The Great Revolt: 1857

Abstract

The events which began on 10 May 1857 are known variously as the Indian Mutiny, the Sepoy Mutiny, the Sepoy Rebellion, the Sepoy Revolt and the First War of Independence. That those events should have come to be known by so many names illustrates the vastly different ways in which they have been interpreted, and suggests the general air of confusion, fuelled by emotion, which has always surrounded them. It was not an Indian Mutiny because the revolt was largely restricted to the northern regions of India. It was not simply a mutiny or rebellion by the Bengal sepoys, as many Victorians saw it, because, although it was by no means embraced by the whole population, it was not confined solely to the sepoys either. Nor was it truly envisaged as a war of independence, though it may well have been the seed which gave rise to the independence struggle in later years. It was perhaps a mixture of all these things — the truth lying somewhere between the extremes of contemporary imperialist interpretation and more recent nationalist interpretation.

They themselves were fiercely proud of their unswerving loyalty to their race, their religion, and above all to their employers. And yet a similar drive among the Indians was unthinkable to them.¹