The British in India, 1829-58

Question 1

What was the Indian rebellion?

Answer 1

The Indian rebellion was a major uprising in India against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown

Question 2

Who is Lord Dalhousie?

Answer 2

Lord Dalhousie was an energetic moderniser and utilitarian, devoted to his vision of an improved India

Question 3

What are the three causes of the Indian rebellion?

Answer 3

• Lord Dalhousie and his reforms (short-term)
• The earlier cultural and religious clashes between the British and the Indians (long-term)
• The primary cause that unites these factors is the racialised notion of the “White Man’s burden”

Question 4

What is the “White Man’s burden”

Answer 4

This was the duty, believed by white colonisers to be incumbent upon them, of imposing Western civilisation on the inhabitants of their colonies, whom they believed to be less developed - a euphemism for imperialism

Question 5

The British objective to execercise their superiority on the Indians has always been the ____________ and __________ basis for their ___________ strategies

Answer 5

psychological
ideological
imperialist

Question 6

Dalhousie and his attempts at modernising British India provoked…

Answer 6

resentment by the Indians and hastened the drive for a rebellion against British leadership

Question 7

By assuming British paramountcy, Dalhousie introduced…

Answer 7

the “doctrine of the lapse”

Question 8

Doctrine of the Lapse

Answer 8

• Acted as an annexation policy for princely states
• This policy legally justified territorial expansion and was in direct conflict with Hindu law

Question 9

How was the Doctrine of the Lapse in direct conflict with Hindu law?

Answer 9

The Doctrine redefined a number of rulers titles and powers as non-hereditary

Question 10

The annexation of Awadh occurred under the ‘doctrine of lapse’ which was depicted as Dalhousie’s…

Answer 10

worst blunder and a primary cause of the rebellion the following year which ended Company rule and whose echoes were to reverberate throughout the rest of the British Empire until it was dismantled

Question 11

Annexation of Awadh 1856

Answer 11

On 7th February 1856, Lord Dalhousie ordered to depose Wajid Ali Shah on the account of alleged internal misrule

(the seventh to occur under this policy)

Question 12

What did the Annexation of Awadh in 1856 show?

Answer 12

This truly showed the motive of British ignorance and their disregard for India

Question 13

The annexation was widely resented in…

Answer 13

Awadh

Question 14

Why was Awadh especially significant to the Indian rebellion?

Answer 14

Awadh was the traditional recruiting ground of the sepoys of the Company’s Bengali army

Unsurprisingly, Awadh was one of the areas which saw widespread participation in the uprising against the British

Question 15

Talukdars

Answer 15

Aristocrats who formed the ruling class

Question 16

What happened to the Talukdars under Lord Dalhousie?

Answer 16

They had their vast estates seized

Question 17

The Takukdards had their vast estates seized under Lord Dalhousie – how did this influence the Indian Rebellion?

Answer 17

Talukdars were the primary employers, thus, their estates being seized destabilised the social order of the region causing unemployment

Question 18

The upheaval and disturbance to the pattern of rural landownership in Awadh and Dalhousie’s “doctrine of lapse”…

Answer 18

aggravated the mutineers

Question 19

Dalhousie’s lack of perspective ignited…

Answer 19

simmering resentments which led to the Indian rebellion

Question 20

Driven by their perception of racial superiority, Company operators were becoming less tolerant of…

Answer 20

local customs and religions

Question 21

A sense of cultural superiority was emerging in the Company staff, which resulted in the…

Answer 21

paternalistic desire to change and ‘improve’ Indians

Question 22

Legal assaults began under…

Answer 22

Bentinck in the 1830s on the practice of thagi/thuggee

Question 23

What is thagi/thuggee

Answer 23

Those who practice highway robbery and ritual murder by strangling in the service of the Hindu mother goddess

Question 24

Who was the campaign against thagi led by?

Answer 24

Colonel William Sleeman

Question 25

The campaign against thagi – led by Colonel William Sleeman – was based on capturing thagi and then using their confessions to...

Answer 25

track down and capture others

Question 26

Sleeman’s activities in the suppression of the thagi led to his identification as...

Answer 26

a true imperial hero in Britain

Question 27

The action against thagi led to significant amounts of self-congratulation on the part of the British – why was this case?

Answer 27

The thagi only attacked other Indians, so the suppression of the cult was depicted as a wholly altruistic act

Question 28

The impact of the campaign against thagi on the Indian rebellion itself is _______

Answer 28

ambiguous

Question 29

The impact of the campaign against thagi on the Indian rebellion itself is ambiguous – why is this the case?

Answer 29

There has been some revisionism regarding Sleeman’s presentation of the thagi campaign by historians, its suppression does not seem to have been widely resented by Indians at the time - unlike other campaigns

Question 30

What is the most significant impact of the campaign against thagi?

