Mutiny or Revolution? The Consequences of Events in India in 1857

Florian Blackburn

The focus of this project is on both the nature and consequences, for India, of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Classic British historians have offered a clear simplistic view that events should be classed as a Mutiny. However, I focus on the debate between the Indian historians that emerged in the twentieth century. I conclude that the events of 1857 must be characterised initially as a military Mutiny, but later as a collective conservative rebellion for the protection of religion, and the rejection of British rule. I go on to discuss the short term effects, looking at the social and military reform undertaken by the British, which represents how their attitudes to the culture and native peoples of India was shifted by the uprising against British rule. This shift moves away from legislative reforms imposed from above, to focus on shifting young Indian’s attitudes gradually and naturally, through Victorian style education. Furthermore I discuss the short term reorganisation of the Indian militaries, and how the events in 1857 led to the development of a material race ideology. Lastly, I discuss how the Rebellion, and its consequences led to a national sentiment developing, which leads to the onset of the early Independence Movement.

Mutiny or Revolution? The Consequences of Events in India in 1857 Florian Blackburn Candidate Number: 7095 Centre Number: 61425 March 2015 Word count: 16,402 Florian Blackburn Contents Glossary ...............................................................................................................................3 Abstract ................................................................................................................................4 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 The Project ................................................................................................................................5 1.2 Events of 1857 ...........................................................................................................................6 1.3 Initial Impact .............................................................................................................................. 8 2. Literature Review .............................................................................................................9 2.1 Karl de Schweinitz Jr .................................................................................................................9 2.2 Gavin Rand ...............................................................................................................................9 2.3 Gregory Fremont-Barnes ..........................................................................................................9 2.4 Heather Streets ....................................................................................................................... 10 2.5 N. Jayapalan ........................................................................................................................... 10 2.6 R.C Majumdar .........................................................................................................................10 2.7 Saul David ................................................................................................................................11 2.8 Surendranath Sen .................................................................................................................... 11 2.9 Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi ........................................................................................ 12 2.10 Thomas R. Metcalf ................................................................................................................12 2.11 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar ...................................................................................................12 3. Discussion ...................................................................................................................... 14 3.1 Nature and Nomenclature .......................................................................................................14 3.2 Social Reform .........................................................................................................................18 3.2.1 Attitude to Religion ...........................................................................................................18 3.2.2 Education ........................................................................................................................19 3.2.3 Indian Aristocracy ............................................................................................................20 3.2.4 Indians in Administration ..................................................................................................21 3.3 The Army ..................................................................................................................................22 3.3.1 Structural reorganisation ................................................................................................. 22 3.3.2 Shift in Recruiting — Material Race Ideology ................................................................. 24 3.4 Inﬂuence on Independence Movement ....................................................................................27 4. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 28 5. Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 30 6. Project Proposal Form ................................................................................................... 32 6.1 Section one: title, objective ......................................................................................................32 6.2 Section two: reasons for choosing this project ........................................................................32 6.3 Section three: activities and timescales .................................................................................. 33 6.4 Section four: resources ...........................................................................................................34 6.5 Comments and agreement from tutor-assessor ...................................................................... 34 6.6 Comments and agreement from project proposal checker ......................................................34 7. Activity Log .................................................................................................................... 35 Page 2 ! Florian Blackburn Glossary Bahadur — a great man, brave Caste — ascribed ritual status in the Hindu social hierarchy The Company — The East India Company Governor-General — the chief administrator of the East India Company’s Indian territories; renamed Viceroy after the Crown takeover in 1858 Maharaja — Indian prince Mughal — a member of the Mughal Empire, a Muslim dynasty that conquered and ruled India prior to the Raj Nawab — a male, semi-autonomous Muslim ruler of a princely state in South Asia Mutiny — an open rebellion against the proper authorities, especially by soldiers or sailors against their ofﬁcers Nation — A collection of people united by religion, a racial, or an ethnic, group within a speciﬁc border Oudh/Oude — the British spelling for the province of Awadh Raj — the term for the British government of India after 1858 Raja — Indian king or prince, a princely ruler Revolution — a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system Sanskrit — an ancient Indo-European language of India, in which the Hindu scriptures and classical Indian epic poems are written and from which many northern Indian (Indic) languages are derived Sepoy — Indian soldier serving under British rule Swadharma — translates as own duty, the action which one feels compelled to do Swaraj — self government Tallow — a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet Taluqdar — a superior zamindar , someone with proprietary rights in land who collected rent on behalf of the government from other landlords; taluqdars of different provinces had different rights, the taluqdars of Oudh were some of the most powerful Viceroy — a regal ofﬁcial who runs a country, colony, or province as representative of a monarch Zamindar/Zemindar — a land owning aristocrat, typically hereditary, who had control over and collected tax off the peasants Page 3 ! Florian Blackburn Abstract The focus of this project is on both the nature and consequences, for India, of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Classic British historians have offered a clear simplistic view that events should be classed as a Mutiny. However, I focus on the debate between the Indian historians that emerged in the twentieth century. I conclude that the events of 1857 must be characterised initially as a military Mutiny, but later as a collective conservative rebellion for the protection of religion, and the rejection of British rule. I go on to discuss the short term effects, looking at the social and military reform undertaken by the British, which represents how their attitudes to the culture and native peoples of India was shifted by the uprising against British rule. This shift moves away from legislative reforms imposed from above, to focus on shifting young Indian’s attitudes gradually and naturally, through Victorian style education. Furthermore I discuss the short term reorganisation of the Indian militaries, and how the events in 1857 led to the development of a material race ideology. Lastly, I discuss how the Rebellion, and its consequences led to a national sentiment developing, which leads to the onset of the early Independence Movement. Page 4 ! Florian Blackburn 1. Introduction 1.1 The Project Throughout this project I will refer to the events in 1857 with a number of different names, notably the Mutiny, Revolution, Revolt, and Rebellion. I do this to aid the ﬂow of the project, meaning in certain cases this must not be construed literally as my personal opinion. My own opinion is voiced in the abstract and S.4 Conclusion. I ﬁrst became interested in the Indian Mutiny after watching the BBC documentary: The Birth of Empire: The East India Company. Initially I researched the Company’s global impact, but became more interested in its downfall. This led me to discover the debate over the nature and nomenclature of events in 1857, and how perceptions of history differ between different cultures. The focus of this project is on both the nature and consequences of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Due to the richness of the subject I will be limiting the scope to focusing on the impact in India, rather than discussing the impact globally, or on the British Empire. Equally the project does not assess the long term impact of the British Raj as this in itself would constitute a separate study. Therefore the consequences to be discussed will be ﬁrmly within the nineteenth century. This area of Indian history is much debated by academics, with a number of theses being written about the period, especially on the reforms of the military. But the topic is seldom discussed in British schools at Alevel. Therefore I come to the topic with no prior knowledge of Indian culture or history during the late nineteenth century. Going into this project I have set myself three key aims. Firstly, in order to understand the impact of this history one has to understand how the event is viewed, especially as this area offers much debate between both British historians, and the early Indian historians. Secondly I want to investigate how and why the British attitude to India was shifted by the events of 1857. The third key aim will be in investigating how the post-Mutiny reforms led to the development of the national sentiment in India. I believe in order to understand the project, background information about the events of 1857 must be understood. I have outlined this in S.1.2 Events of 1857. I go on to point out the short term consequences of the Mutiny — to which there is little debate in S.1.3 Initial Impact. This section is not included in the discussion because there is minimal controversy, and has limited scope for discussion. Page 5 ! Florian Blackburn 1.2 Events of 1857 This section is included to offer the reader a brief explanation of the events of 1857, focusing on the East India Company, the short term causes, and the Mutiny itself. There is little doubt that the East India Company was one of the most economically successful and inspirational ventures ever undertaken, leaving behind a legacy not only for India and Britain, but for the World. The company was the pioneer of globalisation, and it created unprecedented wealth for Britain; not only in a monetary sense, but in a cultural sense, by exporting goods from the Far East to Britain. One of the most famous goods imported by Britain was tea which caused “a tea culture [to] emerge in Britain with its own quintessentially English customs and rituals.”1 The Company also formed the structural inspiration for the modern corporation, leaving behind a legacy which can now be seen across the world in every continent. In India it started promoting Victorian values through a new education system, introduced in the 1830s, which trickled down from its elite starting position to education in India for all. Oindrila Gooptu, a contemporary teacher from La Martiniere College in Lucknow, described the modern effect of this education system as the “doors opening