The Great Rebellion Of 1857 In India

The Great Rebellion of 1857 in India was much more than a ‘sepoy mutiny’. It was a major event in South Asian and British colonial history that significantly challenged imperialism in India. This fascinating collection explores hitherto ignored diversities of the Great Rebellion such as gender and colonial fiction, courtesans, white ‘marginals’, penal laws and colonial anxieties about the Mughals, even in exile. Also studied are popular struggles involving tribals and outcastes, and the way outcastes in the south of India locate the Rebellion. Interdisciplinary in focus and based on a range of untapped source materials and rare, printed tracts, this book questions conventional wisdom. The comprehensive introduction traces the different historiographical approaches to the Great Rebellion, including the imperialist, nationalist, marxist and subaltern scholarship. While questioning typical assumptions associated with the Great Rebellion, it argues that the Rebellion neither began nor ended in 1857-58. Clearly informed by the ‘Subaltern Studies’ scholarship, this book is post-subalternist as it moves far beyond narrow subalternist concerns. It will be of interest to students of Colonial and South Asian History, Social History, Cultural and Political Studies.

Analyses the representations of 1857, incorporating the insights of J Nehru, who contextualized 1857 in the light of anti colonial movements in Asia and Africa, differentiating Nehru's frame of analysis from that of other chronicles. The reader is also invited to reflect on how some of Delhi's prominent citizens coped with the post 1857 decades.

India's First war for Independence (aka Indian Rebellion of 1857) began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East 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, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to East India Company power in that region, and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858. The rebellion is also known as India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Rebellion, the Indian Mutiny, the Revolt of 1857, the Rebellion of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion and the Sepoy Mutiny. 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. The country was thereafter directly governed by the crown as the new British Raj. The 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot was a Line Infantry Regiment of the British Army from 1799 to 1881.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a rebellion in India against the rule of the British East India Company, that ran from May 1857 to July 1859. The rebellion began as a mutiny of sepoys of the East 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, western Bihar, northern Madhya Pradesh, and the Delhi region. The rebellion posed a considerable threat to East India Company power in that region, and was contained only with the fall of Gwalior on 20 June 1858. The rebellion has been known by many names, including the Indian Mutiny, India's First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Indian Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Rebellion of 1857, the Uprising of 1857, the Sepoy Rebellion, the Indian Insurrection, and the Sepoy Mutiny.

This volume brings together seminal writings on the rebellion of 1857. It discusses key debates and interpretations; underlines changes in historiography; and explores new research on gender, Adivasis, and Dalits.

"Frey's concise and readable history of the Indian Rebellion is an excellent introduction to one of the most important wars of the nineteenth century. The rebellion lasted more than a year and pitted broad sections of north Indian society against the British East India Company. British victory consolidated colonial rule that would only be dislodged by twentieth-century nationalist movements. Frey provides a crystal-clear account of the causes, principal events, and consequences of the rebellion. Equally importantly, he deftly discusses why the rebellion remains controversial. Well-chosen documents add texture to the analysis. This is the best short history of the rebellion in print." —Ian Barrow, Middlebury College