What brought about the Mutiny?
--Religious fears of the people--The land question
--The annexation of Oudh--Fulfilment of Malcolm's prophecy
--The Delhi royal family--The Nana Sahib--The Native army
--Greased cartridges--Limited number of British troops
--Objection to foreign service--Excessive age of the British officers
'What brought about the Mutiny?' and 'Is there any chance of a similar
rising occurring again?' are questions which are constantly being put
to me; I will now endeavour to answer them, though it is not a very
easy task--for I feel that my book will be rendered more interesting
and complete to many if I endeavour to give them some idea of the
circumstances which, in my opinion, led to that calamitous crisis in
the history of our rule in India, and then try to show how I think a
repetition of such a disaster may best be guarded against.
The causes which brought about the Mutiny were so various, and some of
them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as
concisely as I could wish; but I will be as brief as possible.
During the first years of our supremacy in India, Hindus and
Mahomedans alike were disposed to acquiesce in our rule--the blessings
of rest and peace after a long reign of strife and anarchy were too
real not to be appreciated; but as time went by, a new generation
sprang up by whom past miseries were forgotten, and those who had real
grievances, or those who were causelessly discontented, were all ready
to lay the blame for their real or fancied troubles on their foreign
rulers. Mahomedans looked back to the days of their Empire in India,
but failed to remember how completely, until we broke the Mahratta
power, the Hindus had got the upper hand. Their Moulvies taught them
that it was only lawful for true Mussulmans to submit to the rule of
an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they
watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme. The
Hindus had not forgotten that they had ousted the Mahomedans, and they
fancied that the fate of the British _raj_ might also be at their
mercy.
The late Sir George Campbell, in his interesting memoirs, says: 'The
Mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion.' I do not altogether
agree with him; for, although there was no general rising of the rural
population, the revolt, in my judgment, would never have taken place
had there not been a feeling of discontent and disquiet throughout
that part of the country from which our Hindustani sepoys chiefly
came, and had not certain influential people been thoroughly
dissatisfied with our system of government. This discontent and
dissatisfaction were produced by a policy which, in many instances,
the Rulers of India were powerless to avoid or postpone, forced upon
them as it was by the demands of civilization and the necessity for a
more enlightened legislation. Intriguers took advantage of this state
of affairs to further their own ends. Their plan of action was to
alienate the Native army, and to increase the general feeling of
uneasiness and suspicion, by spreading false reports as to the
intentions of the authorities in regard to the various measures which
had been adopted to promote the welfare and prosperity of the masses.
It can hardly be questioned that these measures were right and proper
in themselves, but they were on that account none the less obnoxious
to the Brahmin priesthood, or distasteful to the Natives generally.
In some cases also they were premature, and in others they were not
carried out as judiciously as they might have been, or with sufficient
regard to the feelings and prejudices of the people.
The prohibition of _sati_ (burning widows on the funeral pyres of
their husbands); the putting a stop to female infanticide; the
execution of Brahmins for capital offences; the efforts of
missionaries and the protection of their converts; the removal of all
legal obstacles to the remarriage of widows; the spread of western and
secular education generally; and, more particularly, the attempt to
introduce female education, were causes of alarm and disgust to the
Brahmins, and to those Hindus of high caste whose social privileges
were connected with the Brahminical religion. Those arbiters of
fate, who were until then all-powerful to control every act of their
co-religionists, social, religious or political, were quick to
perceive that their influence was menaced, and that their sway would
in time be wrested from them, unless they could devise some means for
overthrowing our Government. They knew full well that the groundwork
of this influence was ignorance and superstition, and they stood
aghast at what they foresaw would be the inevitable result of
enlightenment and progress. Railways and telegraphs were specially
distasteful to the Brahmins: these evidences of ability and strength
were too tangible to be pooh-poohed or explained away. Moreover,
railways struck a direct blow at the system of caste, for on them
people of every caste, high and low, were bound to travel together.
The fears and antagonism of the Brahmins being thus aroused, it
was natural that they should wish to see our rule upset, and they
proceeded to poison the minds of the people with tales of the
Government's determination to force Christianity upon them, and
to make them believe that the continuance of our power meant the
destruction of all they held most sacred.
