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Unit 13: Map I

Muslims. Even the best among them like Bird and Thomason insulted “ the native gentry whenever Notes
they had the opportunity of doing so”.
European officers and European soldiers on their hunting sprees were often guilty of indiscriminate
criminal assaults on Indians. The European juries, which alone could try such cases, acquitted
European criminals with light or no punishment. Such discrimination rankled in the Indian mind
like a festering sore.
It may be easy to withstand physical and political injustices but religious persecution touches
tender conscience and forms complexes that are not easy to eradicate.
The Religious Disabilities Act of 1850 modified Hindu customs; a change of religion did not debar
a son from inheriting the property of his heathen father. Stranger rumours were current in India
that Lord Canning had been specially selected and charged with the duty of converting the Indians
to Christianity. In this surcharged atmosphere even the railways and steamships began to be
looked upon as indirect instruments for changing their faith. The telegraph was regarded as ‘the
accursed string’ and the rebels once said that ‘it was this accursed string that strangled them”. In
the words of Benjamin Disraeli: “The Legislative Council of India under the new principle had
been constantly nibbling at the religious system of the native. In its theoretical system of national
education the sacred scriptures had suddenly appeared in the schools”. The Indian mind was
getting increasingly convinced that the English were conspiring to convert them to Christianity.
The activities of Christian padris and efforts of Dalhousie and Bethune towards woman education
made Indians feel that through education the British were going to conquer their civilisation. Even
‘education offices’ set up by the British were styled as shaitani daftars.
Military Causes: Since the Afghan adventure of Lord Auckland, the discipline in the army had
suffered a serious set back Lord Dalhousie had written to the Home authorities that “the discipline
of the army from top to bottom officers and men alike, is scandalous”. The Bengal Army was “a
great brotherhood in which all the members felt and acted in union”, and service in the army was
hereditary. Three-fifth of the recruits of the Bengal Army were drawn from Oudh and the North-
Western Provinces and most of them came from high caste Brahmin and Rajput families who were
averse to accepting that part of the army discipline which treated them on par with the low caste
recruits.
In 1856 Canning’s government passed the General Service Enlistment Act which decreed that all
future recruits for the Bengal army would have to give an undertaking to serve anywhere their
service might be required by the Government. The Act did not affect old incumbent, but was
unpopular because service in the Bengal army was usually hereditary.
In 1856, the Company’s army consisted of 238,000 native and 45,322 British soldiers. This
disproportion was rendered more serious by the defieiency of good officers in the army, most of
whom were employed in administrative posts in the newly annexed states and the frontier. The
distribution of the troops was also faulty, Moreover, disasters in the Crimean war had lowered the
general moral of the British soldiers. All these factors made the Indian soldiers feel that if they had
struck at that hour, they had reasonable chances of success. So they were waiting only for an
occasion which was provided by the ‘greased cartridge’ incident. The greased cartridges did not
create a new causes of discontent in the army, but supplied the occasion when the underground
discontent came out in the open. In 1856 the Government decided to replace the old-fashioned
musket, ‘Brown Bess’ by the ‘Enfield rifle’. The training for the use of the new weapon was to be
imparted at Dum Dum, Ambala and Sialkot. The loading process of the Enfield rifle involved
bringing the cartridge to the mouth and biting off the top paper with mouth. In January 1857 a
story got currency in the Bengal regiments that the greased cartridge contained the fat of pig and
cow. At once a denial was issued by the military authorities without investigating into the matter.

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