale. The Indian soldiers were disaffected but fresh recruitment had not become possible. Mr A.O. Hume (q.v.), the founder of the Indian National Congress, was a district Collector in U.P. in 1857. That he disguised himself & prudently betook himself to a place of safety had been recorded by himself [Statement before the Public Service Commission, 1886, quoted in Modern Review, January 1913, p.28]. The active help of the townspeople helped him along the way. Buckland: Against scores of brutal veteran generals on the British side there were only Tātyā Tope & Rani Lakshmi Bai who were capable of planning & leading troops into battles. Tātyā “has been described as the only rebel leader who showed a real genius for war. Tātyā… evaded pursuit for 10 months in Central India, Rājputāna & Bundelkhand…was caught in the jungles on April 7, 9 [humiliated & tortured undoubtedly] & executed on the 18th.” Karandikar: The Punjab, just set on its feet on the way of an orderly administration, refused to fall in line with the rest of India. One reason for this unwillingness was the inability of the Sikhs to forget the indignities which their illustrious Gurus were subjected to by the Islamic power at Delhi. “The loot of Delhi was a day-dream with the followers of Guru Govind & Banda” remarks Major B.D. Basu, who further quotes the following extract [from Rise of the Christian Power in India, Vol. V. Pp.380-81] from a letter of Sir John Lawrence to Sir Frederic Curries, in 1858: “Under the mercy of God, the loyalty & contentment of the people of Punjab has saved India. Had the Punjab gone, we must have been ruined.” This tendency of every province & people to go its own way was a legacy of the past. It continued even after 1857, &, it is doubtful whether it has quite disappeared even yet. The Gurkhās had their own grievances against the Nawab of Oudh & chose to stand aloof…. The Mahratta leadership in the uprising, though consistent with the political tradition of Mahārāshtra, was restricted to a limited circle. The so-called aristocratic class in Mahārāshtra had, between 1818 & 1858, been dislodged from its leadership & had been reduced to…political pensioners. Unable & unwilling to face the stern realities of the new situation, economically degraded & subservient to the new rulers, this class was hardly capable of supplying the leadership which Mahārāshtra needed. It was the good fortune of the British power in India that during to period of consolidation, it had two such able, astute & far-seeing generals & statesmen as Mountstuart Elphinstone & Sir Thomas Munroe, the former in Bombay & the latter in Madras. Both of them had joined the E.I. Co. before the close of the 18th century & continued to serve till the close of the 19th. Just as Elphinstone developed a sort of regard for the enemy he had conquered & a genuine love for the people around him, so also had Munroe. The success of these administrators in popularising British rule south of Narmada was responsible in some measure for the feeble response to the south to the uprising of 1857. Kalikinkar Datta: The Revolt failed owing to: (1) Their military equipment was inferior, e.g. their muzzle-loaders were out-ranged by the new invented breech-loaders, (2) with control over a widespread telegraph & postal system the British obtained fast information of the latest situation on all fronts & modified the course of their actions accordingly, (3) the English had secured the loyalty of most of the feudatory chiefs, with the exception of the Rani of Jhansi, the Begum of Oudh & some minor chiefs, apart from invaluable assistance from Dinkar Rao of Gwalior, Salar Jang of Hyderabad, Jang Bahādur of Nepal, & the Sikhs. The Afghan ruler remained friendly (as he would in the 1914-18 War in Europe, (4) the insurgents could not unstinted & universal support of the masses in most parts of India, (5) there was no carefully concerted general plane or a strong central organisation. Bhattacharya suggests, for further reading, Holmes, T.R.’s History of the Indian Mutiny; Malleson’s History of the Sepoy War; Sen, S.N.’s Eighteen Fifty-seven; Majumdar, R.C.’s History of the Freedom Movement, volume I, part vii; Sāvarkar, V.D.’s War of Independence. [Karandikar; Bhattacharya; Buckland; An Advanced History of India, R.C. Majumdar et al, 1973-1974]
... and followers numbering a few hundreds, lived in privacy and palatial comfort though stripped of their former princely glory. According to S. S. Furnell, the first historian to document the mutiny in his The Mutiny of Vellore, whose fragments survive in the Madras Archives, more than 3,000 Mysoreans (mostly 'Mohammedans') had settled in Vellore and its vicinity after it became the abode of the princes... with their former masters - Tipu's legatees stationed in the Vellore fort. The controversial turban (sported by the man in the middle) A few months prior to the mutiny, Mohammedan fakirs from Mysore acting as agents provocateurs were spotted roaming the streets and bazaars of Vellore staging puppet shows lampooning the British and raising slogans against the ... quarters and paymaster's office - losing focus of their larger goal. By 7 a.m., several civilians had also entered the fort. According to one British estimate, 5,48,429 pagodas were plundered in the mutiny. As the sepoys and civilians pillaged, Col. Gillespie from Arcot led the 19th Dragoons and the 7th cavalry quite easily since three of the four outer gates of the fort were left unattended. With ...
