Causes:

• Economic exploitation of India by the British was a major reason of the War of Independence.

  • In the beginning the British traders conducted trade in a way that benefited Indians, too.

    • However, as they got control of several Indian states, they introduced new trading laws and revenue reforms that were aimed at exploiting Indian resources and wealth.

    • They imposed heavy taxes on Indian peasants and small landowners to fill their treasury.

  • Lord Warren Hastings introduced the concept of putting the tax collectors up for auction. This tempted many locals to acquire the post by paying heavy money to the Company.

    • Once the ambitious candidates got the desired position of tax collector, they would use all tactics to extort taxes from the Indians.

    • This resulted in poverty and starvation among Indians that whipped up anger and resentment against the British with the passage of time.

  • Moreover, exploitation of local raw materials and wealth for the British factories in England was also noticed with great concern by the Indians.

    • As factory made better cotton began to replace the local hand processed cotton, millions of hand weavers of cotton were rendered jobless and suffered from starvation and died.

• Social reforms were resented by the Indians.

  • When the Hindu custom of Suttee was banned and remarriage of the widow was encouraged the Hindus reacted strongly.

    • In Suttee the widow was burned alive in the cremation ceremony of her dead husband.

    • Most of the widowed women in Hindu community were supposed not to remarry.

    • Therefore, when British changed these traditions, Hindus took this step as interference in their religious traditions.

  • Similarly the introduction of the co-education system and a discouraging attitude of the observance of Hijab/Purda was resisted by the Muslims for whom these steps were against their socio-religious traditions.

  • British started a number of social development schemes such as roads, railways and telecommunications.

    • Though they benefitted India in general, many in the north- western parts of India thought that British had introduced the railway system only to ensure quick movement of troops in case of Russian attack through Afghanistan.

  • Westernization of Indian educational system was also not welcomed by a majority of Indians.

    • Because of Lord Macaulay’s contemptuous remarks about the Indian educational standard, when English began to replace Urdu and Hindi as the official language, in 1834, both Hindus and Muslims opposed this as they took such measures as an onslaught on local cultural traditions.

    • Generally, the British were derogatory towards Indians.

  • Growth of the activities of the Christian missionaries during the second half of 19th century also promoted a sense of insecurity among Indians specially when there were reports of forcible conversion of Indians into Christianity.

    • They were active at all public places like, schools, parks, markets and they believed it was their duty to impose a superior culture and religion on all Indians.

• In military affairs too, the British officers treated Indian subordinates in an arrogant way and they were denied any promotion regardless of their services for the British.

  • Indian sepoys were given lesser salaries as compared to the British soldiers. This inculcated hatred and frustration among Indians.

  • When an ordinance was issued about the services of Indians anywhere in the world, both Hindus and the Muslims felt offended.

  • According to Hindu belief, a caste Hindu would become Sudra if he travelled overseas.

  • Muslim troops were reluctant to fight the fellow Afghan Muslim troops in the Company’s army.

• British policy of annexation was also very alarming for Indians, specially the way the Doctrine of lapse was enforced in 1852 by Lord Dalhousie.

  • Under this, any state whose ruler didn’t have a son was annexed by the EIC. States of Nana Sahib Peshwa (Kanpur) and Rani of Jhansi were unjustly annexed as both had sons.

  • Many states were annexed by force or on weak pretexts such as Sindh and Bengal.

• After entering Delhi in 1803, the EIC shifted the Mughal royal family from the Red Fort to Qutub Sahib.

  • This too promoted anger among Indians.

• Finally, by the start of 1857, new cartridges for the Enfield rifles were introduced.

  • It was rumored that they were wrapped in the fat of cow and pig and they had to be chewed out before use.

  • Hindus accorded motherly status to cows whereas for Muslims pig was Haram (forbidden). So, both Hindu and Muslim troops refused to use these cartridges.

  • Mangal Panday was the first soldier to have refused them in March 1857 and with this the revolt spread to other parts of India.

Reasons for the failure of War of Independence:

• Indians were not united in the War.

  • Right from the beginning the Hindu-Muslim divide was evident.

    • Hindus had no reason to fight for the restoration of the Mughal rule in India.

    • So, on many fronts both communities did not support each other.

  • At many places different groups fought for different reasons.

  • The only real uniting force was Islam as the Mughal rule had been established by the Muslim community.

