#First War of Independence

[thetimelock]

9 brave men blew up the British Magazine during the 1857 revolt

Along the Lothian Road at the Kashmiri Gate area in Delhi are well preserved monuments which stood witness to the 1857 revolt or the First war of Independence. One such place is the twins of British Magazine Memorial and Telegraph Memorial. This place housed the biggest military arsenal in India by British. Capturing this would have given a big advantage to the rebels which is why one of the most…

[khabarsamay]

Paika Rebellion of Odisha

Pre-dating what has been popularly regarded as the first war of Independence in 1857, the Paika Bidroha (Paika Rebellion) of 1817 in Odisha briefly shook the foundations of British rule in the eastern part of India. Paikas were essentially the peasant militias of the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who rendered military service to the king during times of war while taking up cultivation during times of peace. They unfurled the banner of rebellion against the British under the leadership of Baxi Jagandhu Bidyadhar as early as 1817 to throw off the British yoke.Rulers of Khurda were traditionally the custodians of Jagannath Temple and ruled as the deputy of lord Jagannath on earth. They symbolised the political and cultural freedom of the people of Odisha. The British, having established their sway over Bengal Province and Madras Province to the north and south of Odisha, occupied it in 1803.The Gajapati King of Odisha Mukunda Deva-ll was a minor then and initial resistance by Jai Rajguru, the custodian of Mukunda Deva-II, was put down brutally and Jai Rajguru was torn apart alive. A few years later, it was the Paikas under Baxi Jagabandhu, the hereditary chief of the militia army of the Gajapati King, who rose in rebellion, taking support of tribals and other sections of society. The rebellion started in March 1817 and spread quickly. Though Paikas played a larger role in the rebellion against the British, it was by no means a rebellion by a small group of people belonging to a particular class. The tribals of Ghumusar (part of present day Ganjam and Kandhamal Districts) and other sections of the population actively took part in it. In fact, the Paika Bidroha got the opportune moment to spread when 4OO tribals of Ghumusar entered Khurda protesting against the British rule. The Paikas attacked British symbols of power, setting ablaze police stations, administrative offices and the treasury during their march towards Khurda, from where the British fled. The Paikas were supported by the rajas of Kanika, Kujang, Nayagarh and Ghumusar and zamindars, village heads and ordinary peasants. The rebellion quickly spread to Purl, Pipli Cuttack and other parts of the province. The British were initially taken aback and then tried to regain lost ground but faced stiff resistance from the rebelling Paikas. Many a battle ensued with some victories to the rebels, but the British finally managed to defeat them within three months. Widespread suppression followed with many killed and imprisoned. Many more were tortured. Some rebels fought a guerilla war till 1819 but were captured and killed. Baxi Jagabandhu was finally arrested in 1825 and died in captivity in 1829. Though the Paika Bidroha enjoys a cult status in Odisha with children growing up with stories of the brave fight against the British, it has unfortunately received less attention at the national level than it should have got.While the reasons can be many for such scant attention to such a significant event of the history in India, it is heartening that the Government of India has decided to give the event its due recognition by commemorating its 200 anniversary in a befitting manner.  Click to Post

[adathakkar]

Independence – The Origins Of The Struggle The most common misconception is that The Indian Independence Struggle started with The Mahatma, or with The Lokamanya, or indeed with Gopal Krishn Gokhale; a rising stream of thought credits Netaji, with another stream adamant on crediting The Mahatma; nothing could be more simplistic; and nothing could a more incomplete picture of the true story.

[bharatuntoldstory]

It all started on May 10th - The first war of independence of 1857.