out to the Western World.”2 This is evident because it led to Indian children growing up with English as their ﬁrst language. In the modern world a common language is a huge advantage as it increases geographical mobility. A further key impact of the Company was the inception of national communications across India, including the railways, telegraph, and postal systems. Equally important was the establishment of British administration, which created an Indian class of bureaucrats, and aided the transition of the Company to the British Government post 1857. These legacies owed themselves to the continued expansion of the East Indian Company. To expand and compete the Company needed its own army to battle other colonies, namely the French, for control in India. The Company’s own personal army, primarily set up to guard buildings, was composed of 280,000 men by 1857, larger than most European Armies.3 Ninety-six percent of the personnel in the army composed of Indians, known as sepoys. Professor Saul David argues the leadership of the army was not a proliﬁc role in the Company, so many with aspiration and drive (necessary to have made the journey to India) moved out of the role for civil or staff employ. This therefore limited the quality of ofﬁcers remaining, and meant those who were left behind “treated the sepoys with contempt.”4 This created a considerable gulf between the ofﬁcers and sepoys. Any army relies on trust and respect between those giving and those receiving orders, however, this respect did not exist in 1857. A further reason for the lack of respect developing, was the British promotion of Christianity. The sepoys were a mixture between Hindus and Muslims, two deeply embed religions throughout India. The religious sentiment is important in understanding the spark of the Mutiny. In 1856 the British introduced the Pattern 1853 Enﬁeld riﬂe to Sepoys. One of the innovations included was the use of paper cartridges that came pre-greased. Initially the Company made the mistake of greasing the cartridges with tallow, which derives from beef. To ﬁre the riﬂe, a Sepoy must ﬁrst bite the cartridge, and then pour the contents down the barrel. It would be unacceptable for any Hindu to insert any product from the cow, a sacred animal in the Hindu faith, into their mouth. The company realised their mistake, and recalled the cartridges, but it was too late, the damage had been done and rumour “spread like wildﬁre”5 that the cartridges were greased with 1 Bl.uk, (2015). Global Trade and Empire. [online] Available at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/asians/ empire/theempire.html [Accessed 3 Feb. 2015] 2 The Birth of Empire: The East India Company, Episode 2. (2014). [video] BBC, Executive Producer: John Farren. 3 Ibid 4 Ibid, comment from Prof. Saul David, University of Buckingham 5 Metcalf, T. (1964). The Aftermath of Revolt. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press p. 48 Page 6 ! Florian Blackburn both beef and pork fat. This therefore alienated both Hindus and Muslims, and compounded their view that the British were trying to destroy their religion and replace it with Christianity. This was a view that developed due to the aggressive social reforms of the Company in the early nineteenth century. The rumours led to a number of small scale sepoy rebellions against British Ofﬁcers between February and March. The British reacted with severe punishment, namely the hanging of Mungal Pandy, a Bengali sepoy who mutinied two weeks earlier, on 8 April.6 Pandy became a Martyr, and offered inspiration for other sepoys to follow his example. On 10 May, eighty-ﬁve Sepoys refused to use the cartridges, and were subsequently “placed in irons and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.”7 On the 11 May, their fellow Sepoys rose up, released the prisoners, and started marching to Delhi, where they massacred all European Christians. Once they arrived in Delhi, the last surviving Emperor of the Mughal Dynasty, Bahadur Shah II, an 82 year old man, was proclaimed leader of the revolt.8 At the end of May, sepoys had mutinied in Agra, Lucknow, and through Rohilkhand.9 The British were hugely outnumbered, usually meaning there only option was to ﬂee. By the end of the year the rising had spread throughout Northern and Central India, where not just sepoys rose, but sections of the community too. However, importantly, the Punjab stayed loyal to the British. The region had only recently been conquered (1849) and therefore the Punjabis didn't share the same sentiments as other sepoys. Furthermore they detested Muslim rule under the Mughals. The early support of the Punjab was key for the reputation of the Sikhs as a material race post Mutiny. The Mutiny was not suppressed until 20 June 1858, but ended in British victory. 6 Fremont-Barnes, G. (2007). The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58. Oxford: Osprey Pub p.11 7 Metcalf p.48 8 Ibid p.48-49 9 Fremont-Barnes p.11 Page 7 ! Florian Blackburn 1.3 Initial Impact Throughout the eighteenth century the Mughal Empire was experiencing decline through a number of wars with the Persians, Marathas, British, and French. This caused “devolution of real power to the lower levels of sovereignty,”10 meaning many Rajas broke away and formed independent kingdoms. However, “not only Muslim nawabs but Maratha and Sikh leaders took part in ceremonial acknowledgments of the Mughal Emperor as the ultimate repository of sovereignty.”11 This meant the Mughal Empire, although severely weakened continued to survive. The end of the dynasty was marked by the exile of the last Mughal, Bahada Shah II to Burma, on 14 September 1858,12 he died, stripped of all titles, in 1862. This formal ending of the Mughal Dynasty can be seen as one of the immediate consequences of the events in 1857. Between 1773 and 1857 the British government passed eight Acts of Parliament concerning the Company. Many of these were used to increase government control over both the Company and of India itself. This, therefore, meant that after the Mutiny, the nationalisation of the East India Company, through the Government of India Act of 1858, was almost a formality. This was one of the ﬁrst key consequences of the events of 1857. The company was ofﬁcially disbanded at the end of its charter in 1874 after continuing to serve the tea market in India. The transformation marked the end of Company Rule, and the beginning of the British Raj, the second key consequence of the events of 1857. The British Prime Minister at the time, Benjamin Disraeli, created the Indian Ofﬁce charged with managing the government of Indian from Britain. The Indian Ofﬁce was initially led by the ﬁrst Secretary of State for India, Lord Stanley. He worked from Britain and had command over the leadership in India. This leadership was headed by the Viceroy and Governor General for India, who was responsible for the administration of British provinces. The transfer of power was signiﬁcant for two key reasons. Firstly because it gained support from the Indian people, and secondly because it marked the beginning of British Imperial India, which would survive until 1947. The transfer of power was announced to the Indian people in November 1858 with the Queen’s Proclamation of Crown Rule. Karl de Schweinitz Jr highlights the account of Romesh Dutt, an early Indian nationalist leader, who claimed the announcement of the Queen’s Proclamation was “one of the happiest days of my boyhood”.13 Schweinitz proposes a number of explanations for this reaction. One is the promise for equal opportunity for employment for Indians in the ofﬁces of service.14 Although this was most certainly not realised, it could have provided much encouragement for the aristocracy and educated classes in India at the time. A second explanation proposed is that Indians believed the mismanagement under the Company, caused by the commercial interests of the shareholders, would be rectiﬁed by the Queen. To some extent this is true, but amelioration of exploitation would be against the nature of imperialism. 10 Bose, S. and Jalal, A. (2004). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. 2nd ed. New York, London: Routledge, p.41 11 Ibid 12 Newworldencyclopedia.org, (2015). Bahadur Shah II - New World Encyclopedia. [online] Available at: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bahadur_Shah_II [Accessed 26 Feb. 2015]. 13 de Schweinitz Jr, K. (1983). The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality. New York: Methuen and Co p.176 14 “And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to ofﬁces in our service, the duties of which they may be qualiﬁed, by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge” En.wikisource.org, (2015). Queen Victoria's Proclamation - Wikisource, the free online library. [online] Available at: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria's_Proclamation [Accessed 31 Jan. 2015] Page 8 ! Florian Blackburn 2. Literature Review 2.1 Karl de Schweinitz Jr Karl de Schweinitz, Jr. was a lecturer of Economics at Northwestern University between 1949-1988. de Schweinitz served in the U.S. Army in World War II, then studied at Yale. I will use his book The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality. de Schweinitz’s credentials as an economic lecturer and member of the military would suggest he would be well placed to write on Empire, imperialism, and inequality. However due to very limited information, I cannot effectively evaluate his specialities or potential biases. The publishers: Methuen and Co, are a British publishing house based in London. They are not speciﬁcally a historical publisher, which limits their reliability. However, due to a lack of information of their bushiness at the time of publishing of this work, I cannot effectively judge the historical objectivity. I will use The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality throughout the text for general quotations, but the text has been most useful for my general understanding of events both before and after 1857. Equally the book has been useful in highlighting particular consequences which I could explore in more detail with other sources. 2.2 Gavin Rand Gavin Rand is a Professor of History at the University of Greenwich. He specialises in the “transmissions between Britain and empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the cultural history of the imperial military in South Asia.”15 Rand was awarded a doctorate from Manchester university in 2004. His thesis was: “A cultural history of the Indian Army in the late 19th century.”16 Rand has continued these studies by writing a number of papers dedicated to the subject of the Indian army. I am using his paper: Learning the Lessons of ’57: Reconstructing the Imperial Military after the Rebellion to discuss the reorganisation of the military post 1857, which it will be directly relevant to. Throughout the text Rand poses no obvious bias and as demonstrated above, Rand is a specialist in the subject. Therefore Rand’s work can be classed as both a useful and reliable source. 2.3 Gregory Fremont-Barnes The Indian Mutiny 1857-58 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes, is a school textbook, published by Osprey Publishing. Osprey Publishing is a market leading publishing company dedicated to military history. Fremont-Barnes holds a doctorate in Modern History from Oxford and is a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is an expert on eighteenth and nineteenth century military history, and the Indian Mutiny is one of his specialties. These credentials show the expertise of Fremont-Barnes and would suggest his work can be seen as a reliable source. However, Osprey Publishing is UK based, and is aimed at school children, therefore opening the possibility of bias. This is further compounded by the name of the book. By using the term ‘Mutiny’ in the title, and throughout, Fremont-Barnes sets out an imperial view from the British perspective. The textbook has direct relevance to my subject, but will be most relevant to my general understanding, rather than as a key historical view point. The fact that it is an ‘Essential Histories’ textbook means it will be much simpler to understand as it will be written for people who have no prior understanding of the subject. This limits the source in one way as it means there will be less 15 Rand, G. (2015). Gavin Rand, Academia.edu. [online] Gre.academia.edu. Available at: https:// gre.academia.edu/GavinRand [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015]. 16 Rand, G. (2015). Gavin Rand, Architecture, Computing & Humanities, University of Greenwich. [online] www2.gre.ac.uk. Available at: http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/faculty/ach/study/hpss/staff/gavin-rand [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015]. Page 9 ! Florian Blackburn depth and analysis. I will focus on two sections: one about the impact on the Raj, and one about the post-war reforms. This will provide further avenues of research, and aid me in understanding the reorganisation of the Sepoy Army. 2.4 Heather Streets Heather Streets is a Chair and Associate Professor of British Imperial History at Washington State University. She received a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1998, focusing on modern Britain and the British Empire. “Her current research interests [are] in studying imperialism and colonialism as global phenomena.”17 I will use her book: Martial Races: The Military, Martial Races, and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914. This was published by Manchester University Press in the UK in 2004. The publisher can be seen as a reliable source as one of their specialities is history, and the university is well respected world wide. Streets’ own credentials equally show her to be an expert in her ﬁeld, suggesting her work can be trusted to be reliable. I will use Streets’ work speciﬁcally in investigating the development of material race ideology as a consequence of events in 1857. 