When People Revolt

This is Chapter 5 of Our Pasts – III. The earlier chapters showed the Company’s policies towards rulers (hess202), peasants (hess203) and tribal people (hess204), and how people resisted them. This chapter shows those grievances coming together in 1857: why rulers, peasants and sepoys were angry, how a mutiny at Meerut on 10 May 1857 became a popular uprising across north India once the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar agreed to lead it, how the Company crushed it by 1859, and how British rule changed afterwards — the Act of 1858 and Crown rule. A case study of the Khurda uprising of 1817 in Orissa shows that armed resistance was much older than 1857.

• Links within this book: hess202 (subsidiary alliance, doctrine of lapse, the annexation of Awadh, residents); hess203 (the land settlements behind peasant anger; the indigo revolt that followed in 1859); hess204 (tribal risings — Kol 1831–32, Santhal 1855 — before and after 1857); hess206 (the reformers whose work some Indians saw as a threat to custom).
• The senior page to pair with: lehs302 (Class 12, Rebels and the Raj) — how cantonments rose, rebel communication and proclamations, Awadh and the taluqdars, rebel aims, repression, British and Indian images of 1857 and the full historians’ debate. This page gives the Class 8 foundation and does not repeat it; lehs301 adds the countryside, keec101 the colonial economy.
• UPSC: Modern Indian history is among the most heavily tested parts of Prelims and GS1, and 1857 is one of its fixed points: the immediate cause (1979), leaders and places (1982, 1990, 2005, 2006), whether it was a ‘first war of independence’ (1985), the Act of 1858 (2006) and the Queen’s Proclamation (2014). Mains asks whether 1857 was a watershed in British policy (2016) and whether it was the culmination of earlier rebellions (2019) — the Khurda case study helps with the second.

• Causes: rulers lose power (Jhansi heir refused; Nana Saheb’s pension; Awadh: subsidiary alliance 1801, annexed 1856; Mughal line to end — Dalhousie 1849, Canning 1856); peasants’ taxes and debt; sepoys’ pay, the 1824 sea-route refusal and the 1856 overseas-service law; reforms read as threats to religion (1850 inheritance law).
• Sources: Vishnubhatt Godse’s Majha Pravaas (rumour of ‘84 rules’; plan from Meerut); Sitaram Pande’s From Sepoy to Subedar (seizure of Oudh; greased cartridges).
• Outbreak: Mangal Pandey hanged 8 Apr 1857 (Barrackpore); 85 Meerut sepoys jailed 9 May; 10 May Meerut rises; 11 May Delhi; Bahadur Shah Zafar proclaimed leader → a confederacy of rulers.
• Leaders: Nana Saheb (Kanpur; Peshwa), Birjis Qadr and Begum Hazrat Mahal (Lucknow), Rani Lakshmibai and Tantia Tope (Jhansi, central India), Rani Avantibai (Mandla), Ahmadullah Shah (Faizabad), Bakht Khan (Bareilly → Delhi), Kunwar Singh (Bihar).
• Suppression: Delhi retaken Sept 1857; Zafar to Rangoon Oct 1858 (died Nov 1862); Lucknow Mar 1858; Lakshmibai killed June 1858; Tantia Tope executed Apr 1859; control regained by end-1859.
• Aftermath: Act of 1858 — Crown rule, Secretary of State + India Council, Viceroy; no more annexations, adopted heirs allowed; more European troops, recruits from Gurkhas, Sikhs, Pathans; Muslims suspected; customs respected; landlords protected. Case study: Khurda (Paik) uprising, 1817.

Since the mid-eighteenth century, nawabs and rajas had seen their power and honour erode. Residents were stationed in many courts, rulers’ freedom was reduced, their armies disbanded, and their revenues and territories taken away in stages. Many ruling families tried to negotiate. Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi wanted the Company to recognise her adopted son as heir after her husband’s death; Nana Saheb, adopted son of Peshwa Baji Rao II, asked for his father’s pension after Baji Rao died. Confident of its military superiority, the Company refused both.