Answer 30

Its impact on the British in India and the lessons they drew from the campaign for other social reforms

Question 31

Which scholars are associated with thagi?

Answer 31

Professor Caroline Reitz Historian Radhika Singha

Question 32

What does Caroline Reitz state about thagi?

Answer 32

“if Thuggee had not been discovered, it would have had to be invented”

Question 33

What does Radhika Singha state about thagi?

Answer 33

The campaign against thagi was strategically utilised by colonial government to justify intervention in the princely states through the "doctrine of lapse"

Question 34

Singha and Reitz indicate that the campaign against thagi provided the colonisers with...

Answer 34

a case that could be repeatedly summoned to destabilise Indian resistance against British rule which aggravated the Indians

Question 35

This justification for British intervention is displayed in...

Answer 35

the drive against sati and female infanticide

Question 36

Sati

Answer 36

The tradition of self-immolation by Hindu widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands

Question 37

The tradition (sati) reflected the Hindu belief in the...

Answer 37

sanctity of the marriage bond which meant that remarriage was not an option for widows

Question 38

Sati was most common among...

Answer 38

higher castes and the caste of those involved suggests that the motivation was primarily religious belief rather than economic necessity

Question 39

Driven by a campaign by evangelical Christians, such as ________ ________ and ________ _______ own strongly held personal views, sati was ________

Answer 39

William Wilberforce Governor Bentinck’s abolished

Question 40

Anyone assisting with a sati was deemed to be guilty of...

Answer 40

culpable homicide and prosecuted accordingly

Question 41

For higher caste Indians who practiced sati, the interference by the British was...

Answer 41

a deliberate attack on caste purity and the presumption of cultural superiority inherent in the new law rankled

Question 42

What was the Immediate cause of the Indian Rebellion?

Answer 42

Rumours amongst the sepoys that new cartridges were about to be issued, lubricated with animal fat

Question 43

The immediate cause of the Indian rebellion were rumours amongst the sepoys that new cartridges were about to be issued, lubricated with animal fat. This placed both Hindus and Muslims at risk of...

Answer 43

defilement, as beef fat was repugnant to Hindus and pork to Muslims

Question 44

To many sepoys, what did the "The Rumour" (1856) seem to prove?

Answer 44

Britain’s dark plan for the Christianisation of India and the rumour proved to be the spark that ignited all the simmering resentments held against missionaries

Question 45

Why were missionaries resented by the sepoys?

Answer 45

For interference in religious practices and the choice of English as the official language

Question 46

General Service Enlistment Act (1856)

Answer 46

It required every Indian soldier to go overseas for deployment if required

Question 47

Why was the General Service Enlistment Act (1856) controversial?

Answer 47

Hindus believed travelling over water polluted their caste status (religious ignorance)

Question 48

How did the “White Man’s Burden” puppeteer the implementation of the policies that fuelled the Indians indignation?

Answer 48

Dalhousie, Sleeman and the British imperialists perceived the conquering of non-white races as white people's selfless moral duty in order to justify their naive impositions

Question 49

Meerut Uprising 1857

Answer 49

Initial revolt amongst the sepoys in the Bengal army, - freeing the original mutineers and then proceeding to massacre all the local Europeans (including women and children)

Question 50

Spread of Rebellion

Answer 50

The rebellion of the sepoys also sparked the peasant rebellion

Question 51

Peasant Rebellion

Answer 51

The disgruntled talukdars joined the opposition along with the peasants, revolting against the changing land structure and new taxes

Question 52

Cawnpore Massacre

Answer 52

200 British men, women and children were held, possibly for use as hostages, but were massacred on 15 July, the day before relief arrived

Question 53

Reasons why the British Retained Control

Answer 53

A Lack of Cohesion The Bengal Army

Question 54

A Lack of Cohesion

Answer 54

The rebels were not a united force which made the rebellion easier to eliminate Local leaders were unwilling to co-operate together to forge a national revolt

Question 55

The Bengal Army

Answer 55

The only army out of the three presidencies to revolt against British rule The other two presidency armies remained loyal to the British and the area around Calcutta itself remained unaffected by the unrest The revolt was not widespread across India, many remained sympathetic

Question 56

Impact of the rebellion on Company Rule

Answer 56

The Government of India Act (1858) was passed on 2 August and ended Company rule in India. From this Act until Indian Independence, British India was ruled directly by Britain, through the medium of a viceroy - a ruler exercising authority in a colony on behalf of a sovereign

Question 57

Impact of the rebellion on policy of Westernisation

Answer 57

officials could not prevent missionary activity, but they kept proselytising (attempting conversion) out of official policy as much as possible when they sought to move against religious customs and rituals, they proceeded with extreme caution