Why did people believe in the rumours?

The power of a rumour does not lie in whether it is factually true or false. To understand why rumours spread, we have to ask what they reveal about the people who believed them — their deepest fears, their suspicions, their faiths, and their sense of what was being lost. A rumour catches fire only when it echoes something people already dread or suspect.

In 1857, the rumours that swept across North India made sense only when placed against the background of British policies from the late 1820s onward. Under Governor General Lord William Bentinck, the British had begun a programme of “reforming” Indian society. They introduced Western education, Western ideas, and Western institutions. With the cooperation of some sections of Indian society, they set up English-medium schools, colleges, and universities that taught Western sciences and liberal arts. They passed laws to abolish customs such as sati (in 1829) and to permit the remarriage of Hindu widows.

At the same time, the British annexed one kingdom after another — Awadh, Jhansi, Satara — on various pretexts: misgovernment, refusal to recognise adoption, and so on. Once a territory was taken over, the British imposed their own system of administration, their own laws, and their own methods of settling land and collecting revenue.

The cumulative effect on the people of North India was profound. It seemed to them that everything they held sacred — their kings, their socio-religious customs, their patterns of landholding and revenue payment — was being systematically destroyed. In its place came a system that felt impersonal, alien, and oppressive. This perception was made worse by the activities of Christian missionaries, who were seen as openly attacking local faiths. …