Awadh was one of the last territories to be annexed: a subsidiary alliance was imposed in 1801, and in 1856 the Governor-General Dalhousie took it over, declaring it misgoverned. The Company even planned to end the Mughal dynasty: the emperor’s name was removed from Company coins; in 1849 Dalhousie announced that after Bahadur Shah Zafar’s death his family would be moved out of the Red Fort; in 1856 Governor-General Canning decided that Zafar would be the last Mughal king — his descendants would be called only princes.

In the countryside, peasants and zamindars resented high taxes and rigid revenue collection; many could not repay moneylenders and gradually lost land their families had tilled for generations. Sepoys were unhappy about pay, allowances and conditions of service, and some new rules offended their religious beliefs. Many people then believed that crossing the sea would cost them their religion and caste; so in 1824, when sepoys were ordered to go to Burma by sea, they refused (though they agreed to go by land) and were severely punished. The issue did not die, and in 1856 the Company passed a law that every new recruit had to agree to serve overseas if required. Since many sepoys were peasants with families in the villages, peasant anger quickly spread among them.

Responses to reforms. The British believed Indian society had to be reformed. Laws were passed to stop sati and to encourage widow remarriage; English education was promoted; after 1830, NCERT says, missionaries were allowed to work freely and even own property; and in 1850 a law allowed an Indian who converted to Christianity to inherit ancestral property. Many Indians began to feel the British were destroying their religion, customs and way of life — though, NCERT adds, other Indians themselves wanted to change social practices (Chapter 6, hess206).

On 8 April 1857 a young soldier, Mangal Pandey, was hanged for attacking his officers at Barrackpore. Some days later sepoys of a regiment at Meerut refused to drill with the new cartridges. Eighty-five sepoys were dismissed and sentenced to ten years in jail for disobeying their officers — on 9 May 1857. The response was extraordinary. On 10 May the soldiers marched to the jail and released them, killed British officers, captured guns and ammunition, burnt British buildings and property and declared war on the firangis. Who would rule instead? Their answer was the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar.

The Meerut sepoys rode all night to reach Delhi early on 11 May. The regiments in Delhi rose too; officers were killed, arms seized, buildings burnt. The soldiers gathered at the Red Fort and, though the ageing emperor was reluctant to challenge British power, forced their way in and proclaimed him their leader. He then wrote to all the chiefs and rulers of the country to form a confederacy of Indian states against the British. This single step had great implications: since most smaller rulers had once held territory on behalf of the Mughals, many hoped that if the emperor ruled again they too could rule their lands under Mughal authority. The British had expected the cartridge trouble to die down; Zafar’s blessing changed everything — people saw an alternative, and that gave them courage and hope.

After the British were routed from Delhi there was no uprising for almost a week — the time news took to travel. Then came a spurt of mutinies. Regiment after regiment rose and marched to nodal points such as Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow; then townspeople and villagers rallied round local leaders, zamindars and chiefs. Nana Saheb, living near Kanpur, expelled the British garrison, proclaimed himself Peshwa and declared himself a governor under the emperor. In Lucknow, Birjis Qadr, son of the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, was proclaimed Nawab, acknowledging Zafar’s suzerainty; his mother Begum Hazrat Mahal took an active part in organising the uprising. In Jhansi, Rani Lakshmibai joined the rebel sepoys and fought alongside Tantia Tope, Nana Saheb’s general. In the Mandla region, Rani Avantibai Lodhi of Ramgarh raised and led an army of four thousand against the British, who had taken over her state’s administration.

The British were heavily outnumbered and lost a number of battles, which convinced people that British rule had collapsed for good. In Awadh especially it became a widespread popular uprising: on 6 August 1857 Lieutenant Colonel Tytler telegraphed his Commander-in-Chief that his men were cowed by the numbers and endless fighting — ‘every village is held against us’, and the zamindars had risen. New leaders emerged: Ahmadullah Shah, a maulvi of Faizabad, prophesied the end of British rule and raised a large force that fought at Lucknow; in Delhi many ghazis gathered; Bakht Khan, a soldier from Bareilly, led a large force to Delhi and became a key military leader; in Bihar the old zamindar Kunwar Singh fought for many months.

