What precisely occurred in India in 1857? Did the country experience a “sepoy mutiny”, a “war of independence”, a revolt or an uprising? This and related questions continue to be posed by historians regarding the violent insurrection in India in the years 1857-58.
More than a century and a half after the events, scholars are also not united in defining them or even deciding whether they constituted a definite landmark in India’s colonial history. One of the papers in the first volume, for instance, questions whether 1857 was quite the turning point in the administration of India as it has traditionally been made out to be.
One line these volumes pursue is the view that 1857 was not a single event but rather the culmination of a series of events that go back much further into time and have deeper roots. Also questioned is the greased cartridge theory of the cause of the uprising, which, according to the editor, “posited an entirely irrational and religious cause for the insurrection” and thereby “obviated the need to enquire too deeply into the malpractices, maladministration and exploitative practices of the East India Company’s rule in north India.”
The volumes take their name from a research project at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, timed to coincide with the 150 historians from the UK, India, and other parts of the world to deal with the complexity of the issue and go beyond nationalistic narratives of the events. The idea, as series editor Crispin Bates puts it, was also “to challenge conventional nationalist and imperialist perspectives and to dispel some of the myths that often still dominate popular and academic accounts.”
The result of this project is an immensely interesting collection of viewpoints, debates and insights into little known and much debated aspects of the 1857 events. While some of the essays discussing the more esoteric theoretical aspects of the 1857 events would leave the average reader cold, many of the other essays would prove both riveting and insightful.
How complex factors might have instigated discontent among Indian sepoys is brought out in several essays in the first volume, including a particularly entertaining one on the role of a Meerut prostitute known as Mees Dolly, a European widow of a British Army sergeant who had “turned sour”. Mees Dolly was accused of murdering two other prostitutes perhaps to prevent knowledge of the impending uprising leaking out to the British. Other fascinating accounts include those on the effect of peasant discontent, the role of the police in Delhi during the tumultuous times, the religious aspects of the uprising and how those events were depicted in Urdu literature. In the volume Britain and the Indian Uprising the editors explain why the events were so traumatic for the British: “This was the first experience of ‘total war’ for the British, and the first — since the English civil war of 1642 — in which British civilians were seriously caught up in the front line of conflict alongside officers and soldiers.”
News of the conflict, especially the massacre of British civilian women and children, travelled relatively quickly to Britain, leading to much public agitation and demands for retribution. “Although some of the most salacious atrocity stories of rape and mutilation — whipped up to inspire the British troops (and popular support for the metropole) — proved subsequently to be inaccurate, the level of brutality and carnage on both sides left an indelible stain on Anglo-Indian relations and made the mutiny one of the most emotive and controversial events in both British and Indian history”, the editors write. This volume focuses on the British views of the uprising and subsequent rethinking on them.
The third volume on Global Perspectives not just deals with the varying perceptions of the uprising outside Britain and India but also explores the effects of British mutiny propaganda disseminated all around the world and related issues. One essay on the Irish nationalist support for the uprising quotes placards and wall writing, one of which proclaimed: “Glorious news! England defeated! God bless the rebels of India! Hurrah for freedom! Success to the gallant sepoys! Irishmen! Now’s the time. Strike for your country!”