Reginald Dyer (pictured) issued a proclamation banning any gatherings of four or more men and imposing an eight o’clock curfew. Those failing to comply risked being shot. Yet word reached Dyer that a gathering of about 5,000 men, women and children (Dyer’s estimate) had converged in a square at Jallianwala Bagh for a public meeting. The square was accessible only via a narrow gateway and otherwise was surrounded by walls. Dyer approached with a unit of about 90 soldiers, mainly Indians and Gurkhas. Although the gathering was unarmed and, it seemed, peaceful, Dyer feared that his small contingent of men would, if things got out of hand, soon be overwhelmed. Deciding attack was the best form of defence, he ordered, without warning, his men to open fire. Bedlam ensued.

With the only entrance blocked, there was no escape from the withering fire that lasted an entire quarter of an hour. People hid behind bodies, others were killed in the circling stampede. Dyer only ordered a stop when he feared his men would run out of ammunition. Without sanctioning any medical aid, Dyer ordered his men out. 379 were left dead, over 1,200 wounded. Dyer did not stop there; in the days that followed Dyer subjected miscreants, as he saw them, to public flogging.

Mistaken concept of duty

At the resultant enquiry, General Dyer was censured for ‘acting out of a mistaken concept of duty’ but survived unpunished. The British press was outraged – not by the lack of punishment but that the British establishment had failed to condone his actions. The Morning Post launched a campaign, raising over £26,000 for the beleaguered general, as they saw him; Rudyard Kipling being one such giver. Reginald Dyer quietly took early retirement and died eight years later humbled perhaps but unrepentant. Indeed, his only regret was that ‘I didn’t have time to do more’.

(Pictured, the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial).

Amritsar was systematic of all that was wrong in post-First World War British India. Mahatma Gandhi wrote of the massacre, ‘We do not want to punish Dyer; we have no desire for revenge. We want to change the system that produced Dyer.’

Amritsar confirmed an uncomfortable truism – that ultimately British rule in India was dependent on force.

Gathered together in one collection, 60 of Rupert Colley’s history articles, The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century. Also available in paperback and ebook formats.

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Much of India, at the time, was governed by the East India Company. The monolithic, monopolizing commercial company with its own army had become the de facto rulers of the country on behalf of the British government. The town of Vellore, in southeast India, contained a large fort garrisoned by some 380 British soldiers and 1,500 sepoys. Incarcerated within the fort of Vellore, although in considerable comfort, were the sons, families and servants of Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, who had been killed by the British in battle in 1799. (Pictured the Vellore Fort today)

Religious sensibilities

In 1806, as in 1857, the Indian soldiers, sepoys, feared the British were attempting to undermine their religions in order to convert them to Christianity. A new dress code, introduced in 1805 by the commander-in-chief of the Madras Army, General Sir John Craddock, forbade Hindu soldiers from sporting any caste marks on their foreheads, banned the wearing of earrings and proposed that turbans be replaced by a round hat. Muslim soldiers were to shave off their beards and trim their moustaches. Craddock, in issuing his directive, was going against advice from his Military Board who warned that local religious sensibilities be respected.

United by their grievances, Hindu and Muslim sepoys decided to act. An initial protest resulted in a number of sepoys being lashed.

But in the early hours of 10 July 1806, the rebel sepoys launched their main attack on the fort. The rebels looted and killed, and barged into the garrison’s hospital where they slaughtered men in their hospital beds. 200 British soldiers were killed or wounded. The sepoys declared the eldest son of Tipu Sultan their new leader, hoisting Tipu’s flag atop the fort.

Rescue

The British took refuge on the fort’s ramparts. One soldier escaped, took to his horse and galloped the sixteen miles to the garrison based at Arcot to call for help. A small relieving force of about twenty men, led by Sir Rollo Gillespie, quickly made their appearance at Vellore. (Born in Comber in County Down, Northern Ireland, a statue of Gillespie standing upon a 55-foot high column today dominates the town square, pictured).