2.5 N. Jayapalan N. Jayapalan is Professor at the School of Fine Arts of the Government to Karur in Tamil Nadu, South East India. He completed a post-doctoral program in history at the Faculty of Pachaiyappa in Chennai at the University of Madras, where he went on further to study political science. Furthermore he gained an M.Phil at Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, in South East India. Jayapalan has presented seminars on Indian history, and has written over a hundred books on history and political science. Many of these books focus on the history and political science of India, meaning Jayapalan can be considered an expert in the subject. Through the small amount of Jayapalan’s work I read, I could ﬁnd no overt bias, therefore suggesting, this work can be classed as reliable. I have used his book: History of Education in India in exploring the inﬂuence the events of 1857 had on Indian education. Speciﬁcally I use Jayapalan to replace the primary source of Despatch of Stanley (1859), written by Lord Stanley, the ﬁrst Secretary of State for India. 2.6 R.C Majumdar The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857 by R.C Majumdar was published by Srimati S. Chaudhuri in Calcutta in 1857. Majumdar is a highly respected historian, with a number of impressive accolades. Firstly Majumdar was a Professor of history at both Calcutta University, and the University of Dacca. At Calcutta Majumdar got his doctorate for his thesis Corporate Life in Ancient India which was deemed to be particularly successful. In a review of Majumdar's other work, Charles H. Heimsath claims: “Majumdar’s reputation has been achieved by his notable and original work in ancient Indian history.”18 Furthermore Majumdar was elected the General President of the Indian History Congress, which is the largest body of Indian academic historians. This gives Majumdar a signiﬁcant amount of weight as a reliable historian in the study of events in 1857. The project of writing The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857 started soon after Indian Independence when Majumdar approached the government aiming for sponsorship to write a comprehensive study of the events of 1857. However relations broke down. This is explored further 17 Northwestern University, (2015). [online] Available at: http://nuweb.neu.edu/cssh/faculty/heather-streetssalter/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015]. 18 Review, History of the Freedom Movement in India by R. C. Majumdar, Review by: Charles H. Heimsath, , Vol. 69, No. 2 (Jan., 1964) , pp. 465-466, Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American, Historical Association [Accessed 4 Feb 2015] Page ! 10 Florian Blackburn in S.3.3 Nature and Nomenclature. After separating from the government, Majumdar goes on to write the history independently. This therefore adds to the historical reliability as Majumdar would no longer be contained by government. The book will be useful to explore the nature and nomenclature of events in 1857 as Majumdar discusses, in a dedicated chapter: the character of the outbreak of 1857. 2.7 Saul David Saul David is a Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham. He specialises in the “Indian Army and the Wars of Empire.”19 He read history at the University of Edinburgh and went onto achieve a doctorate at the University of Glasgow. I will use his theses: The Bengal army and the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny in discussing the reorganisation of the military after the events of 1857. As stated by the title, the thesis focuses mainly on reassessing the outbreak of the Mutiny though the Bengali perspective. However I will use the section of the thesis dedicated to The Peel Commission and the reforms of the military. Saul David’s thesis can be seen as a reliable source due to David’s experience, expertise, and lack of overt bias. 2.8 Surendranath Sen Eighteen Fifty-Seven, by Surendranath Sen, was the ﬁrst ofﬁcial history of the Mutiny, sponsored by the newly independent government of India in the 1950s, for publication on the Mutiny’s centenary. This raises a number of issues. Firstly, Sen was not the ﬁrst historian to be consulted, he was only appointed after relations between Majumdar and the government collapsed. According to Majumdar, the government of India held a pre-established view on events in 1857 that led him to be unable to work with them. This raises the question of Sen’s own objectivity. Sen holds a different view to Jawaharlal Nehru, the ﬁrst Prime Minister of India, on the outbreak of the Mutiny, but has similar views on its nature. This could lead one to believe Sen was willing to negotiate with, or inﬂuence the Government. This therefore means caution must be exercised when assessing Sen’s work, especially when similarities arise between Sen and Nehru. The second issue is simply the fact the book was commissioned and published by the Government for the anniversary of 1857. A government sponsored work must be held in caution because a motive of sorts usually rests behind its making. However, in Sen’s case, a motive is not directly clear. Surendranath Sen, was a proliﬁc Indian historian who taught at both the University of Calcutta, and the University of Delhi. Sen has written “a number of major works, mostly on the history of the Marathas,”20 this is where he developed his reputation as a respected Indian historian. Therefore Eighteen Fifty-Seven has been hailed as an objective reassessment of the Mutiny. I am most interested in the chapter entitled Review, as Sen states his argument on the nature of the Mutiny, whilst equally rebuking others. This will therefore be particularly useful in discussing the nature and nomenclature of the Mutiny. 19 Buckingham.ac.uk, (2015). Professor Saul David | University of Buckingham. [online] Available at: http:// www.buckingham.ac.uk/research/hri/fellows/david [Accessed 2 Mar. 2015]. 20 TheFreeDictionary.com, (2015). Surendra Nath Sen. [online] Available at: http:// encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Surendra+Nath+Sen [Accessed 2 Mar. 2015]. Page 1 ! 1 Florian Blackburn 2.9 Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi “Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi is a writer, scholar, political scientist and educationalist.”21 His main speciality is the relationship between Pakistan and the US between 1947-65. However he has written papers on topics such as “India … Tribal Areas of Pakistan, War on Terror, [and] Afghanistan,”22 Currently he is an Associate Professor with the University of Peshawa. However he is still a fellow of Edinburgh University, which is where he completed his M.Phil and Ph.D. Soherwordi doesn’t specialise in the topic, but his expertise, and M.Phil particularly, show he can be seen as a reliable source. I could not decipher any overt bias in reading his work. I will use his paper, ‘Punjabisation’ in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan, which was published though the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Edinburgh, in discussing the military reforms after the Mutiny. The paper has been particularly useful in understanding the reorganisation of the military, which has allowed me two write S.3.3. 2.10 Thomas R. Metcalf Thomas R. Metcalf is the Professor of India Studies and Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley from 1962 to the present day. He was born in 1934, and was educated at Amherst College, the University of Cambridge and Harvard University.23 He teaches courses on The British Empire and Britain and the Commonwealth. These credentials suggest his work is reliable due to his extensive expertise and experience, and show Metcalf is a specialist in the period I am investigating. I am using his book The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857-1870 to investigate a number of consequences of events in 1857. The book was published by Princeton University Press in 1965. Princeton is one of the most famous and accredited universities in the world for the subject matter, and like Metcalf, is not open to any obvious bias. However caution must be raised due to the western leaning of both Princeton and Metcalf. I use Metcalf extensively for investigating the social reforms of the British post Mutiny, but also for my general understanding of the topic. Metcalf covers most of the period I am studying in this book, meaning it is especially useful to my general research. 2.11 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar A further source is The Indian War of Independence by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. This is a nationalistic book that was published in 1909. It was initially banned by the British in India, but smuggled in under the name “The Pickwick Papers”. Firstly, as evident from the title, this book claims the uprising in India in 1857 was not in fact a mutiny, but instead a war of Independence. Savarkar is not the only historian to believe this, he is joined by Surendranath Sen to name one, but the key difference between both works is Savarkar believes the uprising was nationalistic and uniﬁed. In understanding Savarkar’s argument we must ﬁrst asses his essay on the nature of writing a national history. Savarkar argues when writing the national history of India, the conﬂict between Hindus and Muslims must not be divided, but instead be written as the history of the “entire Hindu 21 Worldsecuritynetwork.com, (2015). Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi | Conﬂict Resolutions and World Security Solutions | worldsecuritynetwork.com. [online] Available at: http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/ author_bio/Shaheed-Soherwordi-Syed-Hussain [Accessed 3 Mar. 2015]. 22 South Asian Voices, (2015). Syed Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi. [online] Available at: http:// southasianvoices.org/author/soherwordi/ [Accessed 3 Mar. 2015]. 23 History.berkeley.edu, (2015). Thomas R. Metcalf | Department of History, UC Berkeley. [online] Available at: http://history.berkeley.edu/people/thomas-r-metcalf [Accessed 3 Mar. 2015]. Page ! 12 Florian Blackburn race, uniﬁed and consolidated as one entity.”24 Savarkar argues Muslims are the inferior race to Hindus as Hindus broke up Muslim rule through the decline of the Mughal Empire. This idea of superiority shows the potential for bias in Savarkar’s work, a point which Jyotirmaya Sharma extends: “Savarkar’s account of 1857 is replete with instances of "white ﬂesh" being slaughtered. It is a theme that is a constant refrain throughout the text. It is important to note that Savarkar’s politics was one that divided the world between "friend" and “foe"."25 Savarkar clearly saw the British as the foe, and felt through mutual hate of British rule, the Hindus and Muslims were united. However, by dividing between friend and foe, “Savarkar formulated his entire world view in terms of well-entrenched, non-negotiable, binary oppositions.”26 This severely limits the historical objectivity of Savarkar's work, and can lead one to critique Savarkar’s argument much more effectively. Furthermore, Savarkar wanted the book to create a united national feeling in India. He was a revolutionary and ﬁrmly believed in causing a second uprising, he knew the history of the past uprising was an effective way of attracting attention for revolt, and this was a key inspiration for his writing. This obviously creates the issue of potential bias. The book was openly written for a purpose, and was aimed at a speciﬁc audience. Therefore it can be seen to be bias towards the Hindu Indian cause, and any claim made in the book must be examined with the bias in mind. The book is useful for understanding the early nationalist feelings in India, as its mere existence shows that a key consequence of the Indian Mutiny was the creation of revolutionary thinkers capable of campaigning for independence. I will use Savarkar’s argument that the Mutiny took a nationalist form in discussing the nature and nomenclature of the Mutiny. 24 History as Revenge and Retaliation: Rereading Savarkar's "The War of Independence of 1857",Jyotirmaya Sharma, Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 42, No. 19 (May 12-18, 2007) p. 1717-1719, Published by: Economic and Political Weekly [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015] 25 Ibid 26 Ibid Page ! 