Indian Mutiny 1857 1. The causes The causes of the Mutiny would be best known by the sepoys and other Indians. But Indian records of their experiences have been sparse for centuries. 1) Christopher Hibbert, author of The Great Indian Mutiny 1957 (1978) had remarked : “Compared to the vast amount of material composed for and by the English, the Indian documentation on the Mutiny is extremely scanty.”   2) Peter Liddle, author of 20 history books, and founder of the Liddle Collection of First World War materials at the University of Leeds, interviewed several Indian veterans who have lived in Britain for 50 years. He was bewildered and frustrated to find “they were woefully unable to express themselves in English”. When it came to 1857, Liddle noted the paucity of written material from the Indian side. [Daily Telegraph 13May06] 3) Andrew Ward, Our Bones are Scattered [New York, Henry Holt, 1996) acknowledged a “dearth of primary material from the Indian side of the equation”. The Indians at the time—at least those writing in English— “told the British only what they wanted to hear.” Ward added:  “Anyone who tries to tell the story of Cawnpore must subsist on a sometimes sparse diet of questionable depositions, muddled accounts, dubious journals, and the narratives of shell-shocked survivors with axes to grind” We are therefore left to make do with British sources, with a real risk of distorted and slanted accounts. In brief, the causes of the Mutiny were 1) the daily barrage of British racist abuse (verbal and physical) of the sepoys, 2) poor pay 3) the use of cow and pig fat on the cartridges. The British accounts shrink from using the word ‘racism’, they prefer softer substitutes. Hibbert wrote (p56): The British officers could actually swear at their men on parade, in the ‘most insulting language imaginable’. A British resident wrote: “The sepoy is [regarded as] an inferior creature. He is sworn at and treated roughly, called ‘nigger’, addressed as ‘suar’ (pig), an epithet most approbrious to the native, especially the Mussulman. The younger officers regard it as an excellent joke, as evidence of their superiority over the sepoy to treat him as an inferior animal.”  William Dalrymple’s The Last Moghul (Bloomsbury 2006) is a more recent and well received book. We will confine ourselves to his version (slightly edited for convenience): 1) The new Enfield rifle had grooved barrels, making them more accurate and longer ranged. But they were more difficult to load, requiring much grease. The cartridges were made at the Dumdum factory in Calcutta. The greasy coating of the cartridge was deeply unpleasant to put in the mouth and thoroughly repellent to bite. Moreover, the grease was made from a mixture of cow and pig fat – defiling to both Hindus and Muslims. The ingredients were quickly changed and sepoys were allowed to make up their own lubricant of beeswax and ghee. But the damage was done. The British policy was to recruit mostly from higher caste Hindus who were more ritually sensitive. In some regiments, upper caste Hindus made up some 80% of the recruits. 2) the sepoys long resented the regulations and poor pay. The value of sepoys’ pay had seriously declined and perks like free postage and wartime allowance had been whittled away. The General Service Enlistment Act required sepoys to be prepared to serve abroad. Crossing Kala Pani (Black Water) was taboo for high caste Hindus. (They had to cross the seas to Rangoon in the second Burmese War.) 3) The Company was now actively recruiting men of low caste as well as Gurkahs and Sikhs whose fighting skills had impressed British officers. 4) The British officers had become distant, rude and dismissive. Earlier officers mixed with the sepoys, speak their language. [In common with British authors, Dalrymple refrain from terms like racist abuse that the officers heaped on the sepoys.] Rumblings of discontent grew. On 29 March at Barrackpore, one sepoy named Mangal Pandey called upon his mates to rise up. He shot and wounded two officers; he was tried and hanged. The Officers earnestly asked for the withdrawal of the new rifles but they were ignored. BY the end of April 1857, the Third Light Infantry refused to fire the cartridge. On 9th May, placards appeared in the Meerut bazaar calling on all true Mussulmans to rise up and slaughter the Christians. The Meerut sepoys decided to rise and massacre the whole Christian community of the station. Another group also rushed to Delhi in search of the last Mughal Emperor. The Mutiny had begun.