Summary Of The Sepoy Mutiny Of 1857

By Mona Moody


One of the well known revolutions in India during at the time of British colonization was the Sepoy mutiny of 1857. The uprising is also known as the Sepoy mutiny, Revolt of 1857 or Great rebellion. The When it began, the British had not seen it coming since they thought they were in control of everything at that time.

During the colonial period, British East India Company had recruited the local citizens known as the natives or sepoys in their troops. This was so that they could maintain control of the area as they carried out their trading activities. The British government soon followed suit and started recruiting the natives into their army so that they could fight for them during their conquests. They trained the natives on their fighting methods and how to use their weapons.

With no time, the sepoys had outnumbered the Europeans in their army. The British used this strong troop to take control of almost two thirds of the land in India. They then began to affect their rule among the local people. They introduced their technology, began missionary and evangelical work, introduced their system of administration and reformed land ownership practices. This invasion in every part of life of the local people was not taken well by many.

Although tension existed among the people after on introduction of the European rule, it was not enough to warrant a revolution. But later, something happened that saw this calm change into a rebellion. This was after the British East Indian Company made changes to the weapons used. They created paper cartridges that were greased and for anyone to load them into a firearm, they would have to use their teeth to open the cartridges. With this introduction, rumors started rising that grease on the cartridges composed of fat from beef and pork.

As it would be expected, many natives did not like this. This is because according to Hindu religion, consumption of beef is forbidden as a cow is a holy animal. To the Islam, they would never come near pork as a pig is considered an unclean animal. Therefore this change weaponry by the colonialists was seen by the natives as an attempt of the Europeans to force them into Christianity.

The revolution began in Meerut, which was the first district to get the new weaponry. Here, the mutineers killed any European they came across with. They then moved to other areas namely Delhi, Cawnpore, Rajputna, Lucknow, Sahib and Oudh. In an attempt to calm the anger among the sepoys, British manufactures decided to change the cartridges and removed the grease. But this only confirmed to the locals the rumors were true.

The rebellion continued for almost two months and the Europeans seeing that a lot of their people had been killed, decided to revenge. They captured many suspected rebels and then executed them. They did this for a period of six months until they were able to maintain their power. This was in 1858 when the mutiny ended.

As much as the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 did not lead to the freedom of India from British colonialists, the natives had succeeded to send a strong message to the colonialists. The freedom fighters would later remember this rebellion as the beginning of their struggle for independence. India later obtained independence in 1947.




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