Pattern of the Uprising

The Pattern of the Uprising

The revolt of 1857 did not erupt everywhere at once in a single, coordinated explosion. Instead, it spread like a contagion. If you place the dates of the mutinies in chronological order, a clear pattern emerges: as news of a mutiny in one town reached the next cantonment, the sepoys there took up arms. The sequence of events in every cantonment followed a remarkably similar pattern.

How the Mutinies Began

The sepoys began their action with a signal — in many places it was the firing of the evening gun or the sounding of the bugle. Their first target was always the bell of arms, the storeroom where weapons were kept. They seized the weapons, then plundered the treasury. From there, they attacked government buildings — the jail, treasury, telegraph office, record room, and bungalows — burning all records. Everything and everybody connected with the white man became a target.

Proclamations in Hindi, Urdu, and Persian were put up in the cities, calling upon the population — both Hindus and Muslims — to unite, rise, and exterminate the firangis (a term of Persian origin, possibly derived from 'Frank', used in Urdu and Hindi, often in a derogatory sense, to designate foreigners).

When ordinary people began joining the revolt, the targets of attack widened. In major towns like Lucknow, Kanpur, and Bareilly, moneylenders and the rich also became objects of rebel wrath. Peasants saw them not only as oppressors but also as allies of the British. In most places, their houses were looted and destroyed. The mutiny in the sepoy ranks quickly became a rebellion — a general defiance of all kinds of authority and hierarchy.

In the months of May and June, the British had no answer to the actions of the rebels. Individual Britons tried to save their own lives and the lives of their families. British rule, as one British officer noted, "collapsed like a house made of cards."

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times

Reports from different cities tell us about the breakdown in routine activities. The Delhi Urdu Akhbar of 14 June 1857 reported severe shortages: vegetables like pumpkin and brinjal could not be found in the bazaars; potatoes and yam, when available, were stale and rotten. The poor and middle class could only watch as the limited produce from gardens inside the city was earmarked for the select few.

Even more damaging was the fact that water-carriers had stopped filling water. The gentry were seen carrying water in pails on their shoulders, and only then could necessary household tasks like cooking take place. The report warned that if this situation continued, decay, death, and disease would combine to spoil the city's air and spread an epidemic.

Lines of Communication

The similarity in the pattern of the revolt in different places lay partly in its planning and coordination. There was clear communication between the sepoy lines of various cantonments. After the 7th Awadh Irregular Cavalry had refused to accept the new cartridges in early May, they wrote to the 48th Native Infantry that "they had acted for the faith and awaited the 48th's orders." Sepoys or their emissaries moved from one station to another. People were planning and talking about the rebellion.

The experience of François Sisten, a native Christian police inspector in Sitapur, provides a telling example. He had gone to Saharanpur to pay his respects to the magistrate. Dressed in Indian clothes and sitting cross-legged, he was approached by a Muslim tahsildar from Bijnor. Upon learning that Sisten was from Awadh, the tahsildar enquired, "What news from Awadh? How does the work progress, brother?" When Sisten played safe, the tahsildar said, "Depend upon it, we will succeed this time. The direction of the business is in able hands." The tahsildar was later identified as the principal rebel leader of Bijnor.

The pattern of the mutinies and such evidence of planning raise crucial questions: How were the plans made? Who were the planners? Direct answers are difficult from available documents, but one incident provides clues. Captain Hearsey of the Awadh Military Police had been given protection by his Indian subordinates during the mutiny. The 41st Native Infantry, stationed in the same place, insisted that since they had killed all their white officers, the Military Police should also kill Hearsey or deliver him as prisoner. The Military Police refused, and it was decided that the matter would be settled by a panchayat composed of native officers drawn from each regiment.

Charles Ball, who wrote one of the earliest histories of the uprising, noted that panchayats were a nightly occurrence in the Kanpur sepoy lines. This suggests that some decisions were taken collectively. Given that the sepoys lived in lines, shared a common lifestyle, and many came from the same caste, it is not difficult to imagine them sitting together to decide their own future. The sepoys were the makers of their own rebellion.

Leaders and Followers

To fight the British, leadership and organisation were required. For these, the rebels sometimes turned to those who had been leaders before the British conquest.

One of the first acts of the sepoys of Meerut was to rush to Delhi and appeal to the old Mughal emperor to accept the leadership of the revolt. Bahadur Shah's first reaction was one of horror and rejection. It was only when some sepoys moved into the Mughal court within the Red Fort, in defiance of normal court etiquette, that the old emperor, realising he had very few options, agreed to be the nominal leader of the rebellion.

Elsewhere, similar scenes were enacted on a minor scale:

• In Kanpur, the sepoys and the people gave Nana Sahib, the successor to Peshwa Baji Rao II, no choice save to join the revolt as their leader.
• In Jhansi, the rani was forced by popular pressure to assume the leadership of the uprising.
• In Arrah, Bihar, Kunwar Singh, a local zamindar, was similarly compelled.
• In Awadh, where the displacement of the popular Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and the annexation of the state were still fresh in memory, the populace in Lucknow celebrated the fall of British rule by hailing Birjis Qadr, the young son of the Nawab, as their leader.

