Chip Schroeder

27 October 2010
Tutor Jason Tomes
The Beacon of Hope and Shadow of Empire
The Significance of the 1857 Indian Mutiny in the British Raj

Question: To what extent does the Indian Mutiny mark a watershed in the history of the Raj?

In the middle of the night on May 10
th
, 1857, Indian sepoys of the Bengal Army
massacred the English residents of a town called Meerut in north India and marched to Delhi. In
Delhi they sought the leadership of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah who, although quite
accomplished at producing heirs, had spent his life more interested in poetry than political
struggles. The sepoys of the Bengal Army were discontent with their low pay and little
opportunity to be promoted in an army controlled at the top level by British officers, and had
been pushed over the edge by the requirement to use the new Lee Enfield rifles. The rifles used
cartridges greased with cow and pig fat that would sully the Hindu and Muslim sepoys if they
were required to bite the cartridge to load their guns.
1
Further angered by the recent waves of
Christian missionary activity, Muslims declared a religious jihad on the British overlords, and
spread the revolt to the Muslims and peasants of the region that had been working to death to
give their meager incomes to British tax collectors. Although the fire was hard to put out, the
British military was supported by the loyal Indian soldiers of Bombay, Madras, and Punjab,
suppressed the short-sighted rebellion, and reasserted their military dominance over mutinous
regions.
2

The story of the Indian Mutiny echoed that of many other rebellions against the
oppression of imperial powers throughout the centuries. It had not been the first rebellion in

1
Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf A Concise History of India (Cambridge 2002) p.101.
2
Lawrence James The Rise & Fall of the British Empire (London 1998) p. 231.
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2
India, but what was unique about the Great Mutiny of 1857 was its vast scale and the resulting
changes which were required by the British government. The subsequent transfer of power from
the East India Company to the Crown and restructuring of the military in the wake of the revolt
were changes made in the continued pursuit of British control of and profit from colonial India,
but the changes incidentally fueled the development of India that fostered a rising middle class
and hope of independence.
At the time of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, it had been exactly 100 years since Colonel
Robert Clive of the East India Company had defeated the Mughal Governor the Nawab of
Bengal at the Battle of Plassey to gain control of the Bengal region for British colonization.
Ninety-nine years later, in 1856, the East India Companys army was just finishing its last
military victory over Oudh in the foothills of the Himalayas which completed their dominance
over almost the entire subcontinent. Their motivation was money. More land under control
meant more revenue from land taxes, and in theory, this was supposed to repay the expense of
war and provide dividends to the Companys investors in London. The precedent for this system
of conquer-and-tax had been set by the infamous duo of Clive and Hastings in the late eighteenth
century, and had persisted into the early nineteenth century under the name Home Charges
essentially the drain of wealth from India to Britain in the form of bullion and bills to cover trade
deficits to India and China.
3

Since money was the objective, the military was paramount. Leading up to the Mutiny,
the British were at a peak in their military confidence. The British military operated through
three branches: the Companys native army in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay overseen by

3
C.A. Bayley Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge 1988) p. 116.
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3
British officers; the Companys European army; and regiments of the Queens Army of the
Line.
4
With these forces totaling almost one third of a million men, confidence in the superiority
of the British military swelled to the point that Commander Sir Charles Napier, facing 35,000
native tribesmen of the Sind region with 2,400 British soldiers rallied his forces with the words,
Never give way to barbarians and upon his victory sent his punning message to Calcutta
reading, I have sinned.
5

When command and conquest did not pay the Company bills, reform was in order. The
British government took steps over the first half of the nineteenth century to increase money
flowing to Britain no matter if it meant gradually dismantling the Companys monopoly over
Indian trade. In 1813 the Company lost its exclusive rights to trade in India, and in 1833 its
monopoly on trade through India to China through revisions to the Companys Charter that were
made in order to realize the full potential of profit that could be gained for Britain in India.
6
The
Charter Acts were not, however, any move to decrease British ability to make money in India.
The Company also sought internal reform during two waves, the first from 1829 to 1835
under Governor-General Lord Bentinck and the second from 1846 to 1856 under Governor-
General Lord Dalhousie. The reforming Governors-General were both of a mind that
development and further investment into India was needed to jumpstart the economy which from
the 1820s to 1850s was in almost continuous recession and adding to the image of Indian
backwardness.
7
The utilitarian influence of James Mill inspired Bentincks hope that good