... gaol and released their comrades. The cantonment was put to the torch and the sepoys moved down the main road to Delhi and the Palace of Bahadur Shah, the last of the Moghuls. Although initially the mutiny was spontaneous, it quickly became more organised and the sepoys even took over the cities of Delhi and Kanpur. However, by the winter of 1857 and the first six Page 42 ... the north of India were vengeful and cruel, with a distinct taste for looting. They saw themselves as dispensers of divine justice and, given the frenzy of murder that had accompanied the start of the mutiny, felt their cruelties to be simply repayment in kind. There was little room for mercy in the hearts of the British troops. The Times called for the execution of every mutineer in India and in... roundshot fired through their bodies. It was a particularly cruel punishment with a religious dimension in that by blowing the body to pieces the victim lost all hope of entering paradise. Ultimately, the mutiny was severely crushed by the British. On 20 September 1857, the British recaptured Delhi, and in the following months, recaptured Kanpur and withstood a sepoy siege of Lucknow. The British victories ...
... new awareness in the nation. The psychological forces unleashed after the Mutiny were very powerful and it was evident that before long this awareness would have to be given shape and a concrete form. However, let us first look at some of the developments that took place immediately after the Mutiny. Soon after the Mutiny, the British Government effected major changes in India. In 1858, the ...
... persistent national self to emerge and find itself." — The Ideal of the Karnayogin by Sri Aurobindo. 75. 76. The Renaissance in India by Sri Aurobindo. 77. It is recorded that, during the Mutiny of 1857, behind most of the bands of the insurgents, there were Gurus or religious leaders as the source of inspiration and direction. What could Shivaji have achieved without his Guru, the Yogi... are strong, brave, and energetic beyond belief." Evidently, they had resolved to sacrifice their lives for the protection of Hindu religion and culture which, they thought, were in great danger. The Mutiny of 1857 was, in many respects a legitimate successor of the Sannyasi revolt, exploding in a wider and more violent outburst. — Based on Dr. Jadugopal Mukhopadhyaya's 'Viplavi Jivaner Smriti', written... second revolutionary outbreak. The East India Company had been content with its plunder and pillage, and did not care much to interfere with the social and religious life of the people; but since the Mutiny of 1857, the attitude of the British Raj, which took over the administration of India from the East India Company, was characterised by racial arrogance, distrust, and disdainful hardness; and the ...
... measures. That was the dream. The reality to which we awake, is Rawalpindi and Jamalpur. The events in the Punjab are an instructive lesson in the nature of bureaucratic rule. The Punjab has, since the Mutiny, been a quiet, loyal and patient province; whatever burdens have been laid on it, its people have borne without complaint; whatever oppression might go on, it gave rise to no such clamour and agitation ...
... and the fetters. And if the slave resists the application of the scourge and the imposition of the fetters, it becomes a matter of life and death for the master to enforce his orders and put down the mutiny. Oppression was therefore inevitable, and oppression was necessary that the people as a whole might be disposed to accept Nationalism, but Nationalism was not born of oppression. The oppressions ...
... fought after the war in Brunswick, Munich and Silesia, was “Marine Brigade Ehrhardt”, after its founder and leader, Korvettenkapitän (equivalent to Commander) Hermann Ehrhardt. “At the time of the mutiny in Kiel”, the event which at the beginning of November 1918 sparked off the German revolution, “the spade-bearded Ehrhardt had begun mobilizing antirevolutionary soldiers into a five-thousand man ...
... official ruler of India. Eventually, the company assumed complete domination of India and encroached on each and every aspect of her life. The company was very successful till the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The mutiny ended a year later when The India Act (1858) was passed; this act abolished the East India Company and vested all power with Queen Victoria. From that time onwards, it was the British Government ...
... Chaudhuri, Haridas & Frederick Spiegelberg (Eds.). The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo: A Commemorative Symposium ( 1960) Page 822 Chintamani, C. Y. Indian Politics since the Mutiny (1937) Corte, Nicolas: Teilhard de Chardin: His Life and Spirit (1 960); translated by Martin Jarrett-Kerr. Das, M. N. India under Morley and Minto: Politics behind Revolution, ...
... Congress. In an Introduction that he contributed in 1918 to Speeches and Writings of Tilak, Sri Aurobindo divided the Lokamanya's active life into three periods. Born in 1856 in the year of the Mutiny at Ratnagiri, Tilak began as a teacher at Poona and started the Kesari in Marathi and the Mahratta in English. During the first period, 1880 to 1890, he was prosecuted for defamation and had ...
