The British in India, 1829-58 Flashcards
What was the Indian rebellion?
The Indian rebellion was a major uprising in India against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown
Who is Lord Dalhousie?
Lord Dalhousie was an energetic moderniser and utilitarian, devoted to his vision of an improved India
What are the three causes of the Indian rebellion?
- Lord Dalhousie and his reforms (short-term)
- The earlier cultural and religious clashes between the British and the Indians (long-term)
- The primary cause that unites these factors is the racialised notion of the “White Man’s burden”
What is the “White Man’s burden”
This was the duty, believed by white colonisers to be incumbent upon them, of imposing Western civilisation on the inhabitants of their colonies, whom they believed to be less developed - a euphemism for imperialism
The British objective to execercise their superiority on the Indians has always been the ____________ and __________ basis for their ___________ strategies
psychological
ideological
imperialist
Dalhousie and his attempts at modernising British India provoked…
resentment by the Indians and hastened the drive for a rebellion against British leadership
By assuming British paramountcy, Dalhousie introduced…
the “doctrine of the lapse”
Doctrine of the Lapse
- Acted as an annexation policy for princely states
- This policy legally justified territorial expansion and was in direct conflict with Hindu law
How was the Doctrine of the Lapse in direct conflict with Hindu law?
The Doctrine redefined a number of rulers titles and powers as non-hereditary
The annexation of Awadh occurred under the ‘doctrine of lapse’ which was depicted as Dalhousie’s…
worst blunder and a primary cause of the rebellion the following year which ended Company rule and whose echoes were to reverberate throughout the rest of the British Empire until it was dismantled
Annexation of Awadh 1856
On 7th February 1856, Lord Dalhousie ordered to depose Wajid Ali Shah on the account of alleged internal misrule
(the seventh to occur under this policy)
What did the Annexation of Awadh in 1856 show?
This truly showed the motive of British ignorance and their disregard for India
The annexation was widely resented in…
Awadh
Why was Awadh especially significant to the Indian rebellion?
Awadh was the traditional recruiting ground of the sepoys of the Company’s Bengali army
Unsurprisingly, Awadh was one of the areas which saw widespread participation in the uprising against the British
Talukdars
Aristocrats who formed the ruling class
What happened to the Talukdars under Lord Dalhousie?
They had their vast estates seized
The Takukdards had their vast estates seized under Lord Dalhousie – how did this influence the Indian Rebellion?
Talukdars were the primary employers, thus, their estates being seized destabilised the social order of the region causing unemployment
The upheaval and disturbance to the pattern of rural landownership in Awadh and Dalhousie’s “doctrine of lapse”…
aggravated the mutineers
Dalhousie’s lack of perspective ignited…
simmering resentments which led to the Indian rebellion
Driven by their perception of racial superiority, Company operators were becoming less tolerant of…
local customs and religions
A sense of cultural superiority was emerging in the Company staff, which resulted in the…
paternalistic desire to change and ‘improve’ Indians
Legal assaults began under…
Bentinck in the 1830s on the practice of thagi/thuggee
What is thagi/thuggee
Those who practice highway robbery and ritual murder by strangling in the service of the Hindu mother goddess
Who was the campaign against thagi led by?
Colonel William Sleeman
The campaign against thagi – led by Colonel William Sleeman – was based on capturing thagi and then using their confessions to…
track down and capture others
Sleeman’s activities in the suppression of the thagi led to his identification as…
a true imperial hero in Britain
The action against thagi led to significant amounts of self-congratulation on the part of the British – why was this case?
The thagi only attacked other Indians, so the suppression of the cult was depicted as a wholly altruistic act
The impact of the campaign against thagi on the Indian rebellion itself is _______
ambiguous
The impact of the campaign against thagi on the Indian rebellion itself is ambiguous – why is this the case?
There has been some revisionism regarding Sleeman’s presentation of the thagi campaign by historians, its suppression does not seem to have been widely resented by Indians at the time - unlike other campaigns
What is the most significant impact of the campaign against thagi?