Nor was opportunity wanting to confirm, apparently, the truth of their
assertions. In the gaols a system of messing had been established
which interfered with the time-honoured custom of every man being
allowed to provide and cook his own food. This innovation was most
properly introduced as a matter of gaol discipline, and due care was
taken that the food of the Hindu prisoners should be prepared by
cooks of the same or superior caste. Nevertheless, false reports were
disseminated, and the credulous Hindu population was led to believe
that the prisoners' food was in future to be prepared by men of
inferior caste, with the object of defiling and degrading those for
whom it was prepared. The news of what was supposed to have happened
in the gaols spread from town to town and from village to village,
the belief gradually gaining ground that the people were about to be
forced to embrace Christianity.
As the promiscuous messing story did not greatly concern the
Mahomedans, other cries were made use of to create suspicion and
distrust amongst the followers of the Prophet. One of these, which
equally affected the Hindu and Mahomedan, was the alleged unfairness
of what was known in India as the land settlement, under which system
the right and title of each landholder to his property was examined,
and the amount of revenue to be paid by him to the paramount Power, as
owner of the soil, was regulated.
The rapid acquisition of territory by the East India Company, and
the establishment of its supremacy as the sovereign Power throughout
India, were necessarily effected by military operations; but as peace
and order were established, the system of land revenue, which had
been enforced in an extremely oppressive and corrupt manner under
successive Native Rulers and dynasties, had to be investigated and
revised. With this object in view, surveys were made, and inquiries
instituted into the rights of ownership and occupancy, the result
being that in many cases it was found that families of position and
influence had either appropriated the property of their humbler
neighbours, or evaded an assessment proportionate to the value of
their estates. Although these inquiries were carried out with the best
intentions, they were extremely distasteful to the higher classes,
while they failed to conciliate the masses. The ruling families deeply
resented our endeavours to introduce an equitable determination of
rights and assessment of land revenue. They saw that it would put an
end to the system of pillage and extortion which had been practised
from time immemorial; they felt that their authority was being
diminished, and that they would no longer be permitted to govern their
estates in the same despotic manner as formerly. On the other hand,
although the agricultural population generally benefited materially
by our rule, they could not realize the benevolent intentions of a
Government which tried to elevate their position and improve their
prospects. Moreover, there were no doubt mistakes made in the
valuation of land, some of it being assessed at too high a rate, while
the revenue was sometimes collected in too rigid a manner, sufficient
allowance not being made for the failure of crops. Then the harsh
law for the sale of proprietary rights in land to realize arrears of
land-tax was often enforced by careless revenue authorities in far too
summary a manner. The peasantry of India were, and still are, ignorant
and apathetic. Accustomed from the earliest days to spoliation and
oppression, and to a periodical change of masters, they had some
reason to doubt whether the rule of the Feringhis would be more
permanent than that of the Moghuls or the Mahrattas. Much as a just
and tolerant Government would have been to their advantage, they were
unable to appreciate it, and if they had appreciated it, they were too
timid and too wanting in organization to give it their open support.
Under these social and political conditions, the passive attitude of
the rural population failed to counterbalance the active hostility
of a large section of the upper classes, and of their predatory
followers, who for centuries had lived by plunder and civil war.
Another weighty cause of discontent, chiefly affecting the wealthy and
influential classes, and giving colour to the Brahmins' accusation
that we intended to upset the religion and violate the most cherished
customs of the Hindus, was Lord Dalhousie's strict enforcement of
the doctrine of the lapse of property in the absence of direct or
collateral heirs, and the consequent appropriation of certain Native
States, and the resumption of certain political pensions by the
Government of India. This was condemned by the people of India as
grasping, and as an unjustifiable interference with the institutions
of the country, and undoubtedly made us many enemies.[1]
Later on, the annexation of Oudh, which was one of those measures
forced on the Rulers of India in the interests of humanity and good
government, and which could hardly have been longer delayed, created
suspicion and apprehension amongst all the Native States. For more
than sixty years Governor-General after Governor-General had pointed
out the impossibility of a civilized Government tolerating in the
midst of its possessions the misrule, disorder, and debauchery
which were desolating one of the most fertile and thickly-populated
districts in India.
As early as 1801 Lord Wellesley wrote: 'I am satisfied that no
effectual security can be provided against the ruin of the province
of Oudh until the exclusive management of the civil and military
government of that country shall be transferred to the Company under
suitable provisions for the Nawab and his family.'
