The War of Independence.

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE-1857 • During the War of Independence the Governor General was Lord Canning. He had assumed the charge of his office in 1856. • Wajid Ali Shah was the Nawab of Awadh. He was sent on exile to Calcutta and his state was annexed by the British in April 1856. • Three-fourth of the infantry and nearly two-third of the whole Bengal Army was composed of the people from Awadh. • Maulvi Ahmadullah devised the distribution of chapatti scheme during his travels in the North-West Provinces to prepare the mind of the people for a war of freedom. It was a silent indication of association with a cause. • Lord Dalhousie had proposed that the successors of Bahadur Shah II (Zafar) would have to vacate the Red Fort of Delhi and move to suburban town of Mehrauli. • Besides Awadh, the Punjab, Satara, Nagpur, Jhansi, and other small states had been annexed. • Dalhousie discontinued the pension allowed to Peshwa’s son Nana Sahib and expelled him from his ancestral palace at Poona and exiled him to Bithur near Cawnpore. • Lord Macaulay designed the English system of education to glorify the Christian faith and to bring into contempt the religious beliefs of the young students. • William Bentinck abolished sati. • In 1856 the government promulgated the General Enlistment Act which required the new recruits to serve wherever ordered. • The Brahmins were irritated on their forced participation in the wars against Burma and Afghanistan because they feared that they will lose their caste if they cross the sea and leave subcontinent. • The dispatch of European troops to the wars in China and Persia had reduced the proportion between the British troops and the Sepoys to 1 and 3. • About half of the available British troops were stationed in the recently subjugated Punjab. An insignificant number was stationed in Bengal, Bihar, and the Doab. • The paucity of the European troops gave an opportunity to the