Beginning of Essay
E CHARACTERISED? SHOULD IT BE SEEN AS A POST PACIFICATION REVOLT, A NATIONALIST UPRISING, OR AS A WAR OF INDEPENDENCE? Any discussion on the reasons behind the Indian mutiny needs to be preceded by what the mutiny actually was. While mutinies and revolts were no ....

Middle of Essay
.... was typical of the British who constantly underestimated the importance of Indian religion, and the failure to do so here was to have disastrous consequences. In January 1857 a labourer at the Dum Dum arsenal near Calcutta, a low caste Hindu, taunted a high caste Sepoy who had offended him that “You will soon lose your caste, as long as you will have to bite cartridges covered with the fat of pigs and cows” . The news of this incident spread. As it was against Muslim and Hindu religion to come into contact with these meats, it would have been a disgrace for them to have had to use these rifles. However, it was not personal pollution tha ....