4
Robin J. Moore Imperial India, 1858-1914 The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. III the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford 1999) p. 427.
5
Lawrence James The Rise & Fall of the British Empire (London 1998) p.223.
6
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London 1993) p. 320, 325
7
D.A. Washbrook India, 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol.
III the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1999) p. 409.
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4
government promoted good subjects, which led him to stop military expansion, cut down on
government expenditure, and transform a government deficit of 1.5 million to a surplus of half
a million pounds.
8
During Bentincks term as Governor-General, modernization had been
regarded as a co-operative effort between the British and a corresponding Indian middle class
who were to be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.
9
As the Charter
Act of 1833 showed, however, Indian modernization was at best an afterthought for British
policy-makers, and Bentincks financial caution did not make enough profit for the mother
country, which left a record of dont-do policies for the next reformer Lord Dalhousie. Still
driven by the Companys purpose for increased profits, the Westernizing Dalhousie continued
territorial expansion and sought to benevolently bestow the British blessings of western
education, Christianizing missions, reduced taxation, and increased rail and communications
technology that would surely bring the Indian race closer to the level of the British, as he saw
it.
10

It was upon this stage that the Mutiny was mounted and temporarily carried out, causing
the British to again rethink their strategy in India. What would not change were the two British
principles that 1) Colonial India was a British business venture and 2) the venture was only
ensured by powerful control over India.
Queen Victorias first act after the suppression of rebellion was to issue a Proclamation to
the Indian public telling themthrough the various tongues and dialects in the amalgamation of
statesthat she would endeavor to promote the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of

8
C.A. Bayley Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge 1988) p. 121.
9
Eric Stokes The English Utilitarians and India (Delhi 1989) p. 269.
10
D.A. Washbrook India, 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism The Oxford History of the British Empire
Vol. III the Nineteenth Century (Oxford 1999) p. 417.
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public utility and improvement and respect the religious beliefs of the people and the titles of
some Indian princes who had been deposed in recent years.
11

Concretely, the first result of the Mutiny was the reorganization of the British Raj. The
Companys accumulating failures in organizing military power and meeting financial obligations
pushed the Crown government to take direct control of India. The transfer was not that of India
from informal imperial governance to formal empire, as the Company had for over the Century
been directly involved with the simultaneous administration and exploitation of India for the
benefit of Britain.
12
In fact, by 1857 the Companys monopoly was already stripped by the 1813
and 1833 Charter Acts, and even the patronage power of appointment replaced by a government-
regulated examination system in 1853.
13
The shift to the Crown meant the formation of a new
council overseen by the executive authority of the British Secretary of State.
14

The mutiny of the sepoys also showed a glaring need for the restructuring of the military
holding British India. In the formerly separate native armies of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras,
the ratio of Indians to Europeans was lowered from 6:1 to 2:1 by the mid-1860s.
15
Resentful of
the rebels of Benares and Oudh, the mutineers were shot, hung, or blown from cannons by the
tens of thousands, and preference was shifted to loyal areas for recruiting grounds for the army.
16

Racist suspicion came to be the grimmest legacy of the Indian Mutiny. Preference of one
tribe over another set the Indians against each other, while the flickering beacon of Indian

11
Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf A Concise History of India (Cambridge 2002) p.105.
12
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London 1993) p. 323,
318.
13
Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf A Concise History of India (Cambridge 2002) p.104.
14
Robin J. Moore Imperial India, 1858-1914 The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. III the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford 1999) p. 424.
15
Robin J. Moore Imperial India, 1858-1914 The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. III the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford 1999) p. 427.
16
C.A. Bayley Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge 1988) p. 102.
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6
independence brought a terminal fear to the British psyche, causing deeper racism and division
between ruler and subject and a more impersonal tone to imperialism. The Survey of India and
Census of India, founded in 1878 and 1872 respectively, are examples of the pseudo-scientific
ways that the British tried to racially categorize and control their subjects.
17
The Westernizing
spirit of Dalhousie was to blame for the jihadist reaction, and so Christianity became a mark of
British difference and superiority.
18
Going further, the general reform mentality of Bentinck and
Dalhousie that Indian people had potential to become the equals of the British was lost, and the
arrogance of a superior, but exportable civilization now gave way to the arrogance of inherent
superiority.
19