13 Florian Blackburn 3. Discussion 3.1 Nature and Nomenclature There has been considerable debate over the nature of the Mutiny, many different historians disagree over the causes, characteristics, and motivations of events in 1857, which has led to a contested and unsettled nomenclature. The early Imperial histories by authors like Sir John Kaye and Colonel George Malleson created the culture in Britain of the term mutiny. This spread to both historical literature and novels on the Rebellion through Britain, which in turn has led to contemporaries in Britain colloquially referring to the event as a ‘mutiny’. Marx was the ﬁrst to suggest the Mutiny was in fact the First National War of Independence, a view that was later argued by Savarkar. However authors like Majumdar ﬁrmly reject the idea of the Mutiny being either national, or even a war of independence. If the Mutiny was the ﬁrst national war of independence then it can be argued that the most important consequence of the Mutiny was Indian Independence in 1947. However if the Mutiny simply was a mutiny, then a key consequence would be the creating of the Independence Movement. In 1857: Historical Works and Proclamations Nupur Chaudhuri and Rajat Ray argue Malleson and Kaye: “demonstrated a mass psychical reaction against the innovations of a reforming, modernising, authoritarian government.”27 Chaudhuri and Ray’s evaluation leads on to describe the mutineers as “deeply alienated" by the East India Company’s religious pressure, and land conquest. It is argued: “the British represented a modern civilisation and a white domination; the uprising represented a popular backlash, motivated by reactionary, native yearnings.” The view caused authors like Malleson and Kaye to refer to the event as a mutiny as they felt the revolutionaries were revolting against progress offered by the Empire. However both Malleson and Kaye wrote before the emergence of Indian historians writings about events in 1857. Therefore they never refer to, or argue against the Indian views which were presented later. This emergence of Indian histories on the events of 1857 in the twentieth century sparked much debate. Savarkar argued events in 1857 were a national revolution inspired by Swadharma and Swaraj. Savarkar argued “the taking of Delhi at once openly gave the Revolution a national character, and the sudden news had brought about an extraordinary awakening in the whole of Hindusthan.”28 Savarkar went on to comment that: “Delhi ﬁrst pronounced the formula of unity for the vast and extended continent of Hindustan under a national banner”29 . Savarkar equally makes the more common argument, one supported by Sen, that the revolt in the province of Oudh took a nationalistic form. Savarkar claimed: “every inch of the way through Oudh had risen in revolt! Every Zemindar had collected a few hundred men under him and had begun the ﬁght for independence. Every village ﬂew the national Revolutionary ﬂag.”30 Sen on the other hand argues the revolution in Oudh only took on a limited national dimension. Sen accepts the concept of Indian nationality had not been developed, and therefore rejects Savarkar's argument that Swadharma acted as inspiration. Instead he argues a unity existed that derived from a mutual defence of religion against the British. Sen departs from Savarkar further by suggesting that the “feudal lords of Oudh summoned their tenants not only in the name of religion 27 Chaudhuri, N. and Rajat Kanta Ray. (2007). 1857: Historical Works and Proclamations. Paper presented to the "Mutiny at the Margins' conference, Edinburgh University p.2 28 Savarkar, V. D. and Joshi, G. M. (1947). The Indian war of independence, 1857. Bombay, Phoenix Publications p.106 29 Ibid p.258 30 Ibid p.266 Page ! 14 Florian Blackburn but also in the name of their king”31 to carry out a counter revolution against the British to reinstate their positions held under the old style of government. Sen claims “the mutiny leaders would have set the clock back.”32 This is directly against Savarkar’s argument in the sense Sen rejects the notion the Mutiny fully took on a national stance, and rejects the idea that Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal Emperor, could be fully reinstated. Savarkar uses the argument that Hindus and Muslims were untied against the British to justify the term war of independence. One example he uses is the free choosing by both Hindus and Muslims of Shah as the “Emperor and the head of the War of Independence.”33 It is the choice that is key, otherwise Indians would simply be swapping one ruling power for another. Savarkar argues that Shah was not reinstated to his past position, but instead “he was [a] freely chosen monarch of a people battling for freedom against a foreign intruder.”34 Sen initially agrees with the term ‘war of independence’ in the sense he believes the Mutiny took on a political characteristic in Meerut: “What began as a ﬁght for religion ended as a war of independence for there is not the slightest doubt that the rebels wanted to get rid of the alien government and restore the old order of which the King of Delhi was the rightful representative.”35 Jawaharlal Nehru takes a similar view, but disagrees with Savarkar about the development of the War of Independence. Nehru argues “the revolt had been secretly well organised but a premature outburst rather upset the plans of the leaders”.36 Nehru holds similar views to Sen. Like Sen, Nehru argued the initial stages were a military mutiny, that later developed into a war of independence. Nehru however suggests a war of independence was developed much faster, namely by those leaders who organised it originally. Nehru rejects Savarkar's argument that events took a national stance, and instead agrees with Sen in the sense the Mutiny took a feudal, counter revolution nature. Nehru said the leaders “looked up to the relic of the Mughal dynasty.”37 The main critic of Nehru’s argument is Majumdar. After independence in 1947 Majumdar repeatedly proposed to the government a comprehensive work on events in 1857. There was much delay, but by 1952 Abul Kalam Azad, the Education Minister, appointed a Board of Editors 31 Sen, S. (1957). Eighteen ﬁfty-seven. Delhi, Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India p.412 32 Ibid 33 ! “So, in the truer sense, we said that the raising of Bahadur Shah to the throne of India was no restoration at all. But rather it was the declaration that the longstanding was between the Hindu and the Mahomedan had ended, that tyranny had ceased, and that the people of the soil were once more free to choose their own monarch. For, Bahadur Shah was raised by the free voice of the people, both Hindus and Mahomedans, civil and military, to be their Emperor and the head of the War of Independence. Therefore, on the 11 of May, this old venerable Bahadur Shah was not the old Mogul succeeding to the throne of Akbar or Aurangzeb – for that throne had already been smashed to pieces by the hammer of the Mahrattas – but he was freely chosen monarch of a people battling for freedom against a foreign intruder. Let, then, Hindus and Mahomedans send forth their hearty, conscientious, and most loyal homage to this elected or freely accepted Emperor of their native soil on the 11th of May, 1857!” Ibid p.217 34 Savarkar p.217 35 Sen p.412 36Hatful of History, (2014). Nehru lecture on 1857 Indian Mutiny. [online] Available at: https:// hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/nehru-lecture-on-1857-indian-mutiny/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2015] 37 Ibid Page ! 15 Florian Blackburn (half composed of politicians), which after a few months Majumdar was made director of.38 In the preface to The Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857 Majumdar describes the difﬁculties of writing a historical text “on a co-operative basis in a non-academic environment”. As director Majumdar was required to produce the initial draft, at this point he came to a front with “the Secretary [who] held very deﬁnite views about the outbreak of 1857, and was determined to get them incorporated in the proposed history.”39 Majumdar does not elaborate on who the Secretary is, but his view is remarkably similar to Nehru’s. Majumdar claims the Security held the view that: “in 1857 an organised attempt was made by the natural leaders of India to combine themselves into a single command with the sole object of driving out the British power from India in order that a single, uniﬁed politically free and sovereign state may be established. That attempt was conscious and deliberate.” Due to the fact these views are so similar, I believe the Secretary that Majumdar refers to represented the government line. This is supported by the fact Majumdar states his own views differ from “the political party which presides”. Furthermore Majumdar says the Secretary “proposed to collect only those materials which support his view, as otherwise it would throughly upset our purpose.”40 The use of the word ‘our’ supports the argument the Secretary was following a party line as it is collective. The ‘purpose’ could have been to unify India by giving the impression the struggle for freedom dated back signiﬁcantly further, therefore creating the impression a longer movement against the British had been realised. This argument is further supported by the fact Nehru and Sen hold similar views. Majumdar argues against Savarkar that the revolt was a war of independence. One argument raised is that a war of independence “presupposes a deﬁnite plan and organisation”, and that evidence overwhelmingly opposes this. Majumdar quotes Sir John Lawrence in summary to offer a common sense argument against the idea of a plan or conspiracy in 1857: “If there was, indeed, a conspiracy in the country and that conspiracy extended to the army, how can it be reasonably explained why none of those who adhered to our cause were accounted with the circumstance? … None of the conspirators, who expiated their guilt by the forfeit of their lives, ever made any such confession … though such a confession would doubtless have saved their lives.”41 Secondly Majumdar argues that the Sepoys were not inspired by “the idea of liberty and freedom,”42 but instead the desire of religious defence. His two key points of evidence for this are that “the sepoys at Delhi refused to ﬁght unless they were paid their salaries … a demand which is hardly in consonance with the spirit which should guide a ﬁghter in a war of independence.”43 And secondly the idea that neither the sepoys, Shah, or other leaders “raised their little ﬁnger to help the cause of the Sikhs.”44 The cause Majumdar refers to is the battle of Chillianwala, where the Sikhs, “the last remaining defender of liberty in India,” were conquered by the British eight years before the mutiny. Majumdar claims if there was a spirit of national independence, Chillianwala would have “been the most suitable opportunity”45 for an uprising against the British. Furthermore, Majumdar argues against Sen’s view that the revolt took a nationalistic form. Initially Majumdar accepts that the two communities of Hindus and Muslims fought together against the British, however, he goes on to assert that there was no “real communal amity which characterises 38 Majumdar, R. (1963). The Sepoy Mutiny and the revolt of 1857. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, preface 39 ibid 40 ibid 41 Ibid p.211 42 Ibid p. 234 43 Ibid p. 233 44 Ibid p. 233 45 Ibid p. 234 Page ! 16 Florian Blackburn a national effort.” He argues the Muslims created tension with Hindus, to the point where Shah had to state “the Holy War is against the English; I have forbidden it against the Hindus.”46 Majumdar argues this lacking of communal spirit was not the only “obstacle to the solidarity of a national spirit. There was racial animosity produced by the historical cases. It was most clearly manifested in the suspicion and jealousy, if not positive hatred, between the Muslims on the one hand and the Marathas and the Sikhs on the other.”47 It is clear from the debate over the nomenclature of the Mutiny is riddled with disagreements over its causes and nature, more so recently between Indian historians. This therefore means each different name for the Mutiny has had a different impact across the World. Initially after the Mutiny, British historians used the term mutiny to “justify the role of the British rule in India, emphasising the misguided and misperceived grievances of the sepoys and minimising the extent of the disaffection of the civilian population.”48 However the term mutiny is still being used in Britain today. Its use is a remnant of imperialism, and leads to a misunderstanding of the complexities of opposition to British rule in India. Savarkar too undoubtedly misled readers in claiming the Mutiny took a widespread national character. However in doing so Savarkar helped to popularise the Indian national sentiment. 46 Ibid p.230 47 Ibid p.231 48 de Schweinitz Jr p.175 Page ! 