REBELS AND THE RAJ | Revision Notes and Important Questions | Class 12

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Key concepts in nutshell

Rebels and the Raj – The revolt of 1857 and its representation Pattern of Rebellion – People from different walks of life plunged into the revolt – due to their hatred against the oppressive policies of the British Centres of the Revolt – Lucknow, Kanpur, Bareilly, Meerut, Arrah in Bihar.

Leaders – Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Nana Saheb, Kunwar Singh, Bakt Khan, Begum Hazrat Mehal, Tatya Tope.

Awadh revolt – direct annexation policy of Dalhousie – 1856. Hatred provoked – dispossessed taluqdars of Awadh, Injustice done to Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh embittered the people.

Revolt of the sepoys:

1. Policy of social superiority of British.
2. Interference in religious matters – greased cartridges issues.

The vision of unity:

1. Hindu Muslim unity
2. Search for alternative powers
3. Rebels established parallel administration, in Delhi, Lucknow, and Kanpur after capturing centers of British power. Later they failed.
4. The British policy of repression.

Repression – 1857 – North India was brought under a strict law to prolonged attack of British – one from Calcutta to North India, another from Punjab to recover Delhi, 27,000 Muslims hanged.

Image of the Revolt – Pictorial images produced by British and Indians – posters and cartoons.

The performance of terror:

1. Execution of rebels Nationalist imageries.
2. Inspiration to nationalists celebration as the first war of Independence – leaders depicted as heroic figures.

1. PATTERN OF THE REBELLION
   How the mutinies began?
   1. The sepoys began their action with a signal, firing of the evening gun or the sounding of the bugle.
   2. They seized the bell of the arms and plundered the treasury.
   3. They attacked the government buildings – the jail, treasury, telephone office, record room, bungalows –burning all records.
   4. Everything and everybody connected with the white man became a target.
   5. In major towns like Kanpur, Lucknow, and Bareilly, moneylenders and rich became the objects of the rebels.
2. Leaders and followers

1. To fight the British, leadership and organisation were required, and for this, they turned towards the Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah who agreed to be the nominal leader of the rebellion.
2. In Kanpur, the sepoys and the people of the town agreed to support Nana Sahib.
3. In Jhansi, the Rani was forced to assume the leadership of the uprising.
4. Kunwar Singh, a local Zamindar in Arrah in Bihar, too took the leadership.
5. The local leaders emerged, urging peasants, zamindars, and tribals to revolt eg – Shah Mal mobilized the villagers of pargana Barout in Uttar Pradesh; Gonooa, a tribal cultivator of Singhbhum in Chotanagpur, became a rebel leader of the Kol tribals of the region.
6. Rumors and prophecies

1. There was the rumor that the British government had hatched a gigantic conspiracy to destroy the caste and religion of the Hindus and Muslim.
2. The rumour said that the British had mixed the bone dust of cows and pigs into the flour that was sold in the market.
3. The sepoys and the common people refused to touch the atta.
4. There was a fear and suspicion that the British wanted to convert Indians to Christianity.
5. The sepoy had the fear about bullets coated with the fats of cows and pigs, and biting those bullets would corrupt their caste and religion.
6. Why did the people believe in the rumors?

1. The British adopted policies aimed at reforming Indian society by introducing Western education, Western ideas, and Western institutions.
2. With the cooperation of sections of Indian society, they set up English medium schools, colleges, and universities which taught Western sciences and the liberal arts.
3. The British established laws to abolished customs like Sati (1629) and to permit the remarriage of Hindu widows.
4. The British introduced their own system of administration, their own laws and their own methods of land settlements and land revenue collection.
5. AWADH IN REVOLT
   “A cherry that will drop into our mouth one day”

1. In 1851, Governor General Lord Dalhousie described the kingdom of Awadh as “a cherry that will drop into our mouth one day” and five years later it was annexed to the British Empire.
2. The Subsidiary Alliance had been imposed on Awadh.
3. The terms of this alliance the nawab had to disband his military force of the British to position their troops within the kingdom and act in accordance with the advice of the British.
4. Deprived of his armed forces the nawab became increasingly dependent on the British to maintain law and order within the kingdom.
5. He could no longer assert control over the rebellious chief and taluqdars.
6. WHAT THE REBELS WANTED
   The vision of unity

1. The rebellion was seen as a war in which both Hindus and Muslims had equally to lose or gain.
2. The ishtahars (notifications) harked back to the pre-British Hindu-Muslim past and glorified the coexistence of different communities under Mughal Empire.
3. In1857, the British spent Rs. 50,000 to incite the Hindu population against the Muslims but the attempt failed.
4. Against the symbols of oppression

1. The land revenue settlements had dispossessed the landholders, both big and small and foreign commerce had driven artisans and weavers to ruin.
2. Every aspect of the British rule was attacked and the firangi accused of destroying a way of life that was familiar and cherished.
3. The proclamations expressed the widespread fear that the British were bent on destroying the caste and religions of Hindus and Muslims and converting them to Christianity.
4. People were urged to come together and fight to save their livelihood, their faith, their honor, their identity.
5. IMAGES OF THE REVOLT

