The 1857 Uprising was the culmination of the recurrent big and small local rebellions that had occurred in…

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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.

Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

The 1857 Uprising inherited the grievances, actors and religious idiom of a century of local revolts by dispossessed rulers, peasants, tribals and sepoys, but surpassed them in scale and in rallying behind one symbol. Precursors ranged from the Sannyasi-Fakir revolt of 1763 to the Santhal Hul of 1855.

**Introduction**

The sepoys who marched from Meerut to Delhi on 10 May 1857 inherited a century of resistance. Bipan Chandra traces this tradition from the Sannyasi rising after Plassey to the Santhal Hul of 1855, which 1857 gathered into one upheaval.

**A Century of Resistance that Prepared 1857**

SKETCH: timeline | Road to 1857
- 1763 :: Sannyasi-Fakir revolt
- 1799 :: Poligar revolt
- 1806 :: Vellore Mutiny
- 1817 :: Paika rebellion
- 1831 :: Kol uprising
- 1855 :: Santhal Hul

1. **Dispossessed rulers**: Kattabomman of the Poligars, Velu Thampi of Travancore and Rani Chennamma of Kittur (1824) fought annexation, the grievance that later moved Nana Saheb and Rani Lakshmibai.
2. **Peasants and tribals**: The Paika rebellion (1817) against revenue demands and the Kol and Santhal risings over land and forest rehearsed the agrarian fury seen in Awadh.
3. **Sepoy discontent**: The Vellore Mutiny (1806) over caste marks and the Barrackpore mutiny (1824) over service in Burma foreshadowed the fears behind the greased cartridges.

**How 1857 Went Beyond Its Precursors**

1. **Scale and symbol**: Sepoys joined zamindars, peasants and artisans from Delhi to Kanpur, Lucknow and Jhansi, and rallied behind Bahadur Shah Zafar.
2. **Not a straight line**: The south, home of the Poligar and Kittur revolts, stayed largely quiet in 1857, while Punjab and most princes sided with the British, so continuity was uneven across regions.
3. **Fresh triggers**: Awadh's annexation in 1856 and the greased Enfield cartridges supplied new sparks that no earlier revolt had faced.

**Conclusion**

1857 culminated a century of local resistance in grievances, actors and idiom, yet was new in scale and in its search for a common leader. Its defeat taught Indians that freedom needed organised national action.

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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