17 Florian Blackburn 3.2 Social Reform Events of 1857 had drastic effects on the conﬁdence of the British in implementing social reform in India. This is demonstrated in the immediate aftermath through the Queen’s proclamation, in which it is stated: “We disclaim alike the Right and the Desire to impose our Convictions on any of Our Subjects. We declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure that none be in any wise favoured, none molested or disquieted by reason of the Religious Faith or Observances; but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the Law.” 3.2.1 Attitude to Religion However, this line was directly opposed by the evangelical Christian Missionaries in India. “Almost unanimously the missionaries … looked upon the Mutiny as a blow sent by God to humble Britain for its remissness in evangelising India.”49 The Missionaries instead proposed that: “an open profession of Christianity by the Government” would not lead to political unrest, but instead a “Christian Policy”50 would ensure against further rebellion. One proposal to government where there was “wide agreement” stated that the Government “should sever all connection with the rites and customs of the Hindu religion.”51 Furthermore it was suggested Bible classes should be held in Government schools. The Christian view was, however, ﬁrmly rejected by the Government of India. Metcalf argues that: “The Viceroy and his Council in Calcutta, and the Secretaries of State in London, [were] concerned solely with restoring the conﬁdence of the Indian people in British Government.”52 Sir Bartle Frere thought the “scheme for voluntary Bible classes would ‘convince the natives generally that we meant to use our temporal power for their conversion.’”53 This view was common. The leadership of government in India feared a further revolt motivated by the pushing of Christianity upon unwilling Indians, and therefore distanced themselves from the ideas of comprehensive social reform. This therefore led to the distancing of government from missionaries. However, as argued by Disraeli: “it is as important to touch the feelings and sympathy of the religious classes in England as to Conciliate the natives of India.”54 Therefore the government of India had to be seen to justify their actions of inaction. To do this they called on the core tenants of Liberal ideology: namely toleration and religious liberty. “Toleration was itself raised to a moral ideal, and the Government conﬁned itself to the role of arbiter and keeper of the peace. Indian religious belief, and the social customs bound up with it, were to be left strictly alone.”55 This change in tack is clearly a major impact of the events in 1857. However, it would be wrong to claim the British sentiment shifted so far from the roots of imperialism. The British still strongly believed they were the superior race, and that the Indians were religiously ignorant. But now they saw the changes they aimed for could not be achieved by legislating from above. Instead to reform Indian society, they must let the sentiment build among the newly educated, and therefore enlightened Indians who were continuing to progress through the British school system. This sentiment is further shown by Kaye: “The state had already done as much as it behoved it to do, in vindication of its own religion, before the rebellion of 1857 burst over our heads. And I think it had 49 Metcalf p.99 50 Ibid p.99 51 Ibid p.100 52 Ibid p.105 53 Ibid 54 Ibid p.98 55 Ibid p.108 Page ! 18 Florian Blackburn done all that it prudently could do in the present state of the Hindoo mind, to divest, by authoritative interference, Hinduism of its most revolting attributes. More at some future period may be done, when we see that the harvest is ready; but at present it is wiser, I do not say to leave, but to aid, the Hindoo mind to work out its own regeneration, than to force on from without the desired changes, which, to be effectual, must take growth from within.”56 3.2.2 Education The success of educating Indians in English with inﬂuence from the British system showed the administration that it was possible to grow the desired attitude changes from within. Metcalf argues: “Most educated Indians looked with favour on the eradication of those cruel practices and degrading rites associated with the Hindu faith.”57 The examples discussed include Sati, or the practice of “hook swinging.”58 One would expect this realisation to lead to a surge in funding for education in India. But this was not the case. In 1854 Sir Charles Wood proposed a number of reforms that: “marked a turning point in the Policy of Education in British India.”59 The main focuses was upon promoting Primary and University education, and implementing a “Grant-in-Aid System,60 based on Secular Education.”61 However the despatch was also notable for promoting the education of females. Therefore, post Mutiny, the education system in India was ready to be built upon, rather than totally reformed. This came from Lord Stanley, the ﬁrst Secretary of State for India. I have been unable to get access to the Despatch of Stanley (1859) and therefore lack the details, I have had to supplement this with a secondary source discussing Stanley’s reforms. There are three of note: ﬁrstly Stanley expanded the Grant-in-Aid system to become “more liberal and ﬂexible.”62 Secondly “made provision for the promotion of primary education.”63 And thirdly, “a further impetus was given to the program of establishing a department of education in every province, with a Director, teaching staff, and inspecting ofﬁcers.”64 These reforms are not particularly signiﬁcant, which therefore suggests the direct impact of the events of 1857 on education in India was limited. It could be argued that in fact Mutiny had a negative effect on education, particularly on the building of Universities, but equally as simply a set back to expansion. 56 Metcalf p.108-9 57 Ibid p.115 58 Ibid p.112 59 Woods, S. Raja. (2014) Despatch of 1854 and Its Impact, Indian Streams Research Journal, Volume 4, Issue 10 p.2 60 Grant-in-Aid is central government funding for a speciﬁc project. In the case of Indian education the system was used in “the erection, enlargement or repair of school building[s]. There was also provision for school furniture, the augmentation of the salaries of teachers, the provision of stipends for pupils, and provision for school books, map and apparatus at reduced prices.” Ibid p.3 61 Ibid p.2 62 Jayapalan, N. (2005). History of education in India. Atlantic Publishers & Dist p.68 63 Ibid 64 Ibid Page ! 19 Florian Blackburn 3.2.3 Indian Aristocracy A further social consequence of the Mutiny was the attempted appeasement of the wealthy inﬂuential Indians. One example of this is the restoration of the taluqdars in Oudh. Pre-Mutiny the British stripped each taluqdar of their lands and transferred it to the newly liberated peasants in each village.65 However the result of this reform, to the British, was disappointing to say the least. When Mutiny broke out the villagers of Oudh rose up against the British, and reinstated the taluqdars, who then partly led the Rebellion. Lord Ellenborough observed: “Its chivalry was that of Robin Hood, who is said to have robbed from the wealthy and to have given to the poor. Robin Hood, however, managed to secure the favour of those to whom he gave his loot. We managed to make them as hostile as those we plundered.”66 By the end of 1857 the military situation in Oudh, the province of stronghold, had worsened, to the point where “the people were universally hostile.” This left the British with two solutions, either a large scale military sweep throughout Oudh, or the backtracking of the land settlement to appease the taluqdars, who could then inﬂuence the peasantry to end revolt. Initially the British proposed conﬁscating the land and then discussing redistribution upon what each taluqdar deserved for their actions in revolt. It was argued this would “avoid the appearance of rewarding rebellion.”67 However this line was rejected by the taluqdars, as they mistrusted the British, and led to the extension of revolt. However when Robert Montgomery became the new Chief Commissioner in April 1858 he appointed Major L. Barrow to open new negotiations. The settlement proposed the restoration of “the order of things in Oude as regards proprietary right at the time of annexation.”68 This proved very successful and by October two-thirds of taluqdars in Oudh had pledged loyalty to the British. However the appeasement of the taluqdars did not stop at simply reinstating their previous position. “In October 1859 the Government invested six of the mot prominent with the power to adjudicate revenue disputes and to act as Deputy Magistrates within their own estates.”69 This meant a taluqdar could try an offender from their estate for petty crimes provided he used the British system of criminal procedure, and allowed the defendant to appeal any decision to the Deputy Commissioner. Furthermore taluqdars were made Assent Collectors under the District Collectors. This reinstated their position of revenue collectors. By 1862 “48 taluqdars were handling 3,000 suits annually in the revenue, civil, and criminal departments.”70 By elevating the position of the taluqdar the British created “a native gentry [who played] their part in the social and administrative scale.”71 This elevating of power is particularly interesting as it shows how the events of 1857 drastically changed the British attitude to Indian administration. Before the Mutiny the British aimed at providing India with better government though the “efﬁcient administration” of Government and the reformation of unenlightened social practices. However Metcalf argues the lesson the British took was that: “lasting reforms could come only from within Indian society, and when it had the support of the inﬂuential classes,” which therefore meant they “must work through the indigenous leaders of society.”72 This conclusion departs from Kaye’s argument on British reform in the sense Metcalf claims attitude changes did not necessarily have 65 Metcalf p.134 66 Ibid p.136 67 Ibid p.139 68 Ibid p.142 69 Ibid p.154 70 Ibid 71 Ibid 72 Ibid p.155 Page ! 20 Florian Blackburn to come from within, but could, in a sense, be bought by the British joining with those that hold inﬂuence over the Indian peoples. 3.2.4 Indians in Administration Post-Mutiny, the British Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1858. One of the key effects was the creating of the Indian Civil Service. The legacy of merit based appointment remained from the East Indian Company’s civil service. The service was almost entirely composed of British Oxbridge graduates. To gain a place one had to pass a set of examinations and be between the ages of 21 and 24. However, post Mutiny, Sir Bartle Frere argued that to ensure peace and security some Indians should be appointed to government.73 He argued the current system meant the British were ignorant of how the Indians would receive legislation, which was a mistake the British could not afford to make after the bitterness and hostility of the rebellion. Frere proposed employing Indians as they “would give us the most valuable aid by looking at questions from a Native point of view, and this is aid of a kind for which I know no substitute and it certainly could not be obtained from any European.”74 The Indian Councils Act 1861 offered this reform and allowed Indians into government. The Act marked the transformation of the Council of the Governor-General of India to the Imperial Legislative Council. The new Council was composed of ﬁve members who could discuss and vote on legislation, effectively acting as a cabinet. As of 1862 the Indian members were Raja Sir Deo Narayan Singh of Benaras, Narendra Singh, Maharaja of Patiala, and Dinkar Rao. These three, plus all others selected by the government up to 1872 represented the landed aristocracy this is shown by the titles Raja and Maharaja.75 Other members included taluqdars and zamindars. However, these Indian members were not very effective. In the ﬁrst ten years, on average, the Council only met twenty-nine times per year, and in about one-third of the meetings there was no Indian present.76 Sabyasachi argues that when the Indians were present their participation was negligible. One explanation for this is the fact that these Indians were “hand-picked for their loyalty and their conservative sentiments.”77 The British didn't wish for rebel Indians, Their introduction to ofﬁce provides further evidence to British creating an Indian aristocracy. However, their introduction was certainly not a step towards representative government because the view that the Indian class structure was too broad for representation78 was still ﬁrmly part of the British sentiment. 73 Metcalf p.263 74 Ibid 75 Bhattacharyya, S. (2005). Financial foundations of the British Raj: Ideas and Interests in the Reconstruction of Indian Public Finance 1858-1872. Hyderabad: Orient Longman p.57 76 Ibid p.58 77 Metcalf p.267 78 Ibid Page ! 21 Florian Blackburn 3.3 The Army 3.3.1 Structural reorganisation One of the terms stated in the Queen’s Proclamation offered “an amnesty to all rebels who had not themselves murdered British subjects, or who were not leaders of the revolt.”79 This allowed for the initial military reform of the transformation of the army from The East India Company to the British Raj. Transformation took the form of the British Government in India absorbing the East India Company’s regiments. Parliament wanted to ensure against a second mutiny, therefore perviously, in July 1858, The Royal Commission was formed with the aim of identifying causes of the Mutiny and looking into the reconstruction of the imperial military. The commission was led by the Secretary of State for War: Lord Peel. Nine months later the Commission delivered a seven page report to Parliament that proposed and answered eleven questions, and further proposed nine recommendations.80 The proposals under the Peel Commission, supplied by Julian Saul Markham David, in The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, p.262: 1. No change should be made in the terms of employment for existing Company ofﬁcers (including rates of pay, pensions and promotion by seniority), but new regulations could be applied to future ofﬁcers. 2. The total number of Europeans necessary for security in India “should … be about 80,000; of which 50,000 would be required for Bengal 15,000 for Madras, and 15,000 for Bombay.” 3. The “amount of Native force should not … bear a greater proportion to the European, in Cavalry and Infantry, than two to one for Bengal, and three to one for Madras and Bombay respectively.” 