In 1831 Lord William Bentinck warned the King of Oudh that, unless
he would consent to rule his territories in accordance with the
principles of good government and the interest of the people, the East
India Company would assume the entire administration of the province,
and would make him a state prisoner.
In 1847 Lord Hardinge went in person to Lucknow and solemnly
reiterated the warning, giving the King two years to reform his
administration.
In 1851 Colonel Sleeman, the Resident at Lucknow, whose sympathy with
the Rulers of Native States was thought to be even too great, and
who was the last person to exaggerate the misrule existing in Oudh,
reported to Lord Dalhousie that the state of things had become
intolerable, and that, if our troops were withdrawn from Oudh, the
landholders would in one month's time overrun the province and pillage
Lucknow. It is true Sleeman, with his Native proclivities, did not
contemplate annexation; his advice was to 'assume the administration,'
but not to 'grasp the revenues of the country.' The same mode of
procedure had been advocated by Henry Lawrence six years before in an
article which appeared in the _Calcutta Review_. His words were: 'Let
Oudh be at last governed, not for one man, the King, but for the King
and his people. Let the administration of the country be Native; let
not one rupee come into the Company's coffers.'
Sleeman was followed in 1854 by Colonel Outram, than whom he could
not have had a more admirable successor, or one less likely to be
unnecessarily hard upon a State which, with all its shortcomings, had
been loyal to us for nearly a century. Colonel Outram, nevertheless,
fully endorsed the views of his predecessor. General Low, the then
Military Member of Council, who twenty years before, when Resident
at Lucknow, had deprecated our assuming even temporarily the
administration of Oudh, thinking our action would be misunderstood by
the people, now also stated his conviction that 'it was the paramount
duty of the British Government to interfere at once for the protection
of the people of Oudh.'
In summing up the case, Lord Dalhousie laid three possible courses of
action before the authorities in England. The King of Oudh might be
forced to abdicate, his province being incorporated in the British
dominions; or he might be maintained in his royal state as a
subsidized Prince, the actual government being permanently transferred
to the East India Company; or the transfer of the government to
the East India Company might be for a limited period only. The
Governor-General recommended the second course, but the Court of
Directors and Her Majesty's Ministers decided to adopt the first,
and requested Lord Dalhousie to carry out the annexation before he
resigned his office.
This measure, so long deferred and so carefully considered, could
hardly, in my opinion, have been avoided by a civilized and civilizing
Government. It was at last adopted with the utmost reluctance, and
only after the experiment of administering a province for the benefit
of the Natives, without annexing it, had been tried in the Punjab
and had signally failed. To use Lord Dalhousie's words, it was amply
justified on the ground that 'the British Government would be guilty
in the sight of God and man if it were any longer to aid in sustaining
by its countenance an administration fraught with suffering to
millions.' But the Natives generally could not understand the
necessity for the measure, or believe in the reasons which influenced
us; many of them, therefore, considered it an unprovoked usurpation,
and each Ruler of a Native State imagined that his turn might come
next.
Thus, the annexation of Oudh in one sense augmented that weakness in
our position as an eastern Power which, so to speak, had its source
in our strength. So long as there was a balance of power
between ourselves and Native States--Mahratta, Rajput, Sikh, or
Mahomedan--they were prevented by their mutual jealousies and
religious differences from combining against us; but when that balance
was destroyed and we became the paramount Power in India, the period
of danger to us began, as was prophesied by the far-seeing Malcolm in
the early days of our first conquests. We had now become objects of
suspicion and dread to all the lesser Powers, who were ready to sink
their own disputes in the consideration of the best means to check the
extension of our rule and overthrow our supremacy; while we, inflated
by our power and satisfied with our apparent security, became more
dogmatic and uncompromising in enforcing principles which, though
sound and just in themselves, were antipathetic to Native ideas and
traditions. By a great many acts and measures we made them feel how
completely our ideas differed from theirs. They preferred their own,
and strongly resented our increasing efforts to impose ours upon them.
Even those amongst the Native Princes who were too enlightened to
believe that we intended to force our religion upon them and change
all their customs, felt that their power was now merely nominal, and
that every substantial attribute of sovereignty would soon disappear
if our notions of progress continued to be enforced.
