The Uprising Of 1857
Meet Bangladesh - Bangladesh 101:
A Great Divide in South Asian History
On May 10, 1857, Indian
soldiers of the British Indian Army, drawn mostly from Muslim units from Bengal,
mutinied at the Meerut cantonment near Delhi, starting a year-long insurrection
against the British. The mutineers then marched to Delhi and offered their
services to the Mughal emperor, whose predecessors had suffered an ignoble
defeat 100 years earlier at Plassey. The uprising, which seriously threatened
British rule in India, has been called many names by historians, including the
Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny, and the Revolt of 1857; many people of the
subcontinent, however, prefer to call it India's "first war of independence."
The insurrection was sparked by the introduction of cartridges rumored to have
been greased with pig or cow fat, which was offensive to the religious beliefs
of Muslim and Hindu sepoys (soldiers). In a wider sense, the insurrection was a
reaction by the indigenous population to rapid changes in the social order
engineered by the British over the preceding century and an abortive attempt by
the Muslims to resurrect a dying political order. When mutinous units finally
surrendered on June 20, 1858, the British exiled Emperor Bahadur Shah to Burma,
thereby formally ending the Mughal Empire. As a direct consequence of the
revolt, the British also dissolved the British East India Company and assumed
direct rule over India, beginning the period of the British Raj. British India
was thereafter headed by a governor general (called viceroy when acting as the
direct representative of the British crown). The governor general, who embodied
the supreme legislative and executive authority in India, was responsible to the
secretary of state for India, a member of the British cabinet in London.
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