War of Independence 1857

Indian Rebellion 1857

Introduction

The Indian Rebellion or War of Independence is considered to be a movement of attaining freedom from the British in the Subcontinent. It was initiated in Meerut in May of 1857. This rebellion presented a significant threat to the subcontinent which went on for a year until the British overcame the mutiny in June 1858. The planning of the War was being done since a year before its initiation and it was supposed to be a warning to the British regarding numerous matters. The people of the subcontinent had been oppressed long enough on the basis of their cultural and religious as well as economical practices, which finally resulted in an outburst by the people of the sub continent.

Discussion

There had been various causes of the war.

Military Causes

One of the major causes of the war was the forceful implementation of the British on the British army of the subcontinent to make use of greased cartridges, which were made up of cow fat and pig. The two major religions of the subcontinent were Hindus and Muslims. In the Hindu religion, the cow is considered to be a sacred animal as one of their Gods reflected a cow. And in the Muslim religion, it is prohibited to even taste the prig meat. In order to use the cartridge, a soldier was required to break its top seal with its mouth (Embree, A. T. 1963). Thus, this was not acceptable to either of the religions and as a result the soldiers became outraged. In addition to that, the Indian military was divided according to different presidencies and the Bengal presidency was known to be the largest. Under this, the high caste Bengalis were hired as irregular units and with greater powers and the rest were recruited as regular units. The problem was that the regular units were low paid and did not possess the right to hold a lot land under their names. This was also seen as one of the issues in the initiation of the war. The regular units managed to earn more through Bhattas which was money taken from the Indian people in order to allow them to work peacefully. The GSE Act implemented by the British also stopped this income as now the missions of the soldiers were not considered to be foreign missions and thus only the taxes would have to be given to the British (Embree, A. T., 1963).

The policy of agrarian implemented by the British created an enormous anguish within the Indian ranks. It deprived the Indians from their deserved lands and properties which had been owned by their families since centuries. The lands were forcedly taken by the British or otherwise a substantially heavy rate was imposed on the land, which could not afford it at all and eventually the eviction of the land or the farm was done. In addition to that, the import as well as the export policies of the British provided the British manufacturers with ...