At a time when throughout the country there existed these feelings of
dissatisfaction and restless suspicion, it was not to be expected that
the most discontented and unfriendly of the Native Rulers would not
seize the opportunity to work us mischief. The most prominent of these
amongst the Mahomedans were the royal family of Delhi and the ex-King
of Oudh, and, amongst the Hindus, Dundu Pant, better known by English
people as the 'Nana Sahib.'
All three considered themselves badly treated, and no doubt, from
their point of view, their grievances were not altogether groundless.
The King of Oudh's I have already indicated, and when his province was
annexed, he was removed to Calcutta. Having refused the yearly pension
of twelve lakhs[2] of rupees offered to him, and declined to sign the
treaty by which his territory was made over to the British Government,
he sent his mother, his son, and his brother to England to plead his
cause for him.
The most influential of the three discontented Rulers, or, at all
events, the one whom the rebellious of all castes and religions were
most inclined to put forward as their nominal leader, was the head of
the Delhi royal family, by name Bahadur Shah. He was eighty years old
in 1857, and had been on the throne for twenty years. His particular
grievance lay in the fact of our decision that on his death the
title of King, which we had bestowed on the successors of the Moghul
Emperor, should be abolished, and his family removed from Delhi.
In the early part of the century Lord Wellesley pointed out the danger
of allowing a Mahomedan Prince, with all the surroundings of royalty,
to remain at the seat of the old Moghul government, but the question
was allowed to remain in abeyance until 1849, when Lord Dalhousie
reconsidered it, and obtained the sanction of the authorities in
England to the removal of the Court from Delhi to a place about
fourteen miles off, where the Kutub tower stands. At the same time the
Heir Apparent was to be told that on his father's death the title of
King of Delhi would cease.
Lord Dalhousie had been only a short time in India when he took
up this question, and he could not properly have appreciated the
estimation in which the Natives held the King of Delhi, for he wrote
in support of his proposals 'that the Princes of India and its people
had become entirely indifferent to the condition of the King or his
position.' But when the decision of the British Government on the
subject reached India, he had been more than two years in the country,
and although his views as to the desirability of the measure remained
unchanged, the experience he had gained enabled him to gauge more
accurately the feelings of the people, and, with the advice of his
Council, he came to the conclusion that it would be wiser to let
affairs remain _in statu quo_ during Bahadur Shah's lifetime. The
royal family were informed accordingly, and an agreement was drawn up,
signed, sealed, and witnessed, by which the Heir Apparent accepted the
conditions to be imposed upon him on the death of his father, who was
to be allowed to remain in Delhi during his lifetime, with all the
paraphernalia of royalty.
However satisfactory this arrangement might be to the Government of
India, to every member of the Delhi royal family it must have seemed
oppressive and humiliating to the last degree. Outwardly they appeared
to accept the inevitable quietly and submissively, but they were only
biding their time, and longing for an opportunity to throw off the
hated English yoke. The war with Persia in 1856 seemed to offer the
chance they wanted. On the pretence that the independence of Herat
was threatened by the Amir of Kabul, the Persians marched an army to
besiege that place. As this act was a violation of our treaty with
Persia made three years before, Her Majesty's Government directed that
an army should be sent from India to the Persian Gulf. The troops had
scarcely left Bombay before the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West
Provinces was warned by a Native correspondent that the King of
Delhi was intriguing with the Shah of Persia. At the same time a
proclamation was posted on the walls of the Jama Masjid (Shah Jehan's
famous mosque at Delhi), to the effect that a Persian army was coming
to relieve India from the presence of the English, and calling on all
true believers to rise and fight against the heretics. Reports were
also diligently circulated of our being defeated on the shores of
the Persian Gulf, and the people were made to believe that their
opportunity had arrived, and that the time was now favourable for a
successful rebellion.
