Part 1 of Essay
E CHARACTERISED? SHOULD IT BE SEEN AS A POST PACIFICATION REVOLT, A NATIONALIST UPRISING, OR AS A WAR OF INDEPENDENCE? Any discussion on the reasons behind the Indian mutiny needs to be preceded by what the mutiny actually was. While mutinies and revolts were not uncommon in India at this time, they were usually largely ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... had gone unheeded. This type of attitude was typical of the British who constantly underestimated the importance of Indian religion, and the failure to do so here was to have disastrous consequences. In January 1857 a labourer at the Dum Dum arsenal near Calcutta, a low caste Hindu, taunted a high caste Sepoy who had offended him that “You will soon lose your caste, as long as you will have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of pigs and cows” . The news of this incident spread. As it was against Muslim an ....