Climbing up the ramparts to aid the stricken British still clinging on, Gillespie led a bayonet charge to keep the sepoys at bay. More reinforcements arrived in larger numbers, blowing down the garrison gates and setting upon the rebellious sepoys. By 2 pm, the rebellion had been quashed. Retribution was swift and merciless; executions plentiful. The Vellore Mutiny was over.

Tipu Sultan’s sons and their retinues were resettled in Calcutta. The British certainly did not want to risk them becoming a rallying point again.

Rupert Colley.

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In April 1756, the nawab (provincial governor) of Bengal died and the throne passed to his 23-year-old grandson, Siraj-ud-Daulah (pictured), a name that was soon to become infamous in Britain as the ultimate in perfidy and cruelty. The British had been hastily strengthening Fort William in Calcutta (Kolkata) against possible future French incursion into the city. When Siraj-ud-Daulah demanded that the British desist, the British refused – it was they, after all, that had, in 1690, established Calcutta in the first place. Siraj-ud-Daulah marched into the city with 50,000 men and 500 elephants and, imposing his authority, took it with relative ease.

Black Hole

The British fled – but not all managed to escape in time. On 20 June 1756, those left behind, 146 soldiers and civilians, including two women, surrendered. Despite assurances that they would be protected, they were imprisoned on the apparent orders of Siraj-ud-Daulah in a tiny cell within Fort William measuring only 18 feet by 14 feet, 10 inches, with only two small windows. Screams and appeals for water were ignored. The prisoners were left to suffocate in the oppressive summer heat, sucking the perspiration from their shirts for liquid or drinking their own urine.

When, the following morning, the door was opened only 43 were still alive. The dead, with no room to fall, remained on their feet. One of the survivors was John Zephaniah Holwell, an Irish-born doctor and commander of the city and a future, albeit briefly, governor of Bengal. Returning to England eight months later, Holwell spent the five-month voyage writing up the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta in his narrative, A Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole. Holwell writes of ‘a night of horrors [which] I will not attempt to describe, as they bar all description’, and then proceeds to describe the night in detail.

Exaggeration

Holwell’s tale caused uproar in Britain. It was not for another century and a half that historians began to question Holwell’s account, pointing to various flaws in his account. If not the event itself, then certainly the numbers involved were questioned – no more than sixty-nine could possibly have been imprisoned. Holwell may well have exaggerated the event as a means of deflecting blame for having surrendered in the first place. The Nawab was shown to have had no knowledge or input into the incarceration of the prisoners.

But in 1756, people were too busy braying for Siraj-ud-Daulah’s blood to be too concerned about precise numbers or details. British pride had to be restored and it was to Robert Clive they turned.

Battle of Plassey

In January 1757, Clive (pictured) retook Calcutta without difficulty, forcing Siraj-ud-Daulah to flee.

Six months later, on 23 June 1757, in a village called Plassey (now Palashi), 90 miles north of Calcutta, the opposing armies met. Clive’s force of just 3,000 men seemed, on paper at least, outnumbered 17 to 1 by Siraj-ud-Daulah’s 50,000 men, which included a sizeable French element. But Clive had struck a bargain with Siraj-ud-Daulah’s disaffected army chief, Mir Jafar.

As battle was joined, Mir Jafar held his men back and Siraj-ud-Daulah’s men, poorly trained, ill-equipped, and many dosed up on opium, were no match for the British who suffered little more than 70 killed or wounded. The Indian commanders strode around on bejewelled elephants intended to instill fear in the enemy but the British simply shot at the beasts causing them to stampede and wreak havoc within the Indian lines. Siraj-ud-Daulah, who had fled the field of battle on a camel, was soon caught and, on 2 July 1757, executed.

Britain had got its revenge and the Battle of Plassey ensured that it was the British, in the guise of the East India Company, that now oversaw the administration of Bengal, an area the size of France and Germany combined. Clive was appointed governor and ensured that his puppet, the new nawab, Mir Jafar, paid his dues.

The Monument

Meanwhile, John Zephaniah Holwell commissioned an obelisk, erected at the site of the Black Hole of Calcutta, to commemorate those who lost their lives that night. It was removed in 1821.

