Sepoy Rebellion Compare And Contrast How India Governed Before And After 1857

Outline the events of the Sepoy rebellion. Compare and contrast how India was governed before and after 1857.

India was once under the British rule in direct or indirect way. After the East India

Company was founded in 1600, British has spent 250 years taking over the colonies

and trade of the Dutch, repelled the French, and beat back Indian challenges. The

Mughal empire was decayed, and by 1858 British obtained the vast continent from the

Mughal emperor’s dethronement. British controlled India in their rule since then, until

the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, although British still controlled the India after the rebelli-

on, but in different ways. This essay will out line the events of the Sepoy Rebellion,

compare
and contrast how India was governed before and after 1857.

In May 1857, the Hindu sepoys started a rebellion, also included the Muslim sepoys,

peasants and elites who were discontented with British rule. It is known as the ‘Sepoy

Rebellion’ in history.
According to Bulliet et al (2009,p608), there were three main rea-

sons led to this event. Firstly , the Bengali sepoys used to be the main sepoys under

the EIC rule for decades of years. However after 1848, the EIC began to recruit differ-

ent ethnic groups to the army, and this caused the discontented of the Bengali sepoys.

Secondly, the EIC offended the Hindus religion. In 1856, there was a new law which

permitted ‘service assignment overseas in the growing Indian Ocean empire’ (Bulliet

et al. 2009,p608), the high-caste Hindus strongly against this law due to their religion,

because they were not allowed to travel on the ocean. The last reason of the rebellion

was also caused by a religious issue. In 1857 the EIC replaced the standard musket to

Enfiled rifle, which was more accurate, but the problem was that the soldiers need to

use their teeth to open the ammunition cartridges. However those cartridges covered

with cattle and pigs’ fat. Most of the soldiers were Hindus and Muslims, ‘Fat from cattle offended Hindus; fat from pigs offended Muslims’ (Bulliet et al, 2009 p610). As a result

of those three reasons, the ‘Sepoy Rebellion’ began in 1857, then it was put down
by

British in March 1857. But this rebellion brought changes to India. And it was also

counted as the beginnings of the independence movement later.

Due to the ‘Sepoy Rebellion’, British changed the ways of government India They were

mainly shown in there ways. To begin with, India was under the control of the East Ind-

ia Company before the 1857. ‘As Mughal power weakend in the eighteenth century,

British, Dutch, and French companies expanded into India’ (Bulliet et al, 2009, p606).

With the help of the ‘Company Men’, those European enterprise in India for a long time.

In 1691, the East India Company established a fortified outpost in Calcutta by convinc-

ed the nawab. Until 1818, the EIC gained large territories through administrative meas-

ures in India. The rebellion shocked the British and therefor the British changed their

rule in India. The EIC was removed, India polices was controlled by a new secretary in

London. In Delhi, there was a new governor-general which ‘acted as the British monar-

ch’s viceroy on the spot’ (Bulliet et al, 2009, p611). There was a new bureaucracy

controlled the Indian masses in a strong way. And most of the members in ICS who

graduates from Cambridge and Oxford University they ‘visited the villages in their

districts, heard lawsuits and complains, and passed judgments’(Buliet et al,2009,p612).

Another change is the different policies after 1857. There were two ways of policies

before 1857. ‘westernization, Anglicization, and modernization’, another policy was the

bolstering of the traditions. The EIC disarmed the warriors, changed the landholding in

to private ownership. They allowed the Christian missionaries who were eager to conv-

ert and uplift India’s masses freely. However after 1857, Queen Victoria announced

‘all Indians equal protection of the law and the freedom to practice their religions and

social customs’ (Bulliet et al, 2009, p611). As long as the prices in India were loyal to

the Queen, they would respect their control of territories.

The last change of British governed India in another way is that the difference in econ-

omy. Before 1857, the internal and external growth included the expansion of farming

created many new jobs. On the other hand, British’s cheap cotton goods ruined the

handicraft textile industry. India became the world’s greatest export of cotton textiles in

the eighteenth century. After 1857, according to Bulliet et al(2209,p612), ‘British indus-

try spurred a second transformation’. The government spent pounds in public works

like irrigation canals, cities and harbors. Forests were felled for tea plantations, Indian

farmers were convinced to grow cotton and jute for export. For those reasons given

above, India’s trade expanded rapidly.

In conclusion, the ‘Sepoy Rebellion’ was shown up to against the EIC rule. The rebelli-

on brought changes to India. They were mainly reflected in the change of government,

India was ruled by a different group after the rebellion. The policies changed and the

Economy developed in a different way. (834 words)

Bibliography

Bulliet, R.W., Crossley, P.K., Headrick, D.R., Hirsch, S.W., Johnson,L.J., and Northrup
D. 2009: The Earth and its People: A Global History: Brief Fourth Edition, Boston:
Houghton Milfin Company.