The Indian Mutiny of 1857 (Military History from Primary Sources)

by George Bruce Malleson

reported (May 1859) that Oudh was at last at peace.

finally cleared Oudh of the last remnants of the rebels,61 in May 1859, then, and then only, could it be said that the Mutiny had been absolutely stamped out.

27th of January 1858 the King of Dehli had been brought to trial

trial, extending over forty days,

sentenced to be transported for life.

sent to...

in England, it had been found necessary,

to find a scapegoat for the disasters

it was decreed to transfer the administration of India from the Company to the Crown. An Act carrying out this transfer was signed by the Queen on the 2d of August 1858.

the chattering Bengalis, who would have fainted at the sight of a sword drawn in anger, were discussing which man amongst them was the fittest to be Chancellor of the Exchequer under the King of Dehli,

Racial description of the guts of Bengalis

England which, in the most terrible crisis of her history in India, brought her the support of the Sikhs, conquered but eight years before; of the princes and people of Rajputana, rescued from oppression but twenty-nine years before; of that Sindhia, whose great ancestor was England's deadliest enemy; of the Nizam, our ally since the time of Clive; of Maisur, restored by Marquess Wellesley to its ancient ruler; of Nipal, our nearest independent neighbour.

details of traitors

the introduction of the Thomasonian system unsettled the minds of noble and peasant. It was the case in Oudh, where the same system suddenly superseded the congenial rule of the ex-King. Nowhere else in India was the rebellion more rampant and more persistent than in those provinces.

More than thirty years have elapsed since the Mutiny was crushed, and again we witness a persistent attempt to force Western ideas upon an Eastern people.

introduction into India of representative institutions is a demand coming from the noisy and unwarlike races which hope to profit by the general corruption which such a system would engender.

Demand for election by voting, equal vote to all

To the manly races of India, to the forty millions of Muhammadans, to the Sikhs of the Panjab, to the warlike tribes on the frontier, to the Rohilas of Rohilkhand, to the Rajputs and Jats of Rajputana and Central India, such a system is utterly abhorrent.

the noisy Bengalis, a race which, under Muhammadan rule, was content to crouch and serve, it is encouraged by a class in this country, ignorant for the most part of the real people of India, w...

Sovereigns and nobles, merchants and traders, landlords and tenants prefer the tried, even-handed justice of their European overlord to a justice which would be the outcome of popular elections. India is inhabited not by one race alone, but by many races. Those races are subdivided into many castes, completely separated from each other in the inner social life. If the higher castes are the more influential, the lower are the more numerous. The attempt to give representation to mere numbers would then, before long, provoke religious jealousies and antipathies which would inevitably find a solution in blood. A rising caused by such an innovation on prevailing customs would be infinitely more dangerous than the Mutiny of 1857. Concession to noisy agitation on the part of the ruling power would place the lives, the fortunes, the interests of the loyal classes of India at the mercy of the noisiest, most corrupt, and most despised race in India.

The word 'Maulavi' signifies 'a learned man,' also 'a doctor of law.’