In 1902, the new Indian viceroy, Lord Curzon, ordered that a replica should be built on the same spot. In 1940, at the insistence of the Indian independence movement, the memorial was moved to the grounds of St John’s Church in Calcutta, a church built by the East India Company in the 1780s, where it can still be seen today.

Rupert Colley.

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An Indian Sepoy, c1835.

By 1857, the East India Company, the monolithic, monopolizing commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto ruler of the country on behalf of the British government, ruled two-thirds of India. The remaining third was overseen by Indian princes who paid tribute to the British. That the East India Company could maintain its authority was down to the might of its huge army, consisting of 45,000 Europeans and 230,000 Indian sepoys. While most sepoys were glad and even proud to serve in the army, their loyalty to it always took second place to their religion

Religious sensibilities

Sepoys of all faiths were concerned for their respective religions. The prospect of being made to serve overseas, for example, alarmed Hindu sepoys as travelling over water was a compromise of caste. (Similar grievances led to a much smaller rebellion, the Vellore Mutiny, in 1806).

Their fears were not without foundation – there was among the British an evangelical element keen on converting the Indian masses to Christianity and persuading them to turn their backs on the ‘monsters of lust, injustice, wickedness and cruelty’, to use William Wilberforce (1759-1833)’s phrase to describe Hindu divinities. In the early nineteenth century, the British had outlawed various religious traditions and were now spreading their influence, building Christian schools and snatching orphaned Indian children to be brought up as Christians. (A Western education, the British believed, would eventually lead to greater responsibility and equip the Indian for eventual self-rule.)

The British were also rapidly expanding Indian infrastructure on Western lines – expanding the network of railways and roads. The Hindus, in adhering to their caste system, could not tolerate such an imposition on their tradition – Hindus of differing castes could not share the same road, let alone the same train. The British, they assumed, were trying to destroy the caste system.

Unrest

The first symptom of unrest came in January 1857, when the recently-opened telegraph office in Barrackpore was burned down as a protest against the march of Westernized progress. Two months later, on 29 March 1857, a 29-year-old sepoy called Mangal Pandey (pictured), stoned with opium and brandishing a sword and a musket, urged his fellow sepoys to rebel. He wounded two officers by sword before turning the gun on himself, attempting to pull the trigger with his toe. He fired but managed only to wound himself. He was hanged for his efforts and was soon to become a martyr to the rebels’ cause.

The Rifle

But it was something rather mundane that sparked the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The sepoys had been issued with a new Enfield rifle. In order to use the rifle, the soldier had to bite off the end of a lubricated cartridge before inserting the powder into the weapon. The problem was that the grease used to seal the cartridge was made from animal fat – both cow, a sacred beast to Hindus, and pork, an insult to the Muslim soldiers. The East India Company made amends by substituting the forbidden fats with that of sheep or, instead, beeswax. Too late. The sepoys saw it as another example of a deliberate ploy to undermine their respective religions and to convert them, through this perfidious route, to Christianity. The fact this was not the case did nothing to squash the rumour.

On the evening of 9 May 1857, 85 Indian dissenters in Meerut, 40 miles from Delhi, who had been court-martialled for refusing to touch the new cartridges, were marched onto a parade ground, stripped of their uniforms, shackled with fetters and thrown into jail to serve sentences from five to ten years. Yet these were not recalcitrant men seething with anger but loyal subjects of the Company’s army who obeyed every order but simply could not defile their religion.

When, that evening, Lieutenant Hugh Gough (later a general and recipient of the Victoria Cross) was warned by a sepoy of the impending mutiny in Meerut, he rushed to tell his senior officers only to have his concerns brushed aside.

Mutiny

On the late afternoon of the following day, 10 May, as the British residents prepared to go to evening song, the Indian comrades of the imprisoned sepoys broke open the jail and together they revolted, dragging the British out and hacking them to death. The violence was swift and intense; civilians joining the sepoys in an orgy of killing and arson. (Pictured: a bungalow at Meerut being attacked).

