This spilled over into open defiance in some units and eventually a very bloody mutiny in Meerut and Delhi.Īs some units openly rebelled and disquiet spread the decision was made to disarm some Bengal units that it was believed may be at risk of mutiny. As soldiers had to place the cartridges in their mouth to rip them open and cows were regarded as sacred by Hindus and pigs unclean by Muslims this rumour created outrage. These cartridges were covered in grease which it was rumoured was made from animal fat, and specifically beef or pig fat. The incident which appears to have been the actual flash point for the mutiny of units within the East India Company Army related to the issue of new cartridges for the in service rifle. A high-caste Hindu who travelled in the cramped conditions of a wooden troop ship could not cook his own food on his own fire, and accordingly risked losing caste through ritual pollution. Although it was intended to apply to only new recruits, the serving sepoys feared that the Act might be applied retroactively to them as well. In 1856, a new Enlistment Act was introduced by the Company, which in theory made every unit in the Bengal Army liable to service overseas. The junior European officers became increasingly estranged from their soldiers, in many cases treating them as their racial inferiors. Their pay was relatively low and after Awadh and the Punjab were annexed, the soldiers no longer received extra pay ( batta or bhatta) for service there, because they were no longer considered "foreign missions". The sepoys also gradually became dissatisfied with various other aspects of army life. By the time these customs and privileges came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted. In the early years of Company rule, it tolerated and even encouraged the caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army, which recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Brahmins and Rajputs of Bihar and Awadh. The sepoys were therefore affected to a large degree by the concerns of the landholding and traditional members of Indian society. The Muslims formed a larger percentage of the 18 irregular cavalry units within the Bengal Army, while Hindus were mainly to be found in the 84 regular infantry and cavalry regiments. Unlike the other two, it recruited heavily from among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims. Of these, the Army of the Bengal Presidency was the largest. Each of the three "Presidencies" into which the East India Company divided India for administrative purposes maintained their own armies. The background to the Indian Mutiny, or the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as it is also referred to, is complex and has its origins largely with the Hindu members of the British East India Company Army of the Presidency of Bengal (although the British view after the mutiny was that it was largely driven by Muslim members). The following night a significant number of mutineers managed slip away but most were subsequently arrested by the Kashmir authorities, into whose territory they had escaped. When the mutineers realised that they, with the exception of the Sikhs, were to be disarmed, they mutinied and made a vigorous defence against the force that had arrived from Rawalpindi to disarm them. Thirty five British soldiers of the 24th Regiment of Foot (of later Rorkes Drift fame) were killed (or died of their wounds) along with a number of Loyal Indian troops, by mutinous sepoys of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry. In Jhelum, also garrisoned by the 14th, the concurrently timed disarmament was much more violent. These two companies were quickly defeated by the British, loyal native troops and the local population. At Rawalpindi, the 58th Bengal Native Infantry were disarmed peacefully, however the two companies of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry resisted the attempt by force of arms. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the Indian Mutiny) a column of troops led by the commander of the 24th Regiment of Foot was sent to disarm Bengal Native Infantry units believed to be at risk of mutiny in Rawalpindi and Jhelum.
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