... Hare Street itself in journalistic high-kicks. "Beware, beware, Bengalis," it shouts, "if you rebel, we will exterminate you with fire and sword, we will outdo the atrocities we committed during the Mutiny; we are tigers, we are tigers! look at our claws." All this is very bloody indeed and paints the Pioneer red. But it does seem as if Anglo-India had gone clean mad. Such a pitiful Page 140 ...
... British Empire, the trade of its merchants and the zealous efforts of its missionaries. The nineteenth century was the age of geological, zoological and botanical exploration, of which the story of the mutiny on the Bounty is a telling illustration. Normally it was the ship’s chief surgeon who doubled as naturalist, with the assistant-surgeon, in most cases a young physician, as his helper. It was as ...
... his search and return to Baroda. Subsequently he went back to Bengal, but Sri Aurobindo did not hear of any discovery of a suitable place. Sakaria Swami was Barin's Guru: he had been a fighter in the Mutiny on the rebel side and he showed at the breaking of the Surat Congress a vehement patriotic excitement which caused his death because it awoke the poison of the bite of a mad dog which he had reduced ...
... Surat Congress was over, he got exited and thus lost control and the poison spread in his body. He got hydrophobia and couldn't drink water. He said "What is this nonsense? I, who was a trooper in the Mutiny and drank water from the puddles, can't drink water?" He drank water and died. SATYENDRA: Could he exercise that control in sleep also? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Barin knew him. At one time he was ...
... wrote in 1773: "These sannyasins appear so suddenly in towns or villages that one would think they had dropped from the blue. They are strong, brave, and energetic beyond belief." 32 And, of course, the Mutiny of 1857 had among its leaders quite a few sannyasins and Gurus who swayed the population against the British rulers. It is possible that Bankim Chandra's most famous novel, Ananda Math (1882) ...
... got excited and thus lost control and the poison spread in his body. He got hydrophobia and couldn't drink water. He said, 'What is this nonsense? I, who was trooper in Page 158 the Mutiny and drank water from the puddles, can't drink water?' He drank water and died." During the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, he had fought alongside the Rani of Jhansi against the English army. When the Rani ...
... political unity. In this context it is important to mention the Sepoy Mutiny. Whether it was a national Freedom Movement or a mutiny of sepoys is not the question here. What is important is that it gave a tremendous impetus towards creating a national political consciousness and a national awakening. The Sepoy Mutiny may be therefore described as a further step in awakening the national consciousness ...
... 435 with effect; it should therefore have been reserved for a supreme occasion when it might have averted, for the time at least, an incipient mutiny or formidable rebellion. It was used instead in a moment of panic to meet a fancied mutiny; it was used not against the formidable and indispensable leader of a great approaching rebellion; but against a boy-orator and a pleader of considerable ...
... given to the experiment which should have been one of the most interesting in human history. With the arrival of the Military the movement passed into a queer amalgam of passive resistance, military mutiny and popular revolt; the leaders took fright, surrendered or bolted to Paris, wept at the feet of ministers and returned to advise their followers to weep and surrender along with them. The whole business ...
... the seeds of the National Movement first sprouted on the soil of the South. The Indian resistance to the advent of the British as a political power on the soil of India starts well before the Indian Mutiny (1857), by more than half a century: Veerapandiya Kattabomman, Poligar of Panchalankurichi (in Tinnevelly), was the first Indian hero to reject the British claims of suzerainty in India, refuse... government as one of the earliest independence fighters opposing the British and has been hailed as the inspiration behind the first battle of Independence of 1857, which the British called the Sepoy Mutiny. In 1974, the Government of Tamil Nadu constructed a new Memorial fort. The Memorial Hall has beautiful paintings on the walls depicting the heroic deeds of the saga which give a good idea ...
... September. The President of Bavaria nominated Otto von Kahr “State Commissioner” with dictatorial powers and General von Lossow was reinstated as head of the Bavarian Reichswehr. This was an act of mutiny: Bavaria was now in open defiance of the Weimar Republic. Taking into account the occupation of the Ruhr, which the French tried to make into a separate state apart from the German fatherland, the ...
... people had tried the patience of the Indians to the limit. We shall touch upon some of these incidents which served as triggers to the sense of Indian Nationalism. First there was the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, which was suppressed most brutally and ruthlessly. Next, the Partition of Bengal in 1905 triggered off a strong reaction not only in Bengal but in the whole of India. Then ...
... 1 has met this yogi and that much of the story is true. He doesn't talk with visitors, and to the chagrin of Vidyavrata, he doesn't allow himself to be photographed! He was a witness to the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, so now you can calculate his age! Now that we're in this mood of storytelling and you children like nothing better, I intend to tell you a story. I feel a little sense of guilt for ...
