The Sepoy Mutiny

In the 18th century, as India's Moghul Dynasty declined, the United Kingdom's East India Company came to fill the power vacuum, first through tax collection then through armed force. (It overcame challenges from its Dutch and French counterparts VOC and Compagnie des Indes.) Battlefield victories at Plassey and Buxar let to complete control of the Bengal region. Later challengers such as Tippu of Mysore and the Punjab Sikhs were also defeated.

The Company governed its domain with little oversight from London, though Governor-General Warren Hastings was unsuccessfully impeached between 1787 and 1795. From its Calcutta base it expanded into the Far East, growing Indian opium for the Chinese market, which led to the Opium War. But discontent within its native sepoy forces increased. Some saw the Christian missionary movement
as a threat to their beliefs; others feared being ordered to fight overseas; rifle cartridges for the new Enfield rifle were rumoured to contain grease from cow tallow (offensive to Hindus) and pig tallow (offensive to Muslims).

On May 10, 1857, the Third Bengal Light Cavalry regiment rebelled at Meerut and marched to Delhi and the seat of Moghul Emperor Bahadur Shah II. Here the Maharajah, previously the Company's puppet, eventually gave the rebellion lip service. The British were driven out of Kanpur and besieged at Lucknow, with smaller uprisings elsewhere. But the response varied from place to place, with some Indians remaining loyal.

The initial British response was panic. But they organized their forces and put Delhi under siege between July 1 and September 21. With that city taken (and pillaged), they rescued the Lucknow besieged, then took Lucknow itself in March, 1858. Fighting continued in some regions as late as 1859. Both sides had committed atrocities, and many mutineers were executed, some by the notorious "blow by the cannon" method.

The rebellion killed about 6000 British (out of 40,000 in India), and hundreds of thousands of Indians, many of them civilians. Bahadur Shah was tried for treason and exiled, marking the end of the Moghul Dynasty. In 1858 the British government abolished the East India Company and took over direct administration of the sub-continent. Many Indians view the rebellion as India's "First War of Independence," ultimately leading to the British departure 90 years later.

For background reading, you can try Gregory Fremont-Barnes' Osprey Guide to the Indian Mutiny 1857-58.

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