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

Notes Presidency the proportion between the European and Indian troops should be 1:2. while for
Bombay and Madras Presidencies it should be 1:3. Besides the policy of counterpoise of natives
against natives was to be followed which was explained by the Report of the Panjab Committee
on Army Organisation, 1858, in these words: “To preserve that distinctiveness which is valuable,
and which while it lasts makes the Mohammedan of one country fear and dislike the Mohammedan
of another, Corps should in future be provincial, and adhere to the geographical limits within
which differences and rivalries are strongly marked”. All big posts in the army and the artillery
departments were reserved for the Europeans. In the fifty years following the Rebellion of 1857
no Indian soldier was thought fit to deserve the King’s commission and a raw English recruit was
considered superior to an Indian officer holding the Viceroy’s commission.

Who was the first Indian soldier to refuse to use the greased cartridge?

5. It was increasingly realised that one basic cause for the Revolt of 1857 was the lack of contact
between the ruler and the ruled. Sir Bartle Frere, in his famous Minute of 1860, urged ‘the
addition of the native element’ to the Legislative Councils. The association of Indians in the
task of legislation, it was believed, would at least acquaint the rulers with the sentiments and
feelings of the Indians and thus provide an opportunity for avoidance of misunderstandings.
Thus, a humble beginning towards the development of representative institutions in India was
made by the Indian Councils Act of 1861.
6. The emotional after-effects of the Revolts were perhaps the most unfortunate. Racial bitterness
was perhaps the worst legacy of the struggle. The Punch cartooned the Indian as a subhuman
creature, half gorilla, half-negro who could be kept in check by superior force only. The agents of
imperialism in India dubbed the entire Indian people as unworthy of trust and subjected them to
insults, humiliation and contemptuous treatment. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “Imperialism
and the domination of one people over another is bad, and so is racialism. But imperialism plus
racialism can lead only to horror and ultimately to the degradation of all concerned with them”.
The entire structure of the Indian government was remodelled and based on the idea of a master
race. This neo-Imperialism was justified by the philosophy of the Whiteman’s-burden and the
civilising role of England in India. The gulf between the rulers and the ruled widened and
erupted occasionally in political controversies, demonstrations and acts of violence.
7. The Revolt of 1857 ended an era and sowed the seeds of new era. The era of territorial
aggrandisement gave place to the era of economic exploitation. For the British, the danger from
the feudal India ended for ever; the new challenge to British Imperialism came from progressive
India fed on the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and British liberals of the nineteenth century.

7.5 Selected Opinions of the Revolt of 1857
R. C. Majumdar: It would thus appear that the outbreak of the civil population in 1857 may be
regarded as a war of independence only if we take that term to mean any sort of fight against the
British. But, then, the fight of the Pindaris against the English and the fight of the Wahabis against
the Sikhs in the Panjab should also be regarded as such. Those who demur to it should try to find
out how much the rebels in 1857 were prompted by motives of material interest and religious
considerations which animated, respectively, the Pindaris and the Wahabis, and how much by the
disinterested and patriotic motive of freeing the country from the yoke of foreigners. Apart from
individual cases, here and there, no evidence has yet been brought to light which would support
the view that the patriotic motive’ of freeing the country formed the chief incentive to the general
outbreak of the people... It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the so-called First National War
of Independence of 1857 is neither First, nor National, nor War of Independence.

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