History · Ch 10 — Rebels and the Raj — The Revolt of 1857 and Its Representations
What the Rebels Wanted
What the Rebels Wanted
What the Rebels Wanted
Historians face a fundamental problem when studying the rebels of 1857: almost all the surviving records were written by the British. The victors recorded their own trials and heroism, while dismissing the rebels as ungrateful and barbaric. The repression of the revolt also meant silencing the rebels' voice. Most rebels were sepoys or ordinary people who were not literate, so they left behind no personal accounts. The few exceptions are the proclamations and ishtahars (notifications) issued by rebel leaders to spread their ideas and persuade people to join. These documents are our main window into what the rebels wanted, but they are rare. Any reconstruction of 1857 is therefore heavily and inevitably dependent on British sources — which tell us much about official minds but very little about rebel aspirations.
The Vision of Unity
The rebel proclamations of 1857 repeatedly appealed to all sections of the population, irrespective of caste and creed. Even when issued by Muslim princes or in their names, these documents carefully addressed the sentiments of Hindus. The rebellion was seen as a war in which both Hindus and Muslims had equally to lose or gain.
The ishtahars harked back to the pre-British Hindu-Muslim past and glorified the coexistence of different communities under the Mughal Empire. The proclamation issued under the name of Bahadur Shah appealed to people to join the fight under the standards of both Muhammad and Mahavir. Remarkably, during the uprising, religious divisions between Hindus and Muslims were hardly noticeable — despite British attempts to create such divisions. In Bareilly in western Uttar Pradesh, in December 1857, the British spent Rs 50,000 to incite the Hindu population against the Muslims. The attempt failed.
The Azamgarh Proclamation, 25 August 1857
This is one of the main sources of our knowledge about what the rebels wanted. It is a detailed ishtahar that addresses different social groups separately, listing their grievances and promising redress under a future Badshahi (imperial) government. The proclamation opens by declaring that both Hindus and Mohammedans are being ruined under the tyranny and oppression of the infidel and treacherous English. It calls on all wealthy people, especially those connected to Mohammedan royal families, to stake their lives and property for the public well-being. It claims that ancient works, writings of miracle workers, and calculations of astrologers and pundits all agree that the English will no longer have any footing in India.
The proclamation then addresses specific groups:
| Social Group | Grievances Against British Rule | Promises Under Badshahi Government |
|---|---|---|
| Zemindars | Exorbitant revenue demands (jumas); estates auctioned for arrears; zemindars summoned to court, arrested, and disgraced at the complaint of a common ryot, maid servant, or slave; high stamp duties and court expenses; annual taxes for schools, hospitals, roads | Light jumas; dignity and honour of zemindars safe; every zemindar will have absolute rule in his own zemindary |
| Merchants | British monopoly over fine merchandise (indigo, cloth, shipping articles); profits taxed with postages, tolls, and school subscriptions; merchants liable to imprisonment at a worthless man's complaint | All fraudulent practices dispensed with; trade of every article, by land and water, opened to native merchants |
| Public Servants | Natives in civil and military services have little respect, low pay, and no influence; all posts of dignity and emolument exclusively given to Englishmen | Salaries of 200 to 300 rupees a month for the present; entitlement to high posts in the future |
| Artisans | Europeans, by introducing English articles, have thrown weavers, cotton dressers, carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers out of employ; every native artisan reduced to beggary | Native artisans will exclusively be employed in the service of kings, rajahs, and the rich — ensuring their prosperity |
| Pundits, Fakirs, and Learned Persons | Europeans are enemies of both Hindu and Mohammedan religions; a war is raging on account of religion | They are bound to present themselves and take their share in the holy war |
The language of the proclamation is carefully crafted to appeal to a variety of sentiments — religious duty, economic self-interest, honour, and fear of cultural destruction. It presents the rebellion as a common cause for all.
What the Sepoys Thought
One of the surviving arzis (petitions or applications) of rebel sepoys gives us their perspective. The sepoys explain that their forefathers had always served the British, and they too entered their service. With their help, the British conquered every place they liked, sacrificing thousands of Hindustani men — yet the sepoys never made excuses or revolted.
But in 1857, the British issued an order for new cartridges and muskets from England, in which the fats of cows and pigs were mixed. They also distributed attah (wheat flour) mixed with powdered bones. The sepoys of the 3rd Light Cavalry were ordered to bite the cartridges; they objected, saying that doing so would destroy their religion and faith. The British officers then paraded the regiments, surrounded them with 1,400 English soldiers and European troops with horse artillery, placed six guns before each infantry regiment loaded with grape shot, and made 84 new troopers prisoners, putting them in jail with irons.
The sepoys state clearly: the reason the sowars were jailed was to frighten the rest into biting the new cartridges. On this account, they and all their countrymen united together and fought the British for the preservation of their faith. They had been compelled to make war for two years. The sepoys' core argument is simple: "If the religion of a Hindoo or Mussalman is lost, what remains in the world?"
Compare the reasons given in the arzi with those mentioned by the taluqdar (Source 3 in the textbook). The sepoys focus entirely on religious pollution and the defence of faith, while the taluqdars emphasised loss of land and political power. Different groups had different grievances, but all converged on opposition to British rule.
Against the Symbols of Oppression
The proclamations completely rejected everything associated with British rule — which they called firangi raj. They condemned the British for the annexations they had carried out and the treaties they had broken. The British, the rebel leaders said, could not be trusted.
What enraged people was how British land revenue settlements had dispossessed landholders, both big and small, and how foreign commerce had driven artisans and weavers to ruin. Every aspect of British rule was attacked. The firangi was accused of destroying a way of life that was familiar and cherished. The rebels wanted to restore that world.
The proclamations expressed the widespread fear that the British were bent on destroying the caste and religions of Hindus and Muslims and converting them to Christianity. This fear led people to believe many of the rumours that circulated at the time. People were urged to come together and fight to save their livelihood, their faith, their honour, their identity — a fight that was for the "greater public good."
As noted earlier, in many places the rebellion against the British widened into an attack on all those who were seen as allies of the British or local oppressors. Often the rebels deliberately sought to humiliate the elites of a city. In the villages, they burnt account books and ransacked moneylenders' houses. This reflected an attempt to overturn traditional hierarchies and rebel against all oppressors. It presents a glimpse of an alternative vision — perhaps of a more egalitarian society. Such visions were not articulated in the proclamations, which sought to unify all social groups in the fight against firangi raj.
The Search for Alternative Power …
The image shows a group of Bengal Army sepoys standing in a row, dressed in the European-style uniform of the East India Company's infantry. They wear dark tunics with white cross-belts, white trousers, and shako-style headgear — the standard kit of a Company soldier in the mid-19th century. Their faces are clearly Indian, and they carry muskets with bayonets fixed. The photograph is a studio portrait, likely taken before the revolt, and it captures the very men who would soon turn those same weapons against their British officers.
What makes this image so significant for the chapter is the gap between appearance and reality. On the surface, these sepoys look like loyal soldiers of the Company — disciplined, uniformed, part of the imperial machine. But the textbook text tells us that these same men, recruited largely from the villages of Awadh and eastern Uttar Pradesh, became the backbone of the rebellion. They were not outsiders to the British system; they were its most trusted armed force. Their revolt was an insider's betrayal, which is why the British found it so shocking and so difficult to suppress. …