Its impact on the British in India and the lessons they drew from the campaign for other social reforms
Which scholars are associated with thagi?
Professor Caroline Reitz
Historian Radhika Singha
What does Caroline Reitz state about thagi?
“if Thuggee had not been discovered, it would have had to be invented”
What does Radhika Singha state about thagi?
The campaign against thagi was strategically utilised by colonial government to justify intervention in the princely states through the “doctrine of lapse”
Singha and Reitz indicate that the campaign against thagi provided the colonisers with…
a case that could be repeatedly summoned to destabilise Indian resistance against British rule which aggravated the Indians
This justification for British intervention is displayed in…
the drive against sati and female infanticide
Sati
The tradition of self-immolation by Hindu widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands
The tradition (sati) reflected the Hindu belief in the…
sanctity of the marriage bond which meant that remarriage was not an option for widows
Sati was most common among…
higher castes and the caste of those involved suggests that the motivation was primarily religious belief rather than economic necessity
Driven by a campaign by evangelical Christians, such as ________ ________ and ________ _______ own strongly held personal views, sati was ________
William Wilberforce
Governor Bentinck’s
abolished
Anyone assisting with a sati was deemed to be guilty of…
culpable homicide and prosecuted accordingly
For higher caste Indians who practiced sati, the interference by the British was…
a deliberate attack on caste purity and the presumption of cultural superiority inherent in the new law rankled
What was the Immediate cause of the Indian Rebellion?
Rumours amongst the sepoys that new cartridges were about to be issued, lubricated with animal fat
The immediate cause of the Indian rebellion were rumours amongst the sepoys that new cartridges were about to be issued, lubricated with animal fat. This placed both Hindus and Muslims at risk of…
defilement, as beef fat was repugnant to Hindus and pork to Muslims
To many sepoys, what did the “The Rumour” (1856) seem to prove?
Britain’s dark plan for the Christianisation of India and the rumour proved to be the spark that ignited all the simmering resentments held against missionaries
Why were missionaries resented by the sepoys?
For interference in religious practices and the choice of English as the official language
General Service Enlistment Act (1856)
It required every Indian soldier to go overseas for deployment if required
Why was the General Service Enlistment Act (1856) controversial?
Hindus believed travelling over water polluted their caste status (religious ignorance)
How did the “White Man’s Burden” puppeteer the implementation of the policies that fuelled the Indians indignation?
Dalhousie, Sleeman and the British imperialists perceived the conquering of non-white races as white people’s selfless moral duty in order to justify their naive impositions
Meerut Uprising 1857
Initial revolt amongst the sepoys in the Bengal army, - freeing the original mutineers and then proceeding to massacre all the local Europeans (including women and children)
Spread of Rebellion
The rebellion of the sepoys also sparked the peasant rebellion
Peasant Rebellion
The disgruntled talukdars joined the opposition along with the peasants, revolting against the changing land structure and new taxes
Cawnpore Massacre
200 British men, women and children were held, possibly for use as hostages, but were massacred on 15 July, the day before relief arrived
Reasons why the British Retained Control
A Lack of Cohesion
The Bengal Army
A Lack of Cohesion
The rebels were not a united force which made the rebellion easier to eliminate
Local leaders were unwilling to co-operate together to forge a national revolt
The Bengal Army
The only army out of the three presidencies to revolt against British rule
The other two presidency armies remained loyal to the British and the area around Calcutta itself remained unaffected by the unrest
The revolt was not widespread across India, many remained sympathetic
Impact of the rebellion on Company Rule
The Government of India Act (1858) was passed on 2 August and ended Company rule in India. From this Act until Indian Independence, British India was ruled directly by Britain, through the medium of a viceroy - a ruler exercising authority in a colony on behalf of a sovereign
Impact of the rebellion on policy of Westernisation
officials could not prevent missionary activity, but they kept proselytising (attempting conversion) out of official policy as much as possible
when they sought to move against religious customs and rituals, they proceeded with extreme caution