1. Official accounts of colonial administration and military men left their versions in letters and diaries, autobiography and official histories.
2. The changing British attitudes were evident through the innumerable memos and notes, assessments of situations.
3. The stories of the revolt that were published in British newspapers and magazines narrated the in gory detail the violence of the mutineers.
4. The pictorial images were produced by the British and Indians – paintings, pencil drawings, cartoons, bazaar prints.
5. Celebrating the saviors

1. British pictures offer a variety of images that were meant to provoke a range of different emotions and reactions.
2. Some of them commemorate the British heroes who saved the English and repressed the rebels.
3. “Relief of Lucknow “, was painted by Thomas Jones Barker In 1859.
4. English women and the honour of Britain

1. The British government was asked to protect the honor of innocent women and ensure the safety of helpless children.
2. Artists expressed as well as shaped these sentiments through their visual representations of trauma and suffering.
3. The performances of terror

1. The urge for vengeance and retribution was expressed in the brutal way in which the rebels were executed.
2. They were blown from guns or hung from the gallows.
3. Images of these executions were widely circulated through popular journals.
4. When Governor General Canning declared that a gesture of leniency and a show of mercy would help in winning back the loyalty of the sepoys, he was mocked in the British press.
5. Nationalist imageries

1. The nationalist movement drew its inspiration from the events of 1857.
2. A whole world of nationalist imagination was woven around the revolt.
3. It was celebrated as the first war of independence in which all sections of the people of India came together to fight against imperial rule.
4. Art and literature had helped in keeping alive the memories 1857.

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3 Marks Questions

1. Which Governor-General introduced the Subsidary Alliance? Name the four major
powers accepting it.

Ans. Subsidary alliance was introduced by Lord Wliesley. Hyderabad, Awadh, Mysore,
Tanjore, Surat, etc were the four major powers who accepted it.

2. Which English lady defended herself bravely against the Indian rebels in Kanpur?

Ans. Miss Wheeler defended herself bravely against the Indian rebels in Kanpur.

3. Who was the last Nawab of Awadh? Where was he sent on Pension?

Ans. Wajid Ali Shah was last Nawab of Awadh. He was sent to Calcutta on pension.

*(elaborate all the answers as per 3 Marks)

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8 Marks Questions

1. What were the social, economical religious and military causes of 1857 revolt?

Ans. Economic Causes:  

(a) Drain of wealth

(b) Destruction of Indian industries, trade & commerce.

(c) Exorbitant rate of land revenue.

(d) Resumption of Inami or rent-free lands.

(e) Unemployment and poverty among the masses.

Social Causes:

(a) Maltreatment of the Indians.

(b) Interference in the social life of Indians.

(c) Spread of Western Education.

(d) Propagation of Christianity.

Military Causes:

(a) Unrest among the Indian soldiers.

(b) Increase ratio of Indian soldiers.

(c) Faulty distribution of troops.

(d) General Service Enlistment Act.

(e) Greased cartridges.

*(elaborate the points as per 8 Marks)

2. How were the lives of forest dwellers transformed in the 16th-17th centuries.?8

Ans. (i). The business encouraged forest clearance zamindars and jotedars turned uninitiated lands in to rice fields to the British, extension of settled agriculture why necessary to enlarge the sources of land revenue. produce crops for export and establish the basis of a settled, ordered society.

(ii). The British saw forest people as savage impurely and primitive and difficult to govern, so they felt that the forest had to be leaped settled agriculture established and forest people dammed civilized and persuaded to give up hunting and take to plough agriculture.

(iii). In the 1770s the British embarked on a brutal policy to extermination, hunting the Paharia s down and killing them then by 1780s, augustas Cleveland the collector of Bhagalpur purposed a policy of polification. The Paharias chief were given an annual allowance and made responsible for the proper conduct of their man

(iv). Some Paharia chief  refused  the  complains  continued,  the  Paharias  withdraw  deep  into  the mountains  insulting  themselves  from  Lositle  forces  and  carrying  on  a  war  with  the  outbidders so when  Buchanan  travelled  through  the  region  in  the  winter  of  1880/1881,the  Paharia  naturally viewed him with suspicion and distrust.

(v). The Santhals themselves were powering into area, cleaning forest, cutting down timber, ploughing land and growing rice and cotton,this leades why Sindhus Manjhi.

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3. What explains the anger of the Deccan ryots against the moneylenders?

Ans.

(i). By 1830s prices of agricultural products fell sharply.

(ii). Decline in peasant’s income revenue could rarely be paid without a loan from money lenders.

(iii). Ryots found difficult to pay it back, debt mounted.

(iv). Ryots needed more loan to buy their everyday needs.

(v).  Sahukar’s export merchants in Maharashtra stopped long term credit and started demanding repayment of debt.

(vi).  Petition after petition, Ryots complained of the injustice of insensitiveness and the violation of custom.

(vii). The Ryots came to see the money lenders as devious and deceitful.

(viii). Limitation law was passed to check the accumulation of interest overtime.

(ix). Deeds and bonds appeared as symbols of the new oppressive system.

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