Of the three principal movers in the events which immediately preceded
the Mutiny, the Nana Sahib was by far the most intelligent, and had
mixed most with Europeans. He was the adopted son and heir of the last
of the Peshwas, the Chiefs of the Mahratta confederacy. His cause of
dissatisfaction was the discontinuance to him of a pension which, at
the close of the Mahratta war in 1818, was granted to the Peshwa, on
the clear understanding that it was to cease at his death. The Peshwa
died in 1851, leaving the Nana an enormous fortune; but he was not
content. The lapse of the pension, to which he was not entitled,
rankled in his breast, and when all his efforts to get it restored
to him proved of no avail, he became thoroughly disgusted and
disaffected. After failing to obtain in India a reconsideration of
the decision of the Government on the subject, he sent to England
as confidential agent a Mahomedan of the name of Azimula Khan, who
remained three years in Europe, residing for the most part in London;
but he also visited Paris, Constantinople, and the Crimea, arriving at
the latter place when we, in alliance with the French, were besieging
Sebastopol. He was a man of no rank or position in his own country, a
mere agent of the Nana's, but he was received into the best English
society, was everywhere treated as a royal Prince, and became engaged
to a young English girl, who agreed to follow him to India to be
married. All this was revealed by the correspondence to which I have
referred as having been found in the Nana's palace of Bithur. The
greater number of these letters were from people in England--not a few
from ladies of rank and position. One elderly dame called him her dear
eastern son. There were numerous letters from his English _fiancée_,
and two from a Frenchman of the name of Lafont,[3] relating to some
business with the French settlement of Chandernagore, with which he
had been entrusted by Azimula Khan, acting for the Nana. Written, as
these letters were, immediately before the Mutiny, in which the Nana
was the leading spirit, it seems probable that '_les principales
choses_,' to which Lafont hopes to bring satisfactory answers, were
invitations to the disaffected and disloyal in Calcutta, and perhaps
the French settlers at Chandernagore, to assist in the effort about to
be made to throw off the British yoke. A portion of the correspondence
was unopened, and there were several letters in Azimula's own
handwriting which had not been despatched. Two of these were to Omar
Pasha at Constantinople, and told of the sepoys' discontent and the
troubled state of India generally. That the Nana was intriguing with
the King of Delhi, the Nawab of Oudh, and other great personages, has
been proved beyond a doubt, although at the time he was looked upon by
the British residents at Cawnpore as a perfectly harmless individual,
in spite of its being known that he considered himself aggrieved on
account of his having been refused the continuance of the pension, and
because a salute of guns (such as it is the custom to give to Native
Princes on entering British territory) had not been accorded to him.
While the spirit of rebellion was thus being fostered and stirred into
active existence throughout the country, it was hardly to be hoped
that the Native army would be allowed to remain unaffected by a
movement which could not easily attain formidable proportions without
the assistance of the Native soldiers, who themselves, moreover, had
not remained unmoved spectators of all that had happened during the
previous thirty or forty years. The great majority of the sepoys were
drawn from the agricultural classes, especially in the province
of Oudh, and were therefore directly interested in all questions
connected with rights of property, tenure of land, etc.; and questions
of religion and caste affected them equally with the rest of the
population.
Quietly, but surely, the instigators of rebellion were preparing the
Native army for revolt. The greatest cunning and circumspection were,
however, necessary to success. There were so many opposing interests
to be dealt with, Mahomedans and Hindus being as violently hostile to
each other, with regard to religion and customs, as they were to us.
Soldiers, too, of all ranks had a great stake in their profession.
Some had nearly served their time for their pensions, that greatest
of all attractions to the Native to enter the army, for the youngest
recruit feels that, if he serves long enough, he is sure of an income
sufficient to enable him to sit in the sun and do nothing for the rest
of his days--a Native's idea of supreme happiness. The enemies of our
rule generally, and the fanatic in particular, were, however, equal
to the occasion. They took advantage of the widespread discontent to
establish the belief that a systematic attack was to be made on the
faith and habits of the people, whether Hindu or Mahomedan, and, as a
proof of the truth of their assertions, they alleged that the Enfield
cartridges which had been recently issued to the army were greased
with a mixture of cows' fat and lard, the one being as obnoxious to
the Hindu as the other is to the Mahomedan. The news spread throughout
the Bengal Presidency; the sepoys became alarmed, and determined to
suffer any punishment rather than pollute themselves by biting the
contaminating cartridge, as their doing so would involve loss of
caste, which to the Hindu sepoy meant the loss of everything to him
most dear and sacred in this world and the next. He and his family
would become outcasts, his friends and relations would look on him
with horror and disgust, while eternal misery, he believed, would be
his doom in the world to come.
