REVOLT OF 1857

REVOLT OF 1857 

 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of theEast India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the cantonment of the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northernMadhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region.^[2] The rebellion posed a considerable threat to East India Company power in that region,^[3] and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858.^[2] The rebellion is also known as India's First War of Independence, theGreat Rebellion, the Indian Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, theRevolt of 1857, the Rebellion of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, theSepoy Rebellion and the Sepoy Mutiny.

Other regions of Company-controlled India, such as Bengal, theBombay Presidency, and the Madras Presidency, remained largely calm.^[2] In Punjab, the Sikh princes backed the Company by providing soldiers and support.^[2] The large princely states of Hyderabad,Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, as well as the smaller ones ofRajputana, did not join the rebellion.^[4] In some regions, such as Oudh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against European presence.^[5] Maratha leaders, such as Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, became folk heroes in the nationalist movement in India half a century later;^[2] however, they themselves "generated no coherent ideology" for a new order.^[6]

The rebellion led to the dissolution of the East India Company in 1858. It also led the British to reorganize the army, the financial system and the administration in India.^[7] The country was thereafter directly governed by the crown as the new British Raj.^[4]