C. State whether the following statements are true or false.
1. Lord Canning successfully suppressed the revolt.
2. Many zamindars and moneylenders chose to stay away from the
revolt altogether.
3. Sir Collin Campbell captured Lucknow with the help of the Gorkha regiment.
4 The social reforms introduced by the British were appreciated by the Indians.
5. The Act of 1858 ensured equal numbers of British soldiers and Indian sepoys.
6. The Queen's Proclamation extended extra powers to the East India Company
in India.
Answers
1.The important events during his tenure include – the Mutiny of 1857, which he was able to suppress successfully, Passing of Indian Councils Act, 1861 which introduced portfolio system in India, withdrawal of “Doctrine of Lapse” in which was one of the main reasons of mutiny of 1858, introduction of Code of Criminal.
2.The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major, but ultimately unsuccessful, uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the form of a mutiny of sepoys of the Company's army in the garrison town of Meerut, 40 mi (64 km) northeast of Delhi (now Old Delhi). It then erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions chiefly in the upper Gangetic plain and central India,though incidents of revolt also occurred farther north and east.The rebellion posed a considerable threat to British power in that region, and was contained only with the rebels' defeat in Gwalior on 20 June 1858.On 1 November 1858, the British granted amnesty to all rebels not involved in murder, though they did not declare the hostilities to have formally ended until 8 July 1859. Its name is contested, and it is variously described as the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Indian Insurrection, and the First War of Independence.
3.The Capture of Lucknow (Hindi: लखनऊ का क़ब्ज़ा, Urdu: لکھنؤ کا قبضہ) was a battle of Indian rebellion of 1857. The British recaptured the city of Lucknow which they had abandoned in the previous winter after the relief of a besieged garrison in the Residency, and destroyed the organised resistance by the rebels in the Kingdom of Awadh (or Oudh, as it was referred to in most contemporary accounts).
4.British introduced important social reforms in the country. For example, the Bengal Sati Regulation Act was passed in 1829, declaring the practise of Sati as illegal. They also passed the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856. These reforms received mixed response from Indians.
5.Historians have identified diverse political, economic, military, religious and social causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
An uprising in several sepoy companies of the Bengal army was sparked by the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle in February 1857. Loading the Enfield often required tearing open the greased cartridge with one's teeth, and many sepoys believed that the cartridges were greased with cow and pig fat. This would have insulted both Hindu and Muslim religious practices; cows were considered holy by Hindus, while pigs were considered unclean by Muslims.
Underlying grievances over British taxation and recent land annexations by the British East Indian Company (BEIC) also contributed to the anger of the sepoy mutineers, and within weeks, dozens of units of the Indian army joined peasant armies in widespread rebellion. The old aristocracy, both Muslim and Hindu, who were seeing their power steadily eroded by the BEIC, also rebelled against British rule.
Another important source of discontent among the Indian rulers was that the British policies of conquest had created significant unrest. In the decade prior to the rebellion, the BEIC had imposed a "doctrine of lapse" (of Indian leadership succession), and the policy of "subsidiary alliance", both of which deprived many Indian rulers of their customary powers and privileges.
6.The Government of India Act 1858 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (21 & 22 Vict. c. 106) passed on 2 August 1858. Its provisions called for the liquidation of the British East India Company (who had up to this point been ruling British India under the auspices of Parliament) and the transference of its functions to the British Crown.[2] Lord Palmerston, then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, introduced a bill for the transfer of control of the Government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, referring to the grave defects in the existing system of the government of India. However, before this bill was to be passed, Palmerston was forced to resign on another issue. Later Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (who would later become the first Secretary of State for India), introduced another bill which was originally titled as "An Act for the Better Governance of India" and it was passed on 2 August 1858. This act provided that India was to be governed directly and in the name of the Crown.
Explanation:
Lord Canning successfully suppressed the revolt.