It has been made quite clear that a general belief existed amongst the
Hindustani sepoys that the destruction of their caste and religion had
been finally resolved upon by the English, as a means of forcing them
to become Christians, and it seems extraordinary that the English
officers with Native regiments were so little aware of the strength of
this impression amongst their men.
The recent researches of Mr. Forrest in the records of the Government
of India prove that the lubricating mixture used in preparing the
cartridges was actually composed of the objectionable ingredients,
cows' fat and lard, and that incredible disregard of the soldiers'
religious prejudices was displayed in the manufacture of these
cartridges. When the sepoys complained that to bite them would destroy
their caste, they were solemnly assured by their officers that they
had been greased with a perfectly unobjectionable mixture. These
officers, understanding, as all who have come in contact with Natives
are supposed to understand, their intense abhorrence of touching the
flesh or fat of the sacred cow or the unclean pig, did not believe it
possible that the authorities could have been so regardless of the
sepoys' feelings as to have allowed it to be used in preparing their
ammunition: they therefore made this statement in perfect good faith.
But nothing was easier than for the men belonging to the regiments
quartered near Calcutta to ascertain, from the low-caste Native
workmen employed in manufacturing the cartridges at the Fort William
arsenal, that the assurances of their officers were not in accordance
with facts, and they were thus prepared to credit the fables which the
sedition-mongers so sedulously spread abroad, to the effect that the
Government they served and the officers who commanded them had entered
into a deliberate conspiracy to undermine their religion.
Notwithstanding all the evil influence brought to bear on the Native
army, I do not think that the sepoys would have proved such ready
instruments in the hands of the civilian intriguers, had that army
been organized, disciplined, and officered in a satisfactory manner,
and had there been a sufficient proportion of British troops in India
at the time. To the great preponderance of Native, as compared with
British, troops may be attributed the fact that the sepoys dared to
break into open mutiny. Moreover, the belief of the Natives in the
invincibility of the British soldier, which formerly enabled small
numbers of Europeans to gain victories over large Native armies, had
been seriously weakened by the lamentable occurrences at Kabul during
the first Afghan war, terminating in the disastrous retreat in the
winter of 1841-42.
To add to the exalted idea the sepoys were beginning to entertain of
their own importance, they were pampered by their officers and the
civil Government to a most absurd extent, being treated under all
circumstances with far greater consideration than the European
soldiers. For instance, in the time of Lord William Bentinck flogging
was abolished in the Native army,[4] while still in full swing amongst
British soldiers, and sepoys were actually allowed to witness the
humiliation of their white comrades when this degrading form of
punishment was inflicted upon them.
In the early days of our connexion with India, we had no need for
an army. Living, as we were, on sufferance in a foreign land for
commercial purposes, armed men were only required to guard the
factories. As these factories increased in size and importance, these
armed men were given a semi-military organization, and in time they
were formed into levies as a reserve to the few Europeans entertained
by the merchants, to enable them to hold their own against the French,
who were then beginning to dispute with us for supremacy in southern
India. When employed in the field, the Native troops were associated
with a varying proportion of British soldiers, but the number of the
latter was limited by the expense of their maintenance, the difficulty
of supplying them from England, and the unadvisability of locking up a
part of the British army in distant stations, which at that time
were very inaccessible and generally unhealthy. Native troops were
therefore raised in continually increasing numbers, and after the
battle of Plassey the Native army was rapidly augmented, especially
in the Bengal Presidency; and, trained and led as it was by British
officers, it achieved remarkable successes.
During the thirteen years preceding the Mutiny, the Native army,
numbering 217,000 men and 176 guns, was increased by 40,000 men and 40
guns, but no addition was made to the small British force of 38,000
until 1853, when one regiment was added to each Presidency, or less
than 3,000 soldiers in all. This insignificant augmentation was
subsequently more than neutralized by the withdrawal of six British
regiments from India to meet the requirements of the Crimean and
Persian wars. Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General in 1854, saw the danger
of this great preponderance of Native troops. He represented that the
annexations and conquests which had taken place during his tenure of
office necessitated a proportional increase of British soldiers; he
protested against the withdrawal of a single European regiment, either
on account of the war with Russia or for operations in the Persian
Gulf, and he solemnly warned Her Majesty's Government that the
essential element of our strength in India was the presence of a large
number of British troops.
