Often seen as India's first war for independence, the Indian Mutiny was a series of military and civil revolts which first broke out in Meerut on 10 May 1857. It took nearly a year of harsh British reprisals before it was finally put down and order was restored. It also brought to an end the rule of the Mogul Empire in India, as well as that of the East India Company. The mutiny also marked the transition from Britain's age of "un-intended empire" in India to official imperialism by parliament's appointment of a secretary of state for India.
Like most uprisings, the causes are likely to be multiplex. There was great resentment with Dalhousie's many institutional reforms as well as the more recent acts of greedy acquisition of territories by the questionable disenfranchisement of local princes. Perhaps most of all was the growing fear among the Indians that the increasing pace of evangelical missionary activities in the country at the time would lead eventually to forced conversion. The spark for the revolt, it is agreed by most authorities, was the recent introduction of a new cartridge for the guns used by the sepoys, the local Indian forces under British commanders. These new cartridges required that its paper packing had to be bitten off (actually they could have been torn off by hand, but that would have been slow and impractical in the heat of battle) before they could be used. A rumour began circulating that the cartridges were greased either with cow fat (and, therefore, abominable to Hindus) or pork lard (and therefore offensive to Muslims) in the forces. Their salvation at risk, the fury quickly drove the regiments in Meerut (north-east of Delhi) into open revolt. From there the violence spread to Delhi, where—caught by surprise as everyone else—the decrepit and powerless Mogul Emperor, Bahadur Shah II (1775-1862) was hailed as the revolt's leader. He could hardly have resisted without losing his life to the rebels. Violence, blood-bath, and mayhem ensued and any white person, including women and children, were game for murder.
Once they had gotten over their initial shock (as in Malaya during WWII eight decades later, they had ignored all the signs that trouble was coming), the British forces organized and, by an unequal exertion of force, Delhi was retaken by September. The recapture of the other cities followed, with central India restored in the spring of 1858. Peace was officially declared in July.
The Mutiny raised a chorus of support for the most rigorous military response in Britain (including the approval of Charles Spurgeon). It also brought sharp criticism of the way the East India Company had managed affairs in India. In the aftermath sovereignty over India was officially transferred to the British crown rather than the Company. Bahadur Shah was tried and exiled to Burma, where he died a few short years later, buried an exile in an unmarked grave, the last of the great Muslim empire that had ruled India for three and a half centuries.
Further Reading:
Lawrence James, Raj. The Making and Unmaking of British India. London: Abacus, 1997. See esp., 233-98.
William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal. The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857. India: Penguin, 2006.
Saul David, The Indian Mutiny 1857. London: 2002.
Christopher Hibbert, The Great Mutiny: India 1857. London: 1978
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