Write four reasons for the first freedom struggle of 1857?
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Answer:
(1) Political and administrative:The expansionist and annexationist policies of the British power in India made all the Indian rulers, big and small, Hindu and Muslim look with suspicion and develop hatred towards the British power in India. Naturally, this type of reaction is justified as the Indians are the losers and the British gainers. Tara Chand observes, “Each region became, after annexation, a scene of resistance and revolt, in which land holders and peasants were involved and in which the disbanded soldiers of the landlords, the ministers of religion and the dismissed dependents participated”, as a result of the British occupation by annexation.
(2) Economic:Added to political and administrative distrust for the British East India Company, the economic policies of the British resulted in impoverishing all the segments of the Indian society except a handful of collaborators among the Indians. Owing to their colonial policies of economic exploitation, industry, trade commerce and agriculture languished and India became de-industrialized, impoverished and debt-ridden, while, William Bentinck himself admitted that by 1833-34 “The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India”.
(3) Social and religious:The British were so arrogant and haughty, that a police regulation published by a magistrate at Agra categorically states “Every native, whatever his pretended rank may be, ought to be compelled, under heavy penalties, to salaam all English gentlemen in the streets and if the native is on horseback or in a carriage, to dismount and stand in a respectful attitude until the European has passed him.”
(4) Military and the immediate affair of greased cartridges:The sepoys’ revolts were not a new phenomena and go back to the first decade of the 19th century. There was a clash between the service conditions and religious practices of the upper caste sepoys due to the policies of the British. The army of Vellore mutinied against the British in 1806 opposing the replacement of turban by a leather cockade. In 1824, the sepoys of Barrakpore did not agree to proceed to Burma as their custom was against the crossing of the sea which results in the loss of the caste. In 1844, the Bengal army opposed the decision to go to Sind and wage war for the same reason mentioned above.