Revolt of 1857: Causes, Centres, Leaders and Results

The correct answer is B, Meerut. On 10 May 1857 the sepoys of the garrison at Meerut refused the new cartridges, killed their European officers, released their imprisoned comrades and marched towards Delhi, which they reached on 12 May. That day is taken as the beginning of the revolt.

Option A is wrong because Barrackpore in Bengal was where Mangal Pandey attacked his officers in March 1857, an earlier incident treated as the spark rather than the outbreak; it is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C is wrong because Delhi was reached two days later, and it became the political centre of the revolt when Bahadur Shah II was proclaimed emperor. Option D is wrong because Kanpur rose later under Nana Saheb. Fix the sequence in mind: Barrackpore in March, Meerut on 10 May, Delhi on 12 May.

The correct answer is B, 34th Native Infantry. Mangal Pandey was a sepoy of this regiment stationed at Barrackpore near Calcutta. In March 1857 he attacked his officers rather than use the new greased cartridges; he was court martialled and hanged on 8 April 1857, and his regiment was disbanded.

Option A is wrong because the 19th Native Infantry at Berhampore had earlier refused the cartridges and was disbanded, but Mangal Pandey did not belong to it. Option C is wrong because the 3rd Light Cavalry was the Meerut regiment whose men began the revolt on 10 May 1857. Option D is wrong because the Awadh irregular units joined the rising later in the year. Examiners often pair these regiments with the wrong station, so remember Mangal Pandey with the 34th Native Infantry and Barrackpore together.

The correct answer is A, Nana Saheb. He was the adopted son of the last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, and the refusal of his pension by the Company was one of the causes of the revolt. At Kanpur he was proclaimed Peshwa, and his commander Tantia Tope led the fighting there and later at Jhansi and Gwalior. Nana Saheb finally escaped to Nepal.

Option B is wrong because Kunwar Singh, the aged zamindar of Jagdishpur, led the revolt in Bihar. Option C is wrong because Khan Bahadur Khan led it at Bareilly in Rohilkhand. Option D is wrong because Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah was the leader at Faizabad in Awadh. Centre and leader pairs are asked in both directions, so learn them as a table and revise the four Awadh and Bihar names together.

The correct answer is D, Sepoy Mutiny 1857. Begum Hazrat Mahal, a queen of the deposed ruler of Awadh, led the revolt at Lucknow in 1857 and had her young son Birjis Qadr proclaimed the ruler of Awadh. She held the city for months, rejected the terms the British offered her and withdrew to Nepal, where she died.

Option A is wrong because the Moplah Revolt of 1921 was a peasant rising in the Malabar region of present day Kerala, long after her time. Option B is wrong because the Paika Revolt of 1817 in Odisha was led by Bakshi Jagabandhu, four decades before 1857. Option C is wrong because there was no Gond revolt of 1941 of this kind; the Gond risings against the Company belong to the early nineteenth century. Her name always goes with Lucknow and Awadh in 1857.

The correct answer is A, Jagdishpur in Bihar. Kunwar Singh, a zamindar of Jagdishpur in the Shahabad region, was about eighty years old when he took up arms, fought the British at Arrah with his brother Amar Singh and carried the revolt into central India before returning to Bihar, where he died in 1858.

Option B is wrong because Rohilkhand, with Bareilly at its centre, was the country of Khan Bahadur Khan. Option C is wrong because Bundelkhand is the region of Jhansi and Rani Lakshmibai. Option D is wrong because Malwa, with Indore and Mhow, is associated with the Holkar state, whose ruler stayed with the