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Mahesh

08/04/24 06:27 AM IST

Remembering Mangal Pandey

In News
  • Mangal Pandey, who was hanged to death by the Company on this day — April 8 — 167 years ago, belonged to the kingdom of Awadh.
Kingdom of Awadh
  • Awadh was a region that supplied large numbers of soldiers of war to the Company’s army.
  • There were 75,000 soldiers from Awadh, and almost every agricultural family in the kingdom had a representative in the army.
  • Whatever happened in Awadh was of immediate concern to the Sepoy.
  • The deposition of the Nawab and the confiscation of the villages of taluqdars during the land revenue settlement of 1856 caused outrage.
  • Some 14,000 petitions were received from the Sepoys about the hardships they faced on account of the revenue system.
  • Mangal Pandey represented the discontent that the misery of British rule had brought upon peasant families.
The mutiny and hanging of Mangal Pandey
  • Mangal Pandey was born on July 19, 1827 in Nagwa village in Batia district in a Bhumihar Brahmin family.
  • He joined the East India Company’s army at the age of 22 as a soldier in the 6th company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry.
  • He refused to use the newly introduced Enfield rifle, the cartridges of which had a covering that was believed to be made of animal fat (beef and pork), and which had to be bit open before the cartridges could be used.
  • This was viewed by the soldiers as a direct assault on their religious beliefs by the British who intended to bring an end to their religion and propagate Christianity.
  • On March 29, 1857, Pandey mutinied and fired at his Senior Sergeant Major.
  • He was overpowered and hanged on April 8, 1857, by the order of a Court Martial at Lal Bagan in Barrackpore.
  • His regiment was disbanded, like the 19th infantry at Behrampore, for showing resentment.
Spread of revolt
  • Pandey’s action was followed by defiance by the soldiers of the 7th Awadh Regiment, and it too met with the same fate.
  • By the beginning of May, news of the Sepoys’ mutiny had reached Meerut, and in the morning of May 11, 1857, a band of Sepoys from Meerut who had refused to use the new cartridges and killed their European officers the previous day, crossed the Jamuna, set the tool house on fire, and marched to the Red fort.
  • They appealed to Bahadur Shah II, the elderly Mughal emperor who was a pensioner of the East India Company, to become their leader to provide legitimacy to their cause.
  • After much persuasion, he yielded and was proclaimed Shah-en-shah-i-Hindustan.
Legacy of the revolt of 1857
  • Pandey’s action had far-reaching consequences, including a change in the nature of British rule in India.
  • The mutiny shocked the British; they had never imagined that Indians, whom they believed to be inferior, were capable of rising against their rule.
  • After the revolt, they realised the need for the adoption of a strategy to hold India for the long term.
  • The British parliament passed an Act on August 2, 1858, transferring all powers of the Company to the Crown.
  • Queen Victoria was declared the Sovereign of British India.
  • The Queen’s Proclamation made by Lord Canning on November 1, 1858, to the Princes, Chiefs and people of India, unveiled a new policy of perpetual support for the native Princes, and non-intervention in matters of religious beliefs in India.
  • The governance of India by and in the name of the Monarch through a Secretary of State was aimed at improving the administrative machinery of supervision and control over the Indian government.
  • It was decided to grant the same status to the “Natives of India” as other subjects of the British Empire.
  • It was assured that the Crown would create equality for all people in the eyes of the law.
  • The Queen’s Proclamation was reinforced in 1877 in a big event held at Delhi’s Coronation Park, which was attended by a large number of people. The event came to be known as the Delhi Durbar.
  • Queen Victoria assumed the title of Qaiser-e-Hind.
Source- Indian Express

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