4. The Commissioners were “unable to arrive at any unanimity of opinion with regard to the proportion of Local European regiments to regiments of the Line, but the majority came down in favour of abolishing the Local force on the grounds that it caused professional jealousies and was less disciplined than its Line counterpart. 5. In the event that the European force was split between Local and Line regiments, the latter tour of service in India “should not exceed twelves years.” 6. The Commissioners could see “no obstacle to at once allowing the [European] ofﬁcers of the junior ranks (second lieutenants, cornets, and ensigns) to exchange from one Branch of the service to the other,” but there was “a great difﬁculty in the higher ranks, arising from the seniority system of promotion.” 7. With regard to the mixture of European and native troops the Commissioners agreed with the “preponderance of evidence” that “any admixture of the two forces, regimentally, would be detrimental to the efﬁciency and discipline of both, but the admixture brigade would be most advantageous.” 8. Recruitment to a local European force “should be kept up by drafts” from England and volunteers from regiments of the Line” leaving India 9. All Bengal native cavalry should be on the “irregular system” (with a commandant, an adjutant, a medical ofﬁcer and one European ofﬁcer per squadron, and the sowars receiving an increase in pay to enable them to “purchase and maintain horses and arms of a superior description”), and the other presidencies following suit if it was thought necessary; the native infantry, on the other hand, should be “mainly regular.” 79 Fremont-Barnes p.89 80 The Spectator Archive, (1859). THE INDIAN ARMY REPORT. » 21 May 1859 » The Spectator Archive. [online] Available at: http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/21st-may-1859/14/the-indian-army-report [Accessed 11 Feb. 2015] Page ! 22 Florian Blackburn 10. Artillery “should be mainly a European force” with exceptions being made for stations which were “peculiarly detrimental to the European constitution [e.g. mountain artillery].” 11. European cadets for native corps should “be throughly drilled and instructed in their military duty" in Britain before they were sent out to India. The nine additional recommendations supplied by Julian Saul Markham David, in The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, p.263: 1. The Native Army should be composed of different nationalities and castes, and as a general rule, mixed promiscuously through each regiment. 2. That all men of the regular Native Army … should be enlisted for general service 3. That a modiﬁcation should be made in the uniform of the Native troops, assimilating it more to the dress of the country, and making it more suitable to the climate. 4. That Europeans should as far as possible be employed in the scientiﬁc branches the service, but that Corps of pioneers be formed, for the purpose of relieving the European sappers from those duties which entail exposure to the climate. That the Articles of War which govern the Native Army, be revised and that the 5. power of commanding ofﬁcers be increased 6. That the promotion of Native commissioned and non commissioned ofﬁcers be regulated on the principle of efﬁciency rather than of seniority, and that commanding ofﬁcers of regiments have the same power to promote noncommissioned ofﬁcers as is vested in ofﬁcers commanding regiments of the line. 7. That wheres the pay and allowances of ofﬁcers and men are now issued under various heads, the attention of H. M. Government be drawn to the expediency … of adopting, if practicable, ﬁxed scales of allowances for the troops in garrison or cantonments, and the ﬁeld. 8. That the Commander-In-Chief in Bengal be styled the Commander-in-Chief in India, and that the General Ofﬁcers commanding the armies of the minor Presidencies be Commanders of the Forces, with the power and advantages which they have hitherto enjoyed. 9. [That] the efﬁciency of the Indian Army has hitherto been injuriously affected by the small number of ofﬁcers usually doing duty with the regiments to which they belong. [To reverse this trend] various schemes have been suggested: a. The formation of a Staff Corps b. The system of “seconding” ofﬁcers who are on detached employ … c. Placing the European ofﬁcers of each Presidency on general lists for promotion. Your Commissioners not being prepared to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion on this point, without reference to India, recommend that the subject be submitted without delay, for the report of the Governors and Commanders-in-Chief… The Peel Commission’s proposals laid out above were generally met, however it is not possible to asses each reform in this piece as this would require a standalone dissertation. Initially the number of “native troops was reduced from 226,000 to 190,000”81 wheres the British Army increased from 24,000 troops stationed in India to 80,000 post Mutiny.82 The break down of the increase is as follows: Cavalry increased from 4 regiments to 9, infantry from 31 battalions to 50.83 The artillery horse batteries increased from 8 to 29, artillery ﬁeld batteries from 25 to 73, and 81 Heathcote, T. (2007). Mutiny and insurgency in India, 1857-1858. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military p.212 82 Ibid 83 Ibid Page ! 23 Florian Blackburn the artillery heavy batteries remained at 88.84 All of the East India Companies artillery, with the exception of some “mountain, light or garrison batteries,”85 was transferred to the British Army. The increase in British numbers were inspired by proposal two, suggesting that in order to control the native army in the future, the British would need 80,000 men. The most dramatic reorganisation was focused upon the Bengal army as this was the main source of rebel sepoys.86 Sixty nine out the seventy-four regiments in the Bengal Army were disbanded, meaning “its entire reconstruction [was] with men as different in origin as possible from those who had recently rebelled.”87 The recruitment strategy shifted from “the deﬁant Bengalis to the loyalist Punjabis.”88 Meaning recruitment “from 1857 onwards shifted to the North and North Western regions of India (Present–day Pakistan) at the expense of other regions, especially Bengal.”89 This sentiment was based upon the material race ideology. 3.3.2 Shift in Recruiting — Material Race Ideology Material race ideology is deﬁned as the selecting of recruits based upon perceived racial characteristics i.e. biological or cultural dispositions that make a superior ﬁghter. A common example still recognised today is the Gurkhas. A further example would be the Sikhs from the Punjab. Both Gurkhas and Sikhs were used to re-supply the Bengal army. This was due to the fact that during the Rebellion these races earned a name for being ‘naturally’ more loyal than others. This view, coupled with the success the recruits achieved in suppressing the Rebellion led to the view held by many British ofﬁcers “that the only men worthy to bear arms in India were those who had proven their manliness and material ability by ﬁghting alongside their British masters in that time of crisis.”90 However, this view was explicitly warned against by the Punjab Committee, headed by Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab. The Committee argued that the British should remember the maxim of ‘divide and rule.’91 Lawrence, who had “raised thousands of troops from the Punjab”92 to defeat the siege of Delhi further argued that the recruiting of the army should “avoid reliance on any one group of people or province for recruiting, for the dangers of such a practice had been revealed in the recent conﬂict.”93 The Punjab Committee argued that “the Bengal Army needed to widen its recruiting base to include as many different races and religions as possible” to ensure they could act as checks on each other.94 The committee further recommended that “they should be recruited and stationed locally with each race or religion kept in separate 84 Thegarrison.org.uk, (2015). The Garrison | History and Traditions of the Royal Artillery. [online] Available at: http://www.thegarrison.org.uk/history/index.php [Accessed 18 Feb. 2015] 85 Ibid 86 Fremont-Barnes p.90 87 Streets p.19 88 Soherwordi. S. H. S. (2010) Punjabisation’ in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan, Edinburgh Papers In South Asian Studies Paper, Number 24 p.6 89 Ibid 90 Streets p.34 91 Ibid. p.33 92 Ibid 93 Ibid 94 Ibid Page ! 24 Florian Blackburn companies within regiments.”95 This is contrary to the view expressed by the Peel Commission. The Peel Commission agreed in the sense that a wide range of Indian nationalities should be used for recruiting, but departed when it claimed, in the ﬁrst of the nine proposals, that recruits should be “mixed promiscuously through each regiment.”96 However, the advice of both commissions: that the recruiting base should be widened was not heeded. Streets argues that the Punjab Committee’s recommendations “provided the foundations for what would later become ‘material race’ policy.” This was due to the fact the ‘divide and rule’ policy championed by the Punjab Committee highlighted to the British the idea that by purposefully focusing upon racial differences, and then “institutionalising them in the structure of the army,” they could “enhance British control over the army and hence over the subcontinent as a whole.”97 This view was compounded by the advice of many British ofﬁcers who were convinced by the ideas of material race. Material race ideology came to dominate the recruiting process for the British and Indian armies, throughout the latter half of the nineteen century up to the First World War. This was partly due to the events of 1857, but was further inﬂuenced by two factors. Firstly European powers were beginning to increase their ambition, military power and ﬁnancial wealth past the point of British capabilities, meaning they could legitimately challenge Britain’s World dominance.98 The main contenders were Germany post uniﬁcation in 1871, and France after disagreements over Egypt.99 Secondly, Alexander II imposed forced conscription, dramatically increasing the size of Russia's Army, for the purpose of conquering the falling Ottoman Empire.100 The Ottoman Empire, supported by Britain, acted as a buffer between Russia and the Suez Canal. Therefore Russian aggression imposed upon British interests helped to push the countries “to the brink of war.”101 This was further compounded by the fact the British felt increasingly threatened by Russian interests through Central Asia.102 The three factors combined led to the sentiment among Victorian society that both the British and Indian imperial military forces must be reformed to defend the Empire against European powers. The nature of these reforms was inﬂuenced by the scientiﬁc understanding at the time. Victorian racial theorists argued that the environment inherently altered the racial characters of humans.103 They believed hot climates led to “laziness” and “degenerat[ion],” whereas cold climates led to more manly, aggressive, and hardworking races.104 Furthermore they focused upon the ideas of ‘survival of the ﬁttest’ in the context of states — militaries ﬁghting for the survival of Empire. This 95 Ibid 96 Rand, Gavin. (2007) Learning the Lessons of ’57: Reconstructing the Imperial Military after the Rebellion. Paper presented to the "Mutiny at the Margins' conference, Edinburgh University p.263 97Streets p.33 98 Ibid p.87 99 Ibid p.91 100 Ibid p.89-90 101 Ibid. p.90 102 Although this was not a new sentiment, it was revived and focused upon due to the extent of Russian expansion. In 1858 1,000 miles separated India and areas of Russian inﬂuence, but by 1976 this area had shrunk to 400 miles. Ibid 103 Ibid p.88 104 Ibid p.94 Page ! 25 Florian Blackburn therefore shaped the ideas about who should be in the military. In the Indian context, material race recruiting developed partly due to shifting racial views about early Indian civilisation, and climate. Initially it was believed Indians and Europeans had been racially united by an “original ‘Aryan race.’”105 However it was later argued the Aryan race had invaded India from the North, mixing with the Indian race. The consensus was that those in the north of India, where the climate was colder, were both “racially [and] environmentally closer to Europeans” — the best example would be the Sikhs who had “lighter skin” and “European features.”106 Gurkhas were also singled out due to the cold climate of the Himalayas. These characteristics allowed for theses races to be involved in ﬁghting against Europeans. The ideas of science were used to reject Indians from hotter climates further south as they were perceived to only be “adequate … to ﬁght against an enemy of much the same caliber as themselves,” rather than against the “hardier races of northern India and Afghanistan.”107 These ideas contributed to the reforms of Sir Frederick Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief of India between 1885 - 1893. Roberts was responsible for making the unofﬁcial line of recruiting material races post Rebellion ofﬁcial policy. By the end of his time as Commander-in-Chief in 1893, 44 percent of the Indian Army was composed of the material races, by 1914 the Indian Army was composed of three quarters perceived material races.108 A further reform which compounded the ideas of race was to systematically organise the army by race.109 Before Roberts’ reforms, different races were grouped into the same regiment, but then separated further into “homogeneous companies. These became known as class companies.”110 However this started to shift in 1887, to a system “where regiments exclusively consisted of a single race.”111 This was known as a class regiment. By 1893 the number of class regiments increased from 22 to 42, whilst the number of class companies decreased from 42 to 22.112 105 Ibid 106 Ibid p.95 107 Ibid 108 Ibid p.100 109 Ibid 110 Ibid 111 Ibid 112 Ibid Page ! 