No attention, however, was paid to Lord Dalhousie's representations by
the authorities in England, who doubtless thought they understood the
requirements of India better than the Governor-General, with his
more than six years' experience of the country. In spite of his
remonstrances, two regiments were ordered to England, and four were
sent later to the Persian Gulf, with the result which I have already
stated.
When the Mutiny broke out, the whole effective British force in India
only amounted to 36,000 men, against 257,000 Native soldiers,[5] a
fact which was not likely to be overlooked by those who hoped and
strived to gain to their own side this preponderance of numerical
strength, and which was calculated to inflate the minds of the sepoys
with a most undesirable sense of independence. An army of Asiatics,
such as we maintain in India, is a faithful servant, but a treacherous
master; powerfully influenced by social and religious prejudices with
which we are imperfectly acquainted, it requires the most careful
handling; above all, it must never be allowed to lose faith in the
prestige or supremacy of the governing race. When mercenaries feel
that they are indispensable to the maintenance of that authority which
they have no patriotic interest in upholding, they begin to consider
whether it would not be more to their advantage to aid in overthrowing
that authority, and if they decide that it would be, they have little
scruple in transferring their allegiance from the Government they
never loved, and have ceased to fear, to the power more in accordance
with their own ideas, and from which, they are easily persuaded, they
will obtain unlimited benefits.
A fruitful cause of dissatisfaction in our Native army, and one which
pressed more heavily upon it year by year, as our acquisitions of
territory in northern India became more extended, was the sepoy's
liability to service in distant parts of India, entailing upon him a
life amongst strangers differing from him in religion and in all their
customs, and far away from his home, his family, and his congenial
surroundings--a liability which he had never contemplated except in
the event of war, when extra pay, free rations and the possibility
of loot, would go far to counterbalance the disadvantages of
expatriation. Service in Burma, which entailed crossing the sea, and,
to the Hindu, consequent loss of caste, was especially distasteful. So
great an objection, indeed, had the sepoys to this so-called 'foreign
service,' and so difficult did it become to find troops to relieve the
regiments, in consequence of the bulk of the Bengal army not being
available for service beyond the sea, that the Court of Directors
sanctioned Lord Canning's proposal that, after the 1st September,
1856, 'no Native recruit shall be accepted who does not at the time of
his enlistment undertake to serve beyond the sea whether within
the territories of the Company or beyond them.' This order, though
absolutely necessary, caused the greatest dissatisfaction amongst
the Hindustani sepoys, who looked upon it as one of the measures
introduced by the _Sirkar_ for the forcible, or rather fraudulent,
conversion of all the Natives to Christianity.[6]
That the long-existing discontent and growing disloyalty in our
Native army might have been discovered sooner, and grappled with in a
sufficiently prompt and determined manner to put a stop to the Mutiny,
had the senior regimental and staff officers been younger, more
energetic, and intelligent, is an opinion to which I have always been
strongly inclined. Their excessive age, due to a strict system of
promotion by seniority which entailed the employment of Brigadiers of
seventy, Colonels of sixty, and Captains of fifty, must necessarily
have prevented them performing their military duties with the energy
and activity which are more the attributes of younger men, and must
have destroyed any enthusiasm about their regiments, in which there
was so little hope of advancement or of individual merit being
recognized. Officers who displayed any remarkable ability were allowed
to be taken away from their own corps for the more attractive and
better-paid appointments appertaining to civil employ or the Irregular
service. It was, therefore, the object of every ambitious and capable
young officer to secure one of these appointments, and escape as soon
as possible from a service in which ability and professional zeal
counted for nothing.[7]
So far as I understand the causes which led to the rebellion of 1857,
I have now answered the question, 'What brought about the Mutiny?' The
reply to the second question, 'Is there any chance of a similar rising
occurring again?' must be left to another chapter.
