Why in the news?
It was on April 8th 167 years ago in 1857, Mangal Pandey was hanged.
Who was Mangal Pandey?
- Mangal Pandey, born on July 19, 1827, in Nagwa village of the Ballia district in present-day Uttar Pradesh.
- He belonged to the kingdom of Awadh, which had been treacherously annexed by the British in 1856.
- At the age of 22, he enlisted as a soldier in the British East India Company’s army, joining the 34th Bengal Native Infantry.
Recap of his revolutionary activities
- Annexation of Awadh
- The Begums of Awadh had an understanding with the British, and had been abiding by the terms of the agreement.
- In spite of this, Awadh was annexed, in February 1856, which was greatly resented by the people.
- 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.
- Rise of Resentment
- 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.
- Flashpoint and the mutiny
- Mangal Pandey was stationed at Barrackpore, near Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he became involved in a significant event that would later be known as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.
- 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.
PYQ:[2019] The 1857 Uprising was the culmination of the recurrent big and small local rebellions that had occurred in the preceding hundred years of British Rule. Elucidate. |
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