No Indian Mutiny 1857

WI the EIC bigwigs had been more sensitive to both Muslim and Hindu grievances over the Enfield rifle 's beef/pork fat-greased cartridges ? How much better off would both the British Empire and India have been ?
 
After the Mutiny there was a lot of distrust between the Raj and the Indians which took almost half a century to fade. Without a Mutiny Indians might be looked upon more favourably by the administration leading to more sensible policies. However, continued corporate government might not be for the best in the long term.
 
After the Mutiny there was a lot of distrust between the Raj and the Indians which took almost half a century to fade. Without a Mutiny Indians might be looked upon more favourably by the administration leading to more sensible policies. However, continued corporate government might not be for the best in the long term.

A few thoughts.

I think the EIC has to go if you want a better India; it was for profit company extracting resources, after all.

But why would there be reform without the mutiny? Things were running smoothly, after all.
 
A few thoughts.

I think the EIC has to go if you want a better India; it was for profit company extracting resources, after all.

But why would there be reform without the mutiny? Things were running smoothly, after all.

Maybe some kind of political/monetary scandal back home in Britain?
 

Dure

Banned
Mutiny ... well that is sensitive to Moslem and Hindu feelings!

Great Rebellion, First War of Independence would these not be better descriptions?
 
Mutiny ... well that is sensitive to Moslem and Hindu feelings!

Great Rebellion, First War of Independence would these not be better descriptions?

Actually, no. It was initiated and sustained by the soldiers, not the populace. It would be like calling the Mutiny on the Bounty the War of Pitcairn Independence. Calling it a rebellion, war, or revolution cheapens the real revolution, which was the concerted effort of the Indian elites over the next century to politically educate their brethren so that the movement for independence would have democratic legitimacy.
 
WI the EIC bigwigs had been more sensitive to both Muslim and Hindu grievances over the Enfield rifle 's beef/pork fat-greased cartridges ? How much better off would both the British Empire and India have been ?

Melvin

I think that was a pretty small factor in the mutiny. There was growing tension between large sections of the sepoys and the company/British over the past generation or so. Especially over the declining prestige and influence of the former as British dominance over India reduced the market for the soldiers. Coupled with a growing division socially and culturally between the British officers and the ordinary soldiers.

Historically there were some clashes over the issue which led the company to avoid introducing the fat based cartridge, if I remember correctly. However by that time there was enough bad feeling that many of the troops choose not to believe the reasurances of the Company.

Steve
 
But why would there be reform without the mutiny? Things were running smoothly, after all.

Because, especially with the rise of the White Dominions, there were actually quite a lot of important people clamouring for reform. Case in point, Edward, Prince of Wales himself. He went on a tour of India in 1877 and made a point of not only treating Indians as he treated European-descended people, but also of insisting that no-one in his entourage was to do differently. He was absolutely adamant that the Indians were just as much honest citizens of the Empire and the British in the Home Countries. There were also several Governor-Generals and military figures in the Raj who expressed in the 1870s even that the military should be integrated rather than having "British regiments with Indian auxiliaries", and that Indians should take places in local government. OK, so calls for an Indian Parliament didn't really appear until the next century, but really those that say that the British unanimously didn't want to let the Indians take power do so against the evidence of those calling for reform.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Mutiny ... well that is sensitive to Moslem and Hindu feelings!

Great Rebellion, First War of Independence would these not be better descriptions?

Not really, it has roots in the rise of radical Islamism in the 1830's, and reverberates today in the name the rebels who retreated across the NW frontier into Afghanistan. They called themselves the "Taliban".
 

67th Tigers

Banned
WI the EIC bigwigs had been more sensitive to both Muslim and Hindu grievances over the Enfield rifle 's beef/pork fat-greased cartridges ? How much better off would both the British Empire and India have been ?

They simply couldn't have been more sensitive. They never were defiling (beeswax and linsead oil), and the British still back down further (issuing the cartridges ungreased).

However, as Dalrympe has shown (by bothering to read the mutineers own records), the Mutiny was a coordinated action by Islamist agitators in an attempt to remove the infidel from India and restore the proper Muslim governance of that territory.
 
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A few thoughts.

I think the EIC has to go if you want a better India; it was for profit company extracting resources, after all.

But why would there be reform without the mutiny? Things were running smoothly, after all.

Because
I think the EIC has to go if you want a better India; it was for profit company extracting resources, after all.
.
The progressive era is just around the corner. Even though its an exageration to say that the EIC was just 'extracting resources' from India that it was a for profit company ruling over people would not be looked upon well.


And yeah. Somewhat what 67th says though there was more to it then that. The whole animal fat cartidge thing was just an excuse, and a untrue one at that. And anyone who seriously calls it the war of independance needs to be shot (slight exageration perhaps :p). Thats just modern hindu nationalist revisionism. The mutiny is a accurate title here since the thread starter is talking about the animal fat cartidges. The soldiers mutinied first and it only sort of developed into a real rebellion after that (it drew in soldiers who weren't technically under the British and all sorts of messy stuff).
 
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However, as Dalrympe has shown (by bothering to read the mutineers own records), the Mutiny was a coordinated action by Islamist agitators in an attempt to remove the infidel from India and restore the proper Muslim governance of that territory.

Heh. Another term would be freedom fighters, I suppose. I will note that the article you link to also refers to a significant number of Hindu rebels.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Heh. Another term would be freedom fighters, I suppose. I will note that the article you link to also refers to a significant number of Hindu rebels.

It's an article of faith that it was a war of independence and Hindus and Muslim alike (not the Sikhs, obviously) were trying to overthrow the British.

Now the fact is a lot of Hindu Sepoys did Mutiny, but they very quickly dispersed rather than fighting the British. The insurgent forces rapidly become a mix of Muslim Sepoys, Jihadis and the armies of a few princely states (especially Jhansi, where the wife of the former ruler took exception to the British not allowing her to spend her husband's adopted son's inheritence).
 
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