[silentambassadors]

When one of the regiments (comprised of Muslim and Hindu sepoys) of the East India Company was ordered to bite off rifle cartridges that had been greased with beef and pork fat (a perfect example of British/Western total disregard for and dismissal of cultural and religious beliefs deemed by them to be inferior to their own--beef fat and pork fat for Muslims and Hindus?  Seriously?), this directive sparked the long-simmering Rebellion of 1857, beginning on this date in Meerut, but spreading outward as other communities and regiments joined in the rebellion against British ("the Company") rule in India.  By jointly offending two of the major religious groups under their rule, the British managed to encourage Indian nationalism by providing a common enemy.  While ultimately unsuccessful in sloughing off the Company, the so-called Sepoy Mutiny (more correctly called the Indian Rebellion of 1857 or the First War of Independence) helped lay the groundwork for the following century of Indian self-determination, eventually leading to Indian independence in 1947.  For a brilliant historical novel about the Rebellion of 1857 told from the British perspective by an Indian-born British writer (whose novels you should seek out this instant if you've never read them), try Shadow of the Moon by M. M. Kaye.

Stamp details: Stamps on top: Issued on: August 9, 2007 From: New Delhi, India MC #2214-2215

Second row left: Issued on: August 15, 1957 From: New Delhi, India SC #289

Second row right: Issued on: December 10, 1987 From: New Delhi, India SC #1278

Third row: Issued on: May 9, 1988 From: New Delhi, India SC #1311

Fourth row left: Issued on: September 23, 2001 From: New Delhi, India SC #2017

Fourth row right: Issued on: July 6, 2001 From: New Delhi, India MC #2004

Stamps on bottom: Issued on: May 10, 1984 From: New Delhi, India SW #992-995

[fuckyeahsouthasia]

Photographs and engravings bring to life the First War of Independence.

[bharatuntoldstory]

Remains of 1857 soldiers recovered from 'Well of Martyrs' NGO's, Gurudwara officials demand a permanent area be sanctioned by the government for a memorial where the mortal remains could be kept. The digging at 'Shaheedan da Khu' ended on Sunday with the recovery of mortal remains of 282 Indian soldiers who were dumped in the well by British troops during the 1857 mutiny. The digging which commenced on 28 February at Ajnala town, close to the Indo-Pak border, was carried out by volunteers of local NGOs and Gurdwara management committees. Besides skeletons, 60 currency coins belonging to the 1857 era and army gold medals were also found in the well, police said. According to local Gurdwara management committee head Amarjit Singh Sarkaria and NGOs led by historian Surinder Kochar, around 500 Indian soldiers had revolted at Mian Mir Cantonment in Lahore during the 1857 mutiny and swam across the Ravi river to reach Ajnala town of Amritsar. Of them, 218 were killed by British soldiers at Dadian Sofian village near here. The remaining 282 were incarcerated in a cage-like room. While many of them died of asphyxiation, the rest were shot dead and their bodies thrown into a well, which later came to be known as "Kalianwala Khu". While 'khu' means a well, the word 'kalianwala' has been derived from 'kale' (blacks), a term used by the British for Indians. This site is also known as 'Shaheedan da Khu' (Well of Martyrs). Kochar demanded that a permanent area be sanctioned by the government for a memorial where the mortal remains could be kept. ---- Britishers were worst than Nazis. We salute you for your services to the nation, Martyrs of First War Of Independence . _/\_ We appeal this site to be declared as holy and as a memorial.Jai Hind.

[bharatuntoldstory]

Indian Rebellion of 1857:

In this series we try to give a comprehensive study of "Revolt of 1857".

Our first post is about "Causes Of The Indian Rebellion Of 1857"

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region.The rebellion posed a considerable threat to Company power in that region and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858. The rebellion is also known as the India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion, and the Sepoy Mutiny.