26 Florian Blackburn 3.4 Inﬂuence on Independence Movement Before, and during British rule, India was divided into hundreds of separate princely states. However, as Britain gained inﬂuence they started to unify India. Each way the British exerted inﬂuence e.g. administration, infrastructure, the economy, and the military, was constant throughout the subcontinent. If different Indian races could travel large distances under the one blanket of British control, they would feel part of one India. One example would be how by 1897, 24,000 Sikhs and Gurkhas were recruited and stationed in either the Madras, Bombay, or Bengal Presidency Army.113 This idea of unity manifested into nationalism as the people of India became aware the land under British control belonged to them: the people of India. A key focus throughout the British period of inﬂuence in India was the promotion of Western education. Since the 1830s Britain had been promoting education with the aim of creating an educated aristocratic class in India, which it thought could be used to rule. This aim relied on the fact the educated Indians would hold positive British sentiments. However, post-Mutiny there were a number of factors that acted against this. Firstly, India was undergoing a period of cultural discovery. “Western scholars like Max Muller, Sir William Jones, Alexander Cunningham, etc. translated several ancient Sanskrit”114 texts. This inspired scholars to study Indian history, and therefore led to the educated Indians studying these texts. This led to educated Indians understanding and learning how the history of their ancient civilisation was much richer than their current foreign rulers. Secondly, educated Indians studying either in India or Britain were learning about the ideas of Liberalism, of which the tenets of freedom, individualism, and justice would have combined to inﬂuence many against the view that Britain was in India legitimately. This was further compounded by the learning of the American War of Independence, the European revolutions of 1848, German uniﬁcation in 1871, and the studies of the events of 1857. Many Indians in education would have looked back to the leaders of the Rebellion, and married their newfound understanding of nationalism, with the rebels actions. The educated Indians therefore became the new leaders of the political, rather than violent national movement in India. The ﬁrst major step towards the Indian national movement was the initial meeting of the Indian National Congress between the 25-31 December 1885.115 The conference was organised by A. O. Hume, a British Civil Servant and Surendranath Bannerjea, the leader of the Indian National Association. Seventy-two delegates from across India attended the ﬁrst event. The initial aims were: “(1) to enable all the most earnest laborers in the cause of the nation to become personally known to each other; (2) to discuss and decide upon the political operations to be undertaken during the ensuing year.”116 The Indian National Congress continued to meet each year at different key cities across India, acting as the central force campaigning for independence up to 1947, where India was relinquished from British rule. During this period it attracted the likes of both Gandhi and Nehru — key names in the Independence movement. 113 Ibid 114 Yourarticlelibrary.com, (2015). Rise of Nationalism among Indians (12 Causes). [online] Available at: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/nationalism/rise-of-nationalism-among-indians-12-causes/47604/ [Accessed 27 Feb. 2015] 115 Cross, C. M. P. (1922). The development of self-government in India, 1858-1914. University of Chicago Press p.135 116 Ibid Page ! 27 Florian Blackburn 4. Conclusion In my opinion the events of 1857 cannot be characterised by one name, as throughout the nature was not consistent. Between late February and early May 1857 the only Indians involved were sepoys, meaning their actions, no matter how justiﬁed, were opposing their lawful employer. Therefore during this period events must be characterised as a Mutiny. However, after the attack of Delhi, and as local zamindars increasingly revolted, the nature of events shifted into a Rebellion. I reject the view that events took a nationalist stance. Firstly because the people of India did not consider themselves a nation, they were more focused on the leader of their local province. This is shown by the fact the peasantry united against the British under their local zamidars, even after being liberated. Secondly, the people of India characterised themselves through religion and caste. Muslims and Hindus were separate, many resented each other, and Hindus were not enthusiastic about reinstating the Mughal Empire. However, importantly both were united against the British. I believe this shows how deeply resented the religions reforms of the East India Company were. This does not constitute nationalism, but does support the argument that events were a War of Independence. The scope for this is limited. I reject Nehru’s argument that events were planned, but argue that the extreme unregulated violence demonstrates the rebels were committed to ridding India of both British reforms and personnel. Therefore I would classify the events of 1857 initially as a military Mutiny, but later as a collective conservative Rebellion for the protection of religion, and the rejection of British rule. The religious motivation was clearly recognised by the British. I believe the shift in attitude of religious reforms of the Hindu faith constitutes the most important reform to India by the British. It allowed for those who had revolted to believe they had won some form of victory in the defence of their culture. Furthermore it allowed for India to develop as a distinctly Asian, rather than European country, still culturally rooted to its past, before British inﬂuence. A further signiﬁcance of this appeasement and shift in attitude is its effectiveness of ensuring against further rebellion. This joined with the policy of Victorian style education led to the politicising of further oppositions to British rule. An example would be the peacefulness of the early Indian National Congress. I believe the most inﬂuential reform to Britain was the development of material race ideology. As stated in S.3.3.2, the events of 1857 only played a part, but the loyalty of the Punjab was a signiﬁcant piece of evidence that seemingly supported material race ideology. This is particularly signiﬁcant because the ideas of material race came to dominate the reforms of the British Army up to 1914, leading to the Indian Armies, consisting mainly of material races, helping lead Britain to success in the Second Anglo-Afghan War and The First World War. I came into this project ignorant on a number of fronts. Firstly, of the debate over the nomenclature of events in 1857, I simply accepted the British sentiment that the actions were a Mutiny, rather than understanding the complexities that lie beneath the surface. Secondly I had little understanding of the Mughal Empire, the East India Company, the Raj, and early Indian culture — especially the complexities between the Hindus and Muslims. However, my personal development over the course of researching and writing this project surpass this gain in historical knowledge. A key issue I had was ﬁnding resources. Initially I struggled to ﬁnd detailed sources focusing on the consequences of events. I was restricted to following footnotes, which led me to a number of articles, journals or books that were not were readily available. Due to the struggle I became disillusioned, especially after noting my peers were not experiencing the same issue. However, I overcame this after much persistence, a large number of searches, and visits to a number of libraries. Most importantly, I developed an insight into university level research, using both JSTOR and EThOS to ﬁnd journals, book reviews and a number of theses. Originally I struggled with the verbose language of a number of texts used, but I developed a technique for scan reading to sort through material quickly, and efﬁciently. This is a skill I believe I will continue to use throughout higher education. A further issue I initially experienced was the daunting task of writing up my Page ! 28 Florian Blackburn ﬁndings. To combat this I clearly structured the document with titles and subheadings, and made a detailed content page. My project is limited in the sense it primarily focuses on the consequences in India rather than exploring the wider signiﬁcance of the Mutiny. I consider this an advantage because it allows for the project to be focused and detailed. If I were to have increased the breadth, I would have had to sacriﬁce quality to limit the word count. A further limitation is the fact I had to omit certain authors from the discussion over the nature and nomenclature of events in 1857. I have included most key thinkers, but have omitted others to keep the length manageable. This loss is however limited as I read, and discriminated against a number of the historians before ﬁnally making the selection. Furthermore, my analysis of the reliability of different authors and publishers in S.2 is limited because I could not access enough detailed information about many of the books, authors and publishers. I felt restricted by the potential scope of research required to accurately decipher the reliability of the sources. However, I feel for the purpose of this project the sources available to me were sufﬁciently representative of the subject matter. If I were to do the project again I would focus on specialist collections of work available at a number of museums, university libraries, and specialist institutions. I initially planed to visit the National Army Museum, but this was not possible because the museum is currently being refurbished, and will not be reopened until 2016. Furthermore, I would try to hit the ground running by collecting a vast number of relevant sources at the start of the project to build a clear but detailed picture, to allow me to quickly focus. Page ! 29 Florian Blackburn 5. Bibliography Books: Bhattacharyya, S. (2005). Financial foundations of the British Raj: Ideas and Interests in the Reconstruction of Indian Public Finance 1858-1872. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Bose, S. and Jalal, A. (2004). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. 2nd ed. New York, London: Routledge, Cross, C. M. P. (1922), The development of self-government in India, 1858-1914. University of Chicago Press de Schweinitz Jr, K. (1983). The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialism as Inequality. New York: Methuen and Co Fremont-Barnes, G. (2007), The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58. Oxford: Osprey Pub Heathcote, T. (2007), Mutiny and insurgency in India, 1857-1858. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military Jayapalan, N. (2005), History of education in India. Atlantic Publishers & Dist Majumdar, R. (1963). The Sepoy Mutiny and the revolt of 1857. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay Metcalf, T. (1964), The Aftermath of Revolt. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press Savarkar, V. D. and Joshi, G. M. (1947). The Indian war of independence, 1857. Bombay, Phoenix Publications Sen, S. (1957). Eighteen ﬁfty-seven. Delhi, Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India Streets, Heather. (2004), Martial Races: The military, race and masculinity in British imperial culture, 1857-1914. Manchester University Press Papers/Journals: Chaudhuri, N. and Rajat Kanta Ray. (2007). 1857: Historical Works and Proclamations. Paper presented to the "Mutiny at the Margins' conference, Edinburgh University David, Julian Saul Markham. (2001), The Bengal army and the outbreak of the Indian mutiny. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow Rand, Gavin. (2007), Learning the Lessons of ’57: Reconstructing the Imperial Military after the Rebellion. Paper presented to the "Mutiny at the Margins' conference, Edinburgh University Soherwordi. S. H. S. (2010), Punjabisation’ in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan, Edinburgh Papers In South Asian Studies Paper, Number 24 Woods, S. Raja. (2014), Despatch of 1854 and Its Impact, Indian Streams Research Journal, Volume 4, Issue 10 Page ! 