The impersonal air to the new Raj did not mean lower standards for administration. The
Mutiny may have brought on more detachment towards Indian culture, but to the wealth-
generating subcontinent they would only become more attached by way of thousands of miles of
railroads, telegraph, and other technological developments. For the millions of pounds already
invested in India and the distinguished luminescence that the massive colony gave to the British
Crown, the British poured much more in after the Mutiny, which manifested itself in the
promotion of mining, manufacturing, and public utilities such as railways and irrigation.
20
The
tracks were laid connecting the prosperous hinterland to port city, and one port city to another,
making obvious the extractive nature of investment into India. Investment was stimulated by the
high credit rating that the new Crown government guaranteed, so that between 1865 and 1914
investment in India accounted for 286 million of capital raised on the London stock market and,
standing at 18 percent of total investment into the Empire, was second only to Canada. In lieu of

17
Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf A Concise History of India (Cambridge 2002) p.112.
18
Thomas R. Metcalf Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge 1994) p. 47.
19
Karl de Schweinitz Jr., The Rise & Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality (London 1983) p. 175.
20
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London 1993) p. 329.
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7
the money the Company previously received from land revenues, India was fully introduced to
the world market, where her jute, cotton, indigo, and tea sold to Europe while opium and rice to
the Far East, so that her export value flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century.
21

From the economic perspective, the Mutinys aftermath of transferring power from the
Company to the Crown turned around the recession that plagued the Indian economy for decades
before 1857 and provided even more money for Britain than the previous system of land
conquest and taxation ever could. The windfall of the economic boom was the increased
welfare of certain Indian peoples. As the Raj called Indian leaders to civil service after 1857,
some 60,000 Indians would enter university in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in the subsequent
thirty years, many in the Arts but also two thousand in Law, and by 1882 this new educated
Indian class accounted for 1,100 appointments to government service.
22
Soon thereafter, Indians
passed another milestone when the Gladstone government from 1880 to 1885 created the Indian
National Congress in 1885. The Congress was an annual meeting of educated Indians debating
issues related to their country, but would not be an influential forum of Indian opinion until the
next century.
23

Viewing the Indian Mutiny from the immediate decades afterwards gives only partial
indication of 1857 as a watershed date in Indian history. The Mutiny was far from tearing down
the imperial structure of colonial India. The increased efficiency of the British government in
extracting wealth from India in the years after 1857 showed that the Empire was well intact after
the revolt. No Indian rebels could dispute the military supremacy of the newly solidified British

21
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London 1993) p. 338.
22
Robin J. Moore Imperial India, 1858-1914 The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. III the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford 1999) p. 431.
23
Lawrence James The Rise & Fall of the British Empire (London 1998) p.231.
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8
Army. On the other hand, what made 1857 a watershed date in the eyes of later historians is the
significance it gained as a starting point to Indian nationalism. To the later Indian nationalists,
the revolt could be renamed the First War of Independence for the postfactum obviousness of the
eventual independence of India.
24
The rising educated middle class in India had seen once before
the beacon of independence and their newfound professional skill was the tool with which to
head to towards that beacon. It was still the British military and British determination to use
India as a moneymaker that stood in front of Indian independence, but the Empire was headed
toward the precipice of the twentieth century, which would determine their destinies.

24
Karl de Schweinitz Jr., The Rise & Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality (London 1983) p. 175.
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9
Bibliography

Bayley, C.A. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. The New Cambridge History
of India Vol II Pt. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988).
Cain, P.J. and Hopkins, A.G. British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914
(London: Longman Group 1993).
De Schweinitz, Karl, Jr. The Rise & Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality (London:
Methuen 1983).
James, Lawrence. The Rise & Fall of the British Empire (London: Abacus 1998).
Metcalf, Barbara D. and Metcalf, Thomas R., A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 2002).
Metcalf, Thomas R. Ideologies of the Raj. The New Cambridge History of India Vol III Pt. 4.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994).
Moore, Robin J., Imperial India, 1858-1914 The Oxford History of the British Empire Vol. III:
The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999).
Stokes, Eric. The English Utilitarians and India (Delhi: Oxford University Press 1989).
Washbrook, D.A. India, 1818-1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism The Oxford History of the
British Empire Vol. III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999).