Causes Of The Indian Rebellion Of 1857:

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 occurred as the result of an accumulation of factors over time, rather than any single event. The sepoys were local soldiers, the majority Hindu or Muslim, that were recruited into the Company's army. Just before the Rebellion there were over 200,000 sepoys in the army, compared to about 50,000 British. The forces were divided into three presidency armies: Bombay, Madras, and Bengal. The Bengal Army recruited higher castes, such as "Rajputs and Brahmins", mostly from the Awadh (near Lucknow) and Bihar regions and even restricted the enlistment of lower castes in 1855. In contrast, the Madras Army and Bombay Army were "more localized, caste-neutral armies" that "did not prefer high-caste men."The domination of higher castes in the Bengal Army has been blamed in part for initial mutinies that led to the rebellion. In fact, the role of castes had become so important that men were no longer "selected on account of the most important qualities in a soldier, i.e., physical fitness, willingness and strength, docility and courage, but because he belonged to a certain caste or sect".

In 1772, when Warren Hastings was appointed India's first Governor-General, one of his first undertakings was the rapid expansion of the Company’s army. Since the sepoys from Bengal – many of whom had fought against the Company in the Battles of Plassey and Buxar – were now suspect in British eyes, Hastings recruited farther west from the high-caste rural Rajputs and Brahmins of Awadh and Bihar, a practice that continued for the next 75 years.

It has been suggested that after the annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856, many sepoys were disquieted both from losing their perquisites, as landed gentry, in the Oudh courts and from the anticipation of any increased land-revenue payments that the annexation might bring about.Others have stressed that by 1857, some Indian soldiers, reading the presence of missionaries as a sign of official intent, were convinced that the Company was masterminding mass conversions of Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Financial grievance stemmed from the general service act, which denied retired sepoys a pension. Also the Bengal Army was paid less than the Madras and Bombay Armies, which compounded the fears over pensions.

A major cause of resentment that arose ten months prior to the outbreak of the Rebellion was the General Service Enlistment Act of 25 July 1856. Men of the Bengal Army had been exempted from overseas service. There were also grievances over the issue of promotions, based on seniority. This, as well as the increasing number of European officers in the battalions,made promotion a slow progress, and many Indian officers did not reach commissioned rank until they were too old to be effective.

Tallow-greased cartridges: The final spark was provided by the ammunition for new Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle.These rifles had a tighter fit, and used paper cartridges that came pre-greased. To load the rifle, sepoys had to bite the cartridge open to release the powder.The grease used on these cartridges included tallow derived from beef; which was offensive to Hindus,or lard derived from pork; which was offensive to Muslims. In August 1856, greased cartridge production was initiated at Fort William, Calcutta, following a British design.The Indians were therefore convinced that the British had desire of degrading the Indian religions

Civilian disquiet: The civilian rebellion was more multifarious in origin. The rebels consisted of three groups: the feudal nobility, rural landlords called taluqdars, and the peasants. The nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, which refused to recognize the adopted children of princes as legal heirs, felt that the Company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group;In other areas of central India, such as Indore and Sagar, where such loss of privilege had not occurred, the princes remained loyal to the Company even in areas where the sepoys had rebelled.The second group, the taluqdars, had lost half their landed estates to peasant farmers as a result of the land reforms that came in the wake of annexation of Oudh. As the rebellion gained ground, the taluqdars quickly reoccupied the lands they had lost, and paradoxically, in part due to ties of kinship and feudal loyalty, did not experience significant opposition from the peasant farmers, many of whom joined the rebellion, to the great dismay of the British.It has also been suggested that heavy land-revenue assessment in some areas by the British resulted in many landowning families either losing their land or going into great debt with money lenders, and providing ultimately a reason to rebel; money lenders, in addition to the Company, were particular objects of the rebels' animosity.The civilian rebellion was also highly uneven in its geographic distribution, even in areas of north-central India that were no longer under British control. The company had annexed several states under the Doctrine of Lapse, according to which land belonging to a feudal ruler became the property of the East India Company if on his death, the ruler did not leave a male heir through natural process. Such discourtesies were resented by the deposed Indian rulers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ References: 1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857 2.http://www.preservearticles.com/201012271730/causes-of-revolt-of-1857-in-india.html 3.http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A5%A7%E0%A5%AE%E0%A5%AB%E0%A5%AD_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%AE_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AE