30 Florian Blackburn Book Reviews: History as Revenge and Retaliation: Rereading Savarkar's "The War of Independence of 1857",Jyotirmaya Sharma, Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 42, No. 19 (May 12-18, 2007), p. 1717-1719, Published by: Economic and Political Weekly [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015] Review, History of the Freedom Movement in India by R. C. Majumdar, Review by: Charles H. Heimsath, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Jan., 1964), p. 465-466, Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American, Historical Association Online Sources: Bl.uk, (2015), Global Trade and Empire. [online] Available at: http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/ asians/empire/theempire.html [Accessed 3 Feb. 2015] En.wikisource.org, (2015), Queen Victoria's Proclamation - Wikisource, the free online library. [online] Available at: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Queen_Victoria's_Proclamation [Accessed 31 Jan. 2015] Hatful of History, (2014), Nehru lecture on 1857 Indian Mutiny. [online] Available at: https:// hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/nehru-lecture-on-1857-indian-mutiny/ [Accessed 4 Feb. 2015] Newworldencyclopedia.org, (2015), Bahadur Shah II - New World Encyclopedia. [online] Available at: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bahadur_Shah_II [Accessed 26 Feb. 2015]. Northwestern University, (2015), [online] Available at: http://nuweb.neu.edu/cssh/faculty/heatherstreets-salter/ [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015] Rand, G. (2015), Gavin Rand, Academia.edu. [online] Gre.academia.edu. Available at: https:// gre.academia.edu/GavinRand [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015] Rand, G. (2015), Gavin Rand, Architecture, Computing & Humanities, University of Greenwich. [online] www2.gre.ac.uk. Available at: http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/faculty/ach/study/hpss/staff/ gavin-rand [Accessed 1 Mar. 2015] Thegarrison.org.uk, (2015), The Garrison | History and Traditions of the Royal Artillery. [online] Available at: http://www.thegarrison.org.uk/history/index.php [Accessed 18 Feb. 2015] The Spectator Archive, (1859), THE INDIAN ARMY REPORT. 21 May 1859 The Spectator Archive. [online] Available at: http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/21st-may-1859/14/the-indianarmy-report [Accessed 11 Feb. 2015] Yourarticlelibrary.com, (2015), Rise of Nationalism among Indians (12 Causes). [online] Available at: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/nationalism/rise-of-nationalism-among-indians-12-causes/ 47604/ [Accessed 27 Feb. 2015] Documentaries: The Birth of Empire: The East India Company, Episode 2. (2014), [video] BBC, Executive Producer: John Farren The Indian Story, Freedom, Episode 6. (2007), [video] Executive Producer: Rebecca Dobbs Page ! 31 Florian Blackburn 6. Project Proposal Form Learner name Florian Blackburn Learner number 7095 Center name Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys Center number 61425 Teacher assessor Professor Soderholm Date 11/03/2015 Unit P301 Proposed project title Mutiny or Revolution? The Consequences of Events in India in 1857 6.1 Section one: title, objective Title: Mutiny or Revolution? The Consequences of Events in India in 1857 Project objectives • I want to research the different views on the nature of events in 1857 • I want to come to a conclusion of the nomenclature of events in 1857 • I want to discuss the impacts of events in 1857 on the British attitude to Indian culture, social reform, the reform of the Indian Presidency Armies • I want to discuss the impacts of events in 1857 on the British attitude to social reform 6.2 Section two: reasons for choosing this project When choosing a title for my EPQ I focused on history, as this is the subject I plan to study at university. But by studying the consequences of the Indian Mutiny I have the advantage of being able to look into the political implications of mutiny. This ties in with studying politics at A-level. However, I ﬁrst became interested in the subject after watching the BBC documentary: The Birth of Empire: The East India Company. This made me focus and research the Company. I became particularly interested in its downfall. This led me to look further at the ﬁnal straw i.e. the Mutiny. I then became intrigued after reading multiple sources, each calling the events in 1857 a different name. Page ! 32 Florian Blackburn 6.3 Section three: activities and timescales Project planning I will do initial research into what I plan on writing about, but I will not tie myself down, as I know, the more I research, the more I will learn, and therefore the more my ideas will develop. 1 week but Continuous Reasearch • I will watch documentaries and read the Essential Histories text book to give myself an overview of the events of the Mutiny. Documentaries will further give me a broader understanding of India • I will then move onto collecting books, journals, papers, and dissertations focusing on the consequences of the Mutiny • Further I will ﬁnd the books written by Indian historians to compare and discuss their views on the nature of events in 1857 • I plan to email experts at a number of Universities on advice for certain books as I know there are certain books that I will not simply ﬁnd through google 2 weeks but Continuous Discussion The discussion will take the most time as I plan to continue to research as 3 weeks I write. This is because of the size of body of work that I use in writing the discussion. The large range and complexities of the texts means it is better to write when the information is fresh in my mind. This means I can let the discussion develop ﬂuidly and naturally rather than sticking to a body of research previously determined. Introduction/ conclusion/ abstract I will leave these three sections to last. The conclusion and abstract clearly cannot be completed until I have ﬁnished the discussion, as their content relies on my completed ﬁndings. I will leave the introduction too because I wish for my discussion to develop naturally meaning I do not wish to write an introduction and then have to re-write it to adjust for changes that might be made later. 5 days Editing I will give copies of my EPQ to a number of people I feel will be able to give me advice. I will not take all of the advice given, but I will use it constructively to improve the project. 2 weeks Presentation The presentation will be a challenge as I have to limit what I say to 10 minutes . I will have to discriminate what I put in very strictly. I think it will be important to set the scene meaning I will give the teachers present for the presentation a hand out, prior to the presentation, with a small introduction to set the background. I plan to present with a Prezi. The making of the reorientation will take no longer than 3 days. I will then spend 2 days learning and presenting my presentation with family members to perfect the delivery. 1 week Target Date Milestone one The collection of sources to discuss the nature and nomenclature of events, as well as a rough plan for the discussion 10 February Milestone two A completed draft of the discussion 3 March Milestone three A completed draft with all sections included 10 March Milestone four Completed project and presentation 16 March Page ! 33 Florian Blackburn 6.4 Section four: resources Necessary resources: • My school library will be useful in ﬁnding general books on India. Local universities will certainly be useful and I will visit them to get a number of books • I will use JSTOR for journals • I will use EThOS for thesis • I will use the internet to ﬁnd background information and documentaries • I will need a laptop with connection to the internet to for access to my presentation • I will need to a remote, a projector, and a free classroom for my presentation Areas my research will cover: • • • • • Indian historians views upon the nature and nomenclature of events in 1857 The social reforms of the British (religious attitudes, education, social hierarchy, administration) The reforms of the military The development of material race ideology Inﬂuence on the early independence movement 6.5 Comments and agreement from tutor-assessor I conﬁrm that the project is not work which has been or will be submitted for another qualiﬁcation and is appropriate. Agreed: Name: Date: .03.2015 6.6 Comments and agreement from project proposal checker Comments (optional): I conﬁrm that the project is appropriate. Agreed: Name: Date: Page ! 34 .03.2015 Florian Blackburn 7. Activity Log Date Comment Resources June 2014 The project has been introduced by my school, and I have been asked to start thinking about possible titles. July I watched the BBC documentary: The Birth of Empire: The East India Company. This made me particularly interested in the East India Company. I therefore spent some time researching it. This was independent from my EPQ, and initially I was not planning to write about it. However, as I read of the Company’s downfall I felt I was interested enough to write an EPQ on he topic. The Birth of Empire: The East India Company Therefore my initial proposition is that I want to do a project based upon the Indian Mutiny of 1857. I plan to look at both the causes and consequences for Indian and in Britain. 30 January 2015 After receiving advice from teachers I have decided to only focus on the consequences of the Mutiny as this will make the project more manageable. I have started collecting some resources, mainly articles from JSTOR relating to the aftermath and consequences of the Mutiny of 1857. However I have found these to be too detailed and not relevant exactly to the consequences to India. I have therefore disposed of most of these sources. The exception however is a source relating to military reform. It is shown on the right, and referenced further in my S.5 Bibliography. Punjabisation’ in the British Indian Army 1857-1947 and the Advent of Military Rule in Pakistan The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58 The Rise and Fall of British India Equally I have started reading the text book: The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58 so I can have a knowledge of the course of events in 1857. Furthermore I found a book in my school library about Imperialism which has a chapter dedicated to the effects of the Mutiny. 5 Feburary I am two thirds of the way through the text book, and now feel I can start collecting books written by Indian historians to write about their views on the nature and nomenclature of the events of 1857. I have equally been searching online to ﬁnd the views of a number of different historians who have either not written books, or who's books I cannot access. 10 February I have ﬁnished writing about the nature and nomenclature of the events of 1857. I am now going to move onto looking at the military. The main issue this has created is I cannot ﬁnd the propositions of the Peel Reforms. 11 February Due to the struggle with ﬁnding the source for the military I have decided to work on the document and generated an automatic table of contents. This included choosing and programming different fonts for different types of headings. Page ! 35 The Indian war of independence, 1857 Eighteen ﬁfty-seven Florian Blackburn Date Comment Resources 12 Feburary I have found the propositions of the Peel Reforms in The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. This is partially useful as it shows the immediate short term reforms undertaken by the military. The Bengal Army and the Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny Furthmore I have decided I must include glossary as there are many words non-experts, or people not of Indian origin would not know. 15 February I have started looking at the social reform. I am starting by looking The Aftermath of at the attitude to religion. I have been struggling however because Revolt I particularly need the book: The Aftermath of Revolt, but this is not available online at the moment. Lucky I was able to get a copy from the University of Kent library. After receiving the book I have read it relatively comprehensively as it is so speciﬁcally relating to my topic. 20 February I have made signiﬁcant progress with S.3.2 social reform, and have completed S.3.2.1 Attitude to religion, S.3.2.2 Education, S. 3.2.3 Indian Aristocracy. I am now moving onto looking at Indians in administration. 24 February I have now got hold of the book by Heather Streets focusing on material race ideology. This will now allow me to revisit the military and continue to discuss the long term effects on the military reorganisation. I am now starting to look at my introduction. I feel it is necessary to split this into three sections as there is information that cannot be put into another section, but is necessary. 28 February I have now ﬁnished my introduction, and S.3.4 Inﬂuence on the Independence Movement. I am starting to be restricted by my word count so I am considering cutting down on the reset of the planned project. This includes a section looking at the impact in Britain. I feel to do this section justice I would need to allocate at least 4,000 words if not more. 2 March I have had conformation from teachers at school that I can cut out the section on the impact in Britain. I am now therefore moving onto my conclusion. 4 March The conclusion is complete and I am now going to focus on writing my Literature Review. I have left this till last because I wanted to wait until I had collected all of my materials. I had previously written a review in 2014, so I can use some of the information found then, but this was of poor quality so I plan to fully re-write it. 9 March The project is now reasonably complete. I feel there are areas I can continue to improve on, and I will focus on this as I read through the project. 16 March I feel the project is now ﬁnished. I have nothing els to add, and have completed all sections. 20 March I have continued to read through the project, and get advice from teachers on spelling and semantics. I have read through and ﬁxed footnotes, and checked all formatting is consistent throughout the document. The project is now ready to be submitted. Page ! 36 Martial Races: The military, race and masculinity in British imperial culture, 1857-1914 Florian Blackburn Page ! 37

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