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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes 7.1 Causes of the Revolt 1857

The Anglo-Indian historians have greatly emphasised the importance of military grievances and
the greased cartridges affair as the most potent causes which led to the great rising of 1857. But
modern Indian historians have established beyond that ‘the greased cartridge’ was not the only
cause, nor even the most important of them.
The greased cartridge and the Mutiny of soldiers was merely the match-stick which exploded the
inflammable material which had gathered in heap on account of a variety of causes political,
social, religious and economic.
Political Causes: The East India Company’s policy of ‘effective control’ and gradual extinction of
the Indian native states took a definite shape with the perfection of the Subsidiary Alliance System
under Lord Wellesley. Its logical culmination was reached under Dalhousie who threw all codes
of morality and political conduct to the winds and perfected the infamous Doctrine of Lapse.
Dalhousie’s annexations and the Doctrine of lapse had caused suspicion and uneasiness in the
minds of almost all ruling princes in India. The right of succession was denied to the Hindu
Princes. The guarantee of adoption to the throne “did not extent to any person in whose veins the
blood of the founder of the dynasty did not run”. The distinction between ‘dependent states’ and
“protected allies’ was very thin and looked more alike hair-splitting. In case of disputed
interpretation, the decision of the East India Company was binding and that of the Court of
Directions final. There was no Supreme Court to give an impartial verdict on questions of right
and wrong. While the Panjab, Pegu, Sikkim had been annexed by the ‘Right of Conquest’, Satara,
Jaipur, Sambhalpur, Baghat, Udaipur, Jhansi and Nagpur were annexed by the application of the
Doctrine of Lapse. Oudh was annexed on the pretext of “ the good of the governed”. Regal titles
of the Nawabs of Carnatic and Tanjore were abolished and the pension of Peshwa Baji Rao II’s
adopted son was stopped. The Indians held that the existence of all states was threatened and
absorption of all states was a question of time. The common belief current was that annexations
were not because of the Doctrine of Lapse, but due to the ‘Lapse of all Morals’ on the part of the
East India Company. That the fears of the people were not without foundation is clear from the
correspondence of one of the architects of British India, Sir Charles Napier, who wrote: “Were I
Emperor of India for twelve years.... no India prince should exist. The Nizam should no more be
heard of... Nepal would be ours...” Malleson has rightly stated that the policy of Dalhousie and the
utterances and writings of other high officials had created ‘bad faith and Indians got the feeling
that the British were ‘playing the wolf in the garb of the lamb’.

The causes of the Rebellion lay deeper and are to be found in the history of the hundred
years of British rule from the Battle of Plassey (June 1757) to the rebellion of Mangal
Pandey when on March 29,1857, he murdered an English Adjutant.

The Muslim feelings had been grievously hurt. Bahadur Shah II, the Mughal Emperor, was an old
man and might die any moment. Lord Dalhousie who was not in favour of retaining an imperium
in imperio had recognised the succession of Prince Faqir-ul-Din, but imposed many strict conditions
on him. After Faqir-ud-Din’s death in 1856, Lord Canning announced that the prince next in
succession would have to renounce the regal title and the ancestral Mughal palaces in addition to
the renunciations agreed upon by Prince Faqir-ul-Din. These acts greatly unnerved the Indian
Muslims who thought that the English wanted to humble the House of Timur. In the words of
Alexander Duff: “The Mohammadans have for the last hundred years not ceased to pray, like
privately in their house and publicly in their mosques throughout India for the prosperity of the
House of Timur or Taimurlane, whose lineal representative is the titular emperor of Delhi. But the
prosperity of the House of Timur, is their estimation, undoubtedly implies neither more nor less
than downfall of the British power, and the re-establishment of their own instead. In their case,

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