Not everywhere were the leaders people of the court — ranis, rajas, nawabs, and taluqdars. Often the message of rebellion was carried by ordinary men and women, and in places by religious men too. From Meerut, there were reports that a fakir had appeared riding on an elephant and that the sepoys were visiting him frequently. In Lucknow, after the annexation of Awadh, there were many religious leaders and self-styled prophets who preached the destruction of British rule. Elsewhere, local leaders emerged, urging peasants, zamindars, and tribals to revolt.

Shah Mal mobilised the villagers of pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh. He belonged to a clan of Jat cultivators whose kinship ties extended over chaurasee des (eighty-four villages). The lands were irrigated and fertile, but the British land revenue system was seen as oppressive — the revenue demand was high and its collection inflexible. Cultivators were losing land to outsiders, to traders and moneylenders. Shah Mal mobilised the headmen and cultivators, moving at night from village to village, urging people to rebel. His men attacked government buildings, destroyed the bridge over the river, and dug up metalled roads — partly to prevent government forces from entering the area, and partly because bridges and roads were seen as symbols of British rule. They sent supplies to the sepoys who had mutinied in Delhi and stopped all official communication between British headquarters and Meerut. Locally acknowledged as the Raja, Shah Mal took over the bungalow of an English officer, turned it into a "hall of justice," settling disputes and dispensing judgments. He also set up an amazingly effective network of intelligence. For a period, the people felt that firangi raj was over and their raj had come. Shah Mal was killed in battle in July 1857.

Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was one of the many maulvis who played an important part in the revolt. Educated in Hyderabad, he became a preacher when young. In 1856, he was seen moving from village to village preaching jehad (religious war) against the British and urging people to rebel. He moved in a palanquin, with drumbeaters in front and followers at the rear, and was popularly called Danka Shah — the maulvi with the drum. British officials panicked as thousands began following him and many Muslims began seeing him as an inspired prophet. When he reached Lucknow in 1856, he was stopped by the police from preaching. Subsequently, in 1857, he was jailed in Faizabad. When released, he was elected by the mutinous 22nd Native Infantry as their leader. He fought in the famous Battle of Chinhat, in which the British forces under Henry Lawrence were defeated. Many people believed he was invincible, had magical powers, and could not be killed by the British — this belief partly formed the basis of his authority.

Rumours and Prophecies

Rumours and prophecies played a part in moving people to action. The sepoys who arrived in Delhi from Meerut told Bahadur Shah about bullets coated with the fat of cows and pigs, and that biting those bullets would corrupt their caste and religion. They were referring to the cartridges of the Enfield rifles which had just been given to them. The British tried to explain that this was not the case, but the rumour spread like wildfire across the sepoy lines of North India.

The origin of this rumour can be traced. Captain Wright, commandant of the Rifle Instruction Depot, reported that in the third week of January 1857, a "low-caste" khalasi who worked in the magazine in Dum Dum asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his lota. The sepoy refused, saying the "lower caste's" touch would defile the lota. The khalasi reportedly retorted, "You will soon lose your caste, as ere long you will have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of cows and pigs." Once this rumour started, no amount of assurances from British officers could stop its circulation.

This was not the only rumour circulating in North India at the beginning of 1857. There was the rumour that the British government had hatched a gigantic conspiracy to destroy the caste and religion of Hindus and Muslims. To this end, the rumours said, the British had mixed the bone dust of cows and pigs into the flour sold in the market. In towns and cantonments, sepoys and common people refused to touch the atta. There was fear and suspicion that the British wanted to convert Indians to Christianity. Panic spread fast. British officers tried to allay their fears, but in vain.

These fears stirred men to action. The response to the call for action was reinforced by the prophecy that British rule would come to an end on the centenary of the Battle of Plassey — on 23 June 1857.

Rumours were not the only thing circulating. Reports came from various parts of North India that chapattis were being distributed from village to village. A person would come at night and give a chapatti to the watchman of the village, asking him to make five more and distribute to the next village, and so on. The meaning and purpose of this distribution was not clear then and is not clear even today. But there is no doubt that people read it as an omen of an upheaval.

Why Did People Believe in the Rumours?

We cannot understand the power of rumours and prophecies in history by checking whether they are factually correct or not. We need to see what they reflect about the minds of people who believed them — their fears and apprehensions, their faiths and convictions. Rumours circulate only when they resonate with the deeper fears and suspicions of people.

The rumours of 1857 begin to make sense when seen in the context of the policies the British pursued from the late 1820s. Under Governor General Lord William Bentinck, the British adopted policies aimed at "reforming" Indian society by introducing Western education, Western ideas, and Western institutions. With the cooperation of sections of Indian society, they set up English-medium schools, colleges, and universities teaching Western sciences and liberal arts. They established laws to abolish customs like sati (1829) and to permit the remarriage of Hindu widows.

On a variety of pleas — like misgovernment and the refusal to recognise adoption — the British annexed not only Awadh but many other kingdoms and principalities like Jhansi and Satara. Once these territories were annexed, the British introduced their own system of administration, their own laws, and their own methods of land settlement and land revenue collection.

The cumulative impact of all this on the people of North India was profound. It seemed to the people that all that they cherished and held sacred — from kings and socio-religious customs to patterns of landholding and revenue payment — was being destroyed and replaced by a system that was more impersonal, alien, and oppressive. This perception was aggravated by the activities of Christian missionaries. In such a situation of uncertainty, rumours spread with remarkable swiftness.