... retirement he authored several Bengali storybooks; and in 1928 he was entrusted with writing a history of the Indian National Congress which he accomplished with credit. Born twenty years after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 he was a revolutionary at heart and joined the Revolutionary Movement. When queried, Sri Aurobindo confirmed it. "Oh yes. Everybody knew of it and so he was called by the Europeans 'Disloyal ...
... the ________________ 1 In 324 Alexander's decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast ...
... persists in her sleep. In sheer desperation, the poet had exclaimed: Unless the women of India are wide awake, This land of ours will never awaken. Page 321 If the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 was truly our freedom's battle, it was no more than a scratch on a solid block of stone. A few shots fired, one or two murders (like those of the Chapekar brothers) – the whole thing had the ...
... Nandi Hills at the ripe old age of 89. The Case of the Train Murder: Ashe Murder Case Those were the days when the seeds of the struggle for freedom, sown during the Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, had begun to sprout glowingly all over the sprawling British-ruled India. Many young men fired by the blaze of national spirit burst on the horizon spreading the message of freedom in secret ...
... triggering the final attempt at political unity was the British rule in India. As already explained in the book, the British exploitation first provoked minor revolts all over the country, then the Sepoy Mutiny and finally the formation of the Indian National Congress. The Congress Party took this to the logical conclusion by getting independence and forming the Indian State in 1947. Unfortunately, in this ...
... 1957 that 1957 is as important in India's history as in their own ways 1757, the year of the Battle of Plassey which brought India into British hands, and 1857, the date of the so-called Indian Mutiny against British domination. Now you Page 118 have the correct sequence of the possibilities in front of you. " A World War such as I have spoken of in the interview is ...
... British policy of divide and rule Let us see how the British viewed the situation after 1857. The British realized that if the Hindus and Muslims came together as they did in the Sepoy Mutiny, it would be difficult for them to continue to rule India. There was a reversal of British policy. The policy of divide and rule was initiated. The first step in this process was the propping ...
... [MELANDER] Ah me, again a sea of subtle fire Clamours about the ruby gates of Life! My soul expanding like a Pythian seer Thrives upon torture, and the insurgent blood, Swollen as with wine, menaces mutiny. How slowly buildst thou up the spacious noon To dome thy house, O architect of day! Not from the bubbling smithy where Love works Smooth He be fetched thy world-revealing fires; Nor to the foam-bound ...
... on the Indian Armed Forces to perpetuate her hold on India. He had come Page 131 to the conclusion after the Indian National Army trials, which was followed by the Naval Mutiny. Having decided that she could not hold onto India, Great Britain then decided that she had to retrieve her losses to the maximum degree as possible. The obvious was that first ...
... feints was that Porus should cease to send out the elephants to meet every threat. The date was September 326 BC. Alexander did not, of course, reach the Ganges. The river where the troops mutinied was the Hyphasis: the upper Ganges was some two hundred and fifty miles further east. There is much dispute as to his real intentions and whether he planned to advance as far as the "eastern ocean" ...
... moment. The solar still has another hole in it, and the distillate is more often polluted with salt water. I can detect less and less often when it is reasonably unsalty. I may go mad at any time. Mutiny will mean the end. I know I am close to land. I must be. I must convince us all. We've been over the continental shelf for four days. One of my small charts shows the shelf about 120 miles to the ...
... bottom traditional India as it had been for millennia, but now for the most part stagnant. The two cultures had only a superficial contact with each other, and sometimes they clashed, as in the Great Mutiny of 1857. This left a permanent scar on the British psyche, with the ever-present fear that something similar or worse might happen again at any time. ‘The Bengal Renaissance was the result of two ...
... likings? 'Tis policy, 'tis kingly policy That made this needful marriage, and it shall not For your spoilt childish likings be unmade. What, you look sullen? what, you frown, virago? Look, if you mutiny, I'll have you whipped. ANDROMEDA You would not dare. CEPHEUS Not dare! ANDROMEDA Of course you would not. As if I were afraid of you! CEPHEUS You are spoiled, You are... home With martial pomp and music. And let the people Cover their foul revolt with meek obedience. One guiltiest head shall pay your forfeit: the rest, Since terror and religious frenzy moved To mutiny, not their sober wills, shall all Be pardoned. CRIES Iolaus! Iolaus! Long live the Syrian, noble Iolaus! IOLAUS Andromeda, and thou, my sweet Cydone, Go with them. CEPHEUS I ...
... always guided Sri Aurobindo's steps throughout his political life and on which he wholly depended with the trusting confidence of a child. Page 155 in the country, not even the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, of comparable political significance till the Partition of Bengal on the 16th of October,1905. The Partition of Bengal was the reawakening and self-affirmation of a very ancient nation. ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.