None who came within sight of the enraged horde were spared – the sick, the pregnant and the very young were among the victims. Two particular atrocities inflamed the passions of the British – Mrs Chambers, a pregnant woman whose unborn baby was ripped from her womb, and Mrs Dawson, recovering from smallpox, who was burnt to death. Fifty or more were left dead. Come late evening, the rebels took to their horses and made for Delhi forty miles away.

Put the English to death

Upon arriving in the capital, the rebels sought to restore the old Mughal Empire and have the 82-year-old Bahadur Shah II as their figurehead. Bahadur Shah had had to suffer a demotion in title, the British stripping him of the title emperor and proclaiming him ‘merely’ the King of Delhi. Having been pensioned off by the British, he was content to wile away his remaining years writing poetry and painting. When the rebels made their demands, he reluctantly gave them his support and issued a proclamation declaring a holy war and urging his ‘subjects’ to rise up and ‘put the English to death’.

It would take two years and two months before the British were able to proclaim: ‘War is at an end; [the] rebellion is put down.’

*The name ‘Indian Mutiny’, as it was taught to generations of British schoolchildren, has a very Eurocentric ring to it; Indians prefer to call it the First War of Independence or the First Nationalist Uprising.

Rupert Colley.

Gathered together in one collection – 60 of Rupert Colley’s articles: The Savage Years: Tales From the 20th Century.

The post Indian Mutiny – a brief outline first appeared on Rupert Colley.

The post Indian Mutiny – a brief outline appeared first on Rupert Colley.

The sepoys had been issued with a new Enfield rifle. In order to use the rifle, the soldier had to bite off the end of a lubricated cartridge before inserting the powder into the weapon. The problem was that the grease used to seal the cartridge was made from animal fat – both cow, a sacred beast to Hindus, and pork, an insult to the Muslim soldiers.

The East India Company, the monolithic, monopolising commercial company that conducted trade in India and had become the de facto rulers of India acting on behalf of the British government, made amends by substituting the forbidden fats with that of sheep or beeswax. Too late. The sepoys saw it as a deliberate ploy to undermine their respective religions and to convert them, through this perfidious route, to Christianity. The fact this was not the case did nothing to squash the rumour.

The first symptom of unrest came in January 1857, when the recently-opened telegraph office in Barrackpore (now Barrackpur, about 15 miles from Kolkata, or Calcutta) was burned down as a protest against the march of Westernization.

Two months later, on 29 March 1857, also at Barrackpore, a 29-year-old sepoy called Mangal Pandey, staged, in effect, a one-man rebellion. Born 19 July 1827, Mangal Pandey had joined the 34th Bengal Native Infantry regiment of the British East India Company, aged 22, in 1849.

Religious frenzy

Mangal Pandey (pictured), apparently stoned with opium and brandishing a sword and a musket on a parade ground, urged his fellow sepoys to rebel and vowed to kill the first white person he saw. Sure enough, when a mounted British officer appeared on the scene, Pandey shot at him but managed only to fell the horse. He then slashed at the officer with his sword, injuring him, and next wounding the officer’s adjutant. Another officer ordered a junior native officer to subdue and arrest Pandey but was met with refusal.

An officer in charge, General Hearsey, who later described Pandey as having being in the throes of a ‘religious frenzy’, appeared on the scene and, waving his pistol, managed to restore order. Pandey, finding himself alone, turned his musket on himself, pressed it against his chest, and, using his toe, pulled the trigger. Although injured and having set his tunic ablaze, he failed to kill himself and was promptly arrested.

Court Martial

Pandey was court martialled on 6 April. At his hearing he insisted he had acted alone and in the name of India. He was due to be hanged on 18 April but the British, fearful of further unrest, brought forward the date of execution and Pandey was hanged on 8 April 1857.

Deemed unreliable and a disgrace, Pandey’s regiment was disbanded but Pandey had become a martyr to the rebels’ cause.

127 years later, on 5 October 1984, the Indian government issued a stamp commemorating Mangal Pandey and his solitary act of defiance.

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