Unnerved, the Company resolved to crush the revolt. It brought reinforcements from England, passed new laws so that rebels could be convicted easily, and moved into the storm centres. Delhi was recaptured in September 1857. Bahadur Shah Zafar was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment; he and his wife Begum Zinat Mahal were sent to prison in Rangoon in October 1858, where he died in November 1862. But resistance continued, and the British needed two years to suppress it. Lucknow was taken in March 1858; Rani Lakshmibai was defeated and killed in June 1858; Rani Avantibai, after an initial victory at Kheri, chose death when surrounded; Tantia Tope fought a guerrilla war in the jungles of central India with tribal and peasant support until he was captured, tried and killed in April 1859.

Just as victories had encouraged the uprising, defeats encouraged desertions. The British also tried to win back loyalty: loyal landholders were promised their traditional rights; rebels who submitted and had not killed any white people were promised safety and their rights to land. Even so, hundreds of sepoys, rebels, nawabs and rajas were tried and hanged.

The British had regained control by the end of 1859, but could not rule with the same policies. NCERT lists six changes. (1) Parliament passed a new Act in 1858 transferring the East India Company’s powers to the British Crown for ‘more responsible management’. A member of the British Cabinet became Secretary of State for India, responsible for all matters of Indian government, advised by an India Council; the Governor-General received the title of Viceroy, the Crown’s personal representative. Britain thus accepted direct responsibility for ruling India. (2) Ruling chiefs were assured their territory would never be annexed, and could pass on their kingdoms to heirs, including adopted sons — but had to acknowledge the British Queen as Sovereign Paramount, holding their kingdoms as subordinates of the Crown. (3) The proportion of Indian soldiers in the army would be reduced and European soldiers increased, and recruitment would shift from Awadh, Bihar, central and south India to Gurkhas, Sikhs and Pathans. (4) The land and property of Muslims was confiscated on a large scale and they were treated with suspicion and hostility, since the British believed them largely responsible. (5) The British decided to respect customary religious and social practices. (6) Policies were made to protect landlords and zamindars and secure their rights. ‘A new phase of history began after 1857.’

NCERT adds a case study to show that resentment had been building since the early nineteenth century. Khurda, a small kingdom founded in the late sixteenth century in south-eastern Orissa, was populous and well cultivated — 105 garhs, 60 large and 1,109 small villages. Its earlier raja, Birakishore Dev, had been forced to give up four parganas, the superintendence of the Jagannath temple and fourteen garjats to the Marathas. His son Mukunda Dev II negotiated with the British during the Anglo-Maratha conflict to win them back; but after occupying Orissa in 1803 the British did nothing for him, and when he tried to assert his rights by force, with other chiefs and secret Maratha support, he was deposed and his territory annexed. He was left only the management of the temple, with a grant of one-tenth of his former revenue, and made to live at Puri.

The British then resumed service tenures, hitting the Paiks, the state’s old militia. Revenue demands rose through a series of short settlements, collected harshly, with no leniency even in natural calamities; defaulters’ lands were sold to officials and speculators from Bengal, and people deserted Khurda between 1805 and 1817. The king’s hereditary military commander, Buxi Jagabandhu (Jagabandhu Bidyadhar Mahapatra Bhramarabar Rai), was himself dispossessed and lived for nearly two years on the people’s contributions before taking up their cause. Other grievances: the sicca rupee and the insistence on paying revenue in it; soaring prices of food and salt after the salt monopoly barred Orissa’s salt makers; the auction of estates in Calcutta, which brought absentee Bengal landlords; and a corrupt police.

NCERT calls 1857 ‘the revolt’ and ‘a massive uprising’, and describes how a mutiny became a popular uprising; it notes that some regard it as the biggest armed resistance to colonialism in the nineteenth century anywhere in the world. Exercise 9 calls it by its popular Hindustani name, San Sattavan ki Ladaai (the war of ’57). Other names reflect different readings, which you should present side by side.

The chapter’s four Activity boxes, in order. Short outlines follow.

‘Let’s recall’ (four), ‘Let’s discuss’ (four), ‘Let’s do’ (two) and ‘Let’s imagine’, pages 63–64.