    • Being a minority in India and ruling it for centuries, the Muslims were more prepared than other communities to oppose the British.

    • Therefore, any degree of unity among Muslims greatly alarmed the Hindus and Sikhs.

    • That is one major reason why the British viewed the War of Independence as predominantly a ‘Muslim revolt’.

• Moreover, some of the rulers were ready to withdraw from the War if the British promised to fulfill their demands.

  • Some of the state princes were interested only in restoring their own feudal powers.

    • In some cases their powers actually depended on the support of the British.

    • That is why the ruler of Kashmir sent 2000 troops to help the British.

    • This greatly weakened the spirit of the uprising on the whole.

  • The rebel forces were generally not well-organised, and did not have a concrete common goal ahead of them.

    • Such rebels, in fact, gave vent to their frustration and anger due to their growing poverty.

    • This is why many of them began to plunder their fellow countrymen after taking control of many cities.

    • Thus the affected people preferred to leak information to the British about the rebels instead of supporting them.

    • This disunity was a blessing for the British who fully exploited it, and began to regain control over the lost territories.

  • The uprising was a hasty and unplanned desperate attempt by the troops after Mangal Pandey’s refusal to use the grease cartridges.

    • This encouraged sepoys in some other provinces to defy their British officers, too.

    • Consequently most of the Indian troops from selected provinces stood up against the British without any proper planning.

    • As the uprising spread to other provinces, there was no coordination among troops about the future line of action.

    • This became a major reason for the failure of the War of Independence.

• British, on the other hand, had many strengths.

  • They were one of the powerful nations of the world with sophisticated and destructive weapons.

  • They had a regular, highly disciplined and professionally trained army.

  • Their skilled military commanders carried a strong sense of success due to their professional training.

  • British army had been trained in dealing with such emergencies.

  • The rebels, on the other hand, did not have any such leaders to counter the British.

    • Therefore, they retained control of about 3/4th of their possessions and restricted the uprising to a smaller belt of northern and central Indian provinces.

  • They also had a strong sense of success due to their victories in other parts of the world.

  • They skillfully followed their policy of “divide and rule” when they saw the Indian inherent disunity.

  • They applied both military and non- military tactics in a diplomatic way in exploiting the weakness of several Indian rulers who were fighting to regain their own rule.

  • As a result, the British kept control in more than three quarters of their possessions.

• As far as its immediate results are concerned they brought miseries to Indians in general and to Muslims in particular.

  • Muslims were exclusively targetted because British had taken political control from them and they wanted to erase any sense of “imperial pride” from their minds.

  • At many places mass executions were carried out publicly and the dead were stitched in the pigskin.

  • Muslims were denied all respectable posts.

  • Raids were conducted at the houses of several notable people on the ground of suspicion and harsh treatment was meted out in general.

  • Sepoys were blown away by tying their bodies at the mouths of the cannons.

  • The purpose was to create awe and horror in the minds of the Indians.

  • Mughal rule was officially abolished and the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was exiled to Rangoon (Myanmar/Burma) where his sons were beheaded and he himself was given death sentence that was commuted to life imprisonment due to his advanced age.

  • India became a British colony.

    • British also became cautious and selective in military matters.

    • They began to recruit troops from the relatively loyal provinces such as Punjab KP and Kashmir, and followed the policy of encouraging the “martial race” of Pathans and Punjabis.

Effects Of War:

• However, gradually it became apparent that the War gave Indians something positive, too.

  • Indians had learned the hard lesson that militarily they were no match to the British.

    • Therefore, now they would resist British rule politically.

    • As a result Indians began to develop political awareness and founded political parties INC in 1885 and ML in 1906.

  • Indians got leaders and reformers like Sir Syed, Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak, Gandhi and Jinnah.

  • British government abolished the EIC under Allahabad Declaration of 1858.

    • Under this, all annexation policies were abandoned e.g. the doctrine of lapse.

    • British government promised respect of local religious faiths and practices.

    • They also decided to train Indians in politics by introducing political reforms periodically.

• Queen of England adopted the additional title of “Empress of India” in 1877 in order to win the Indian confidence.

• British government introduced a “chain of command” to govern India.

• British parliament would make laws for India with the assistance of a Secretary of State for India and a Viceroy.

• Secretary of State would visit India when needed while the Viceroy was stationed in India.

  • He was assisted by a team of governors (always British) and the Viceroy’s Executive Council.