[Footnote 1: In this matter it seems to me that Lord Dalhousie's
policy has been unfairly criticized. The doctrine of lapse was no
new-fangled theory of the Governor-General, but had been recognized
and acted upon for many years by the Native dynasties which preceded
the East India Company. Under the Company's rule the Court of
Directors had investigated the subject, and in a series of despatches
from 1834 to 1846 had laid down that, in certain cases, the selection
and adoption of an heir by a Native Ruler was an incontestable right,
subject only to the formal sanction of the suzerain Power, while in
other cases such a procedure was optional, and could only be permitted
as a special favour. Lord Dalhousie concurred in the view that each
case should be considered and decided on its merits. His words were:
'The Government is bound in duty, as well as in policy, to act on
every such occasion with the purest integrity, and in the most
scrupulous observance of good faith. Where even a shadow of doubt can
be shown, the claim should at once be abandoned. But where the right
to territory by lapse is clear, the Government is bound to take that
which is justly and legally its due, and to extend to that territory
the benefits of our sovereignty, present and prospective.']
[Footnote 2: In those days £120,000.]
[Footnote 3:
'Benares,
'_April 4, 1857._
'MON CHER AZIMULA KHAN,
'Je suis parti de Cawnpore le premier du mois et suis arrivé ici
ce matin, je partirai ce soir et serai à Chandernagore le 7 au
matin, dans la journée je ferai une visite au Gouverneur et
le lendemain irai à Calcutta, je verrai notre Consul General.
Ecrivez-moi et adressez-moi vos lettres, No. 123, Dhurumtollah. Je
voudrais que vous puissiez m'envoyer des fonds au moins 5 ou
600 Rs. sans retard, car je ne resterai à Calcutta que le temps
nécessaire pour tout arranger et _le bien arranger_. Je suppose 48
heures à Calcutta et deux ou trois jours au plus à Chandernagore,
ne perdez pas de temps mais répondez de suite. Pour toutes les
principales choses les réponses seraient satisfaisantes, soyez-en
assuré.
'Faites en sorte de me répondre sans délai afin que je ne sois pas
retenu à Calcutta.
'Présentez mes compliments respectueux.
'Rappelez-moi au souvenir de Baba Sahib, et croyez moi,
'Votre bien dévoué
'A. LAFONT.
'Mon adresse à Chandernagore, "Care of Mesdames Albert."
'N.B.--Mais écrivez-moi à _Calcutta_, car je serai chaque jour là,
en chemin de fer, je fais le trajet en 20 minutes. Si vous avez
quelque chose de pressé à me communiquer vous le pouvez faire par
télégraph en Anglais seulement.
'A.L.'
'Chandernagore,
'_April 9, 1857._
'MON CHER AZIMULA KHAN,
'J'ai tout arrangé, _j'apporterai une lettre_, et elle sera
satisfaisante _cette lettre_ me sera donnée le 14 et le 15 je
partirai pour Cawnpore. Mes respects à son Altesse.
'Votre tout dévoué
'A. LAFONT.']
[Footnote 4: Flogging was re-introduced in 1845.]
[Footnote 5: This does not include the bodies of armed and trained
police, nor the lascars attached to the Artillery as fighting men.
These amounted to many thousands.]
[Footnote 6: In a letter to Lord Canning, which Sir Henry Lawrence
wrote on the 9th May, 1857, he gave an interesting account of a
conversation he had had with a Brahmin Native officer of the Oudh
Artillery, who was most persistent in his belief that the Government
was determined to make the people of India Christians. He alluded
especially to the new order about enlistment, our object being, he
said, to make the sepoys go across the sea in order that they might be
obliged to eat what we liked; and he argued that, as we had made our
way through India, had won Bhartpur, Lahore, etc., by fraud, so it
might be possible that we would mix bone-dust with grain sold to
Hindus. Sir Henry Lawrence was quite unable to convince the Native
officer; he would give us credit for nothing, and although he would
not say that he himself _did_ or did _not_ believe, he kept repeating,
'I tell you Natives are all like sheep; the leading one tumbles, and
down all the rest roll over him.']
[Footnote 7: It is curious to note how nearly every military officer
who held a command or high position on the staff in Bengal when the
Mutiny broke out, disappeared from the scene within the first few
weeks, and was never heard of officially again. Some were killed, some
died of disease, but the great majority failed completely to fulfil
the duties of the positions they held, and were consequently
considered unfit for further employment. Two Generals of divisions
were removed from their commands, seven Brigadiers were found wanting
in the hour of need, and out of the seventy-three regiments of Regular
Cavalry and Infantry which mutinied, only four Commanding officers
were given other commands, younger officers being selected to raise
and command the new regiments.]
* * * * *