Numbers

One-liners

• Rulers lost power by stages; the Company refused Lakshmibai’s heir and Nana Saheb’s pension.
• Awadh was annexed in 1856 for alleged misgovernment.
• The Company planned to end the Mughal line (1849, 1856).
• Peasants faced high revenue and debt; sepoys, poor pay and rules that offended belief.
• The 1856 law made new recruits liable to overseas service.
• Reforms and the 1850 inheritance law made many fear for religion and custom.
• Rumours of eighty-four rules and greased cartridges spread through bazaars and regiments.
• Meerut rose on 10 May 1857 and proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar leader in Delhi.
• Zafar’s blessing turned a mutiny into a wide uprising, especially in Awadh.
• Leaders: Nana Saheb, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Lakshmibai, Tantia Tope, Avantibai, Kunwar Singh, Bakht Khan.
• Delhi fell in September 1857; Zafar was exiled to Rangoon.
• The Act of 1858 transferred power to the Crown: Secretary of State, India Council, Viceroy.
• After 1857: no annexations, a reorganised army, respect for custom, protection for landlords.
• The Khurda uprising of 1817 shows resistance long before 1857.

Traps to avoid

• Mangal Pandey: Barrackpore, hanged 8 April 1857 — not Meerut.
• Meerut rose on 10 May; Delhi on 11 May 1857.
• Governor-General in 1857: Canning (not Dalhousie, who left in 1856).
• Awadh: annexed for misgovernment (1856), not by lapse.
• The 1856 overseas-service law applied only to new recruits.
• The Act of 1858 (August) created the Secretary of State; the Proclamation (1 Nov) disclaimed annexation.
• The Charter Act of 1853 did not end the Company’s trade monopoly.
• Zafar was exiled to Rangoon (NCERT: life imprisonment) and died there in 1862.
• Tantia Tope was betrayed, captured and executed in April 1859.
• Kunwar Singh: Bihar (Jagdishpur); Nana Saheb: Kanpur; Begum Hazrat Mahal: Lucknow.
• Khurda (Paik) uprising: 1817, Buxi Jagabandhu — not part of 1857.
• Sitaram Pande’s memoir is a contested source; Godse wrote decades later.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• People and places: Nana Saheb led at Kanpur (1990); Kunwar Singh belonged to Bihar (2005); Chittor was not a centre — Jhansi, Jagdishpur and Lucknow were (2005); Bhagat Singh had nothing to do with 1857 (1982); Tantia Tope was betrayed by a friend and executed (2006); Canning was Governor-General (2006). Learn the centre–leader table and the main centres on NCERT’s map.
• Cause: the immediate cause was the greased cartridges (1979).
• Aftermath: the Act of 1858 made Britain directly responsible and ended Company rule; the Charter Act of 1853 did not end its trade monopoly (2006, key: 2 only). Queen Victoria’s Proclamation disclaimed annexation and announced Crown rule (2014, key: 1 and 2). Know which provision belongs to the Act and which to the Proclamation.
• Answer-key notes (keep all keys): 1985 A–R — the ‘First War of Independence’ label is contested and the Reason is only the immediate cause; the key (a) reflects the nationalist reading. 2014 — strictly, the Act (not the Proclamation) placed administration under the Crown; the Proclamation announced it, which is why statement 2 is counted. 2005 Chittor — Jagdishpur is Kunwar Singh’s estate, Beyond NCERT; solve by elimination from Jhansi and Lucknow.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• 1857 as a watershed in British policy (GS1 2016): use NCERT’s six changes — Crown rule (Act of 1858, Secretary of State, Viceroy), the end of annexation and alliance with princes, army reorganisation (European ratio; ‘martial’ recruitment), suspicion of Muslims, non-interference in religion, protection of landlords — and add Metcalf’s argument about the turn to conservatism; lehs302 has the rest.
• 1857 as the culmination of earlier rebellions (GS1 2019): continuity — Khurda (1817), the 1824 Barrackpore refusal, Kol (1831–32), Santhal (1855–56) (hess204, lehs301), the same grievances of dispossessed rulers, revenue, debt and outsiders; novelty — the scale, the sepoy–peasant link and the Mughal symbol. Attribute the naming debate.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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