CAUSES OF DISSATISFACTION.
The Sepoys have been treated in the matter of pay, clothing, and food, as they never were under native rulers; but they have been subjected to strict discipline, and they have been cut off from the much-prized privilege of foraging, or rather plundering. They have at different times complained loudly of unjust treatment. Alleged breach of promises of pay, and their being sent to fight our battles in foreign countries such as Burmah, China, Persia, and Afghanistan, and to parts of India foreign to them, have been prominent among their causes of complaint. They have not confined themselves to complaint and remonstrance; they have again and again broken out into mutiny, which has led to some regiments being disbanded, and the mutineer leaders being severely punished. Years before 1857 it was asserted by persons eminently qualified to judge, like Sir Henry Lawrence, that grievous mistakes had been committed in the administration of the native army, and that our safety demanded great changes in its treatment and distribution. When one reads the statements they made, and the warnings they gave, the wonder is the mutiny did not sooner occur. Lord Ellenborough, before leaving India, declared the Sepoys were our one peril in India, and characteristically proposed we should keep them in humour by keeping them always fighting.
All other causes of revolt were light compared with the charge often advanced and believed that we were bent on the destruction of their religion. From the outbreak at Vellore in 1806, on to the great mutiny of 1857, this charge was persistently made. The Sepoys were allowed all the religious liberty compatible with military obedience; they had every facility for following their religious customs; they were fenced off from Christian influences as no other part of the community was; they were solemnly assured again and again their religion would be scrupulously respected; they had full evidence before their eyes that with few exceptions their officers had no Christian zeal. Whence, then, this charge of tampering with their religion? The explanation is to be found in the character of Hinduism. It is intensely outward. It is a matter of rite and ceremony, of meat and drink, of clothing and posture. It may be filched from a man without any act of his own by the act of another, and he may not be aware till informed that the fatal loss has been incurred. Something may be introduced into his food which will deprive him of his religion, and make him an outcast all his days. What more easy than to introduce a defiling element, such as the blood or fat of the cow or bullock, of which the Brahman or Rajpoot might unaware partake? To this intensely outward religion people of these castes are passionately attached from custom, from superstition, and still more, I think, from the consideration among themselves and others which caste purity secures. Their honour, izzat, as they call it, is their most valuable possession. An attack on it is bitterly resented. This honour is quite consistent with licentiousness, robbery, plunder, and even murder; but to violate caste by drinking from the vessel of a low-caste man, or eating with him, would bring with it indelible disgrace. To partake of the cow, the sacred animal, is the greatest crime which can be committed, and, if done unconsciously, the greatest calamity.
Notwithstanding the fact that the English as a people had little zeal for their religion, the Sepoys thought they saw reasons for our wishing to effect their conversion. If Christians, they would be fitter instruments for carrying out the designs of their English conquerors. They would in that case be no longer hampered by class distinctions, commissariat arrangements could be more easily made, they would have no objection to serving in foreign lands, and they would become identified with us. What was more easy than to effect the change by the manipulation of their food? Their imagination led them to interpret facts as justifying suspicion, and the supposition was enough to drive them to revolt.
The Muhammadans in India have become Hinduized to a large extent; they continually speak of themselves as a caste, and Muhammadan soldiers have shared with their Hindu comrades in the fear that the English were bent on destroying their religion. They took the most prominent part in the mutiny at Vellore in 1806. They were injudiciously required there to put on the English military hat, to shave their beards, and put on leather belts, which they maintained were made of pigs' skins; and all this was done, they said, to turn them into Topeewalas, Hatmen—in other words, into Englishmen and Christians.
CO-OPERATING CAUSES FOR REVOLT.
Outside the army there have been causes, co-operating with those within, in prompting the soldiers to rise against us. Our government is a very foreign one. There is a national gulf between the rulers and the ruled, and consequent absence of the sympathy which would draw them to each other, if they were of the same people. Our government is at once expensive and strong, requiring a large amount of taxation considering the resources of the country, and able to enforce its payment. India has been greatly favoured by high-minded and able rulers; but often, with the best intentions, from want of thorough acquaintance with the native character and customs, injustice has at times been done by the decisions of our courts. Though giving security for person and property, such as India had never previously enjoyed, our government has borne hardly on some classes, such as the officials of the native states we have annexed, the numerous dependents of the abolished native courts, and the able and enterprising members of the community, for whom no suitable sphere has been open, as the main prizes in both the military and civil services are reserved for the English stranger. Then deposed princes have now and then intrigued with the army to draw it away from its allegiance.
In the spring of 1856 Lord Dalhousie laid down his office, after his long and memorable Proconsulship. So little did he anticipate the events of the coming year, that in the elaborate Minute he wrote on his retirement he satisfied himself with saying, regarding the native army, that the condition of the Sepoy could not be improved. Till the closing months of the year there was no fear of the coming storm. Profound peace reigned throughout India. War had been declared against Persia, but hopes were entertained that victory would soon crown our arms, and these hopes were fulfilled.
THREATENINGS OF THE STORM.
Towards the end of 1856 and early in 1857 there were mutterings of the storm. A number of men were selected from each regiment to be taught the use of the Enfield rifle, and for this purpose a new cartridge was required, which required to be bitten with the teeth. The report spread like wild-fire, and was firmly believed, that the cartridge was smeared with bullock's fat to destroy the caste of the Hindus, and with pig's fat to destroy the caste of the Muhammadans. The Adjutant-General of the army declared there was not the slightest ground for the statement; but the more strongly our innocence of design on their religion was asserted, the more firmly did the Sepoys believe our guilt. Paper was offered to them, and they were told to prepare cartridges for themselves; but they said the paper was dangerously glazed, and they would not accept it. Among other things causing disquietude was an order that in future all enlisting must engage to go wherever they might be sent in India or beyond. Hitherto some regiments had been enlisted only for service in India, and could not be sent out of it except by their own consent. On every side there were signs of a new era setting in, which forbode no good to the ancient customs and institutions of the land. The more aspiring spirits among the Sepoys had evidently formed the project of uniting the whole army in the attempt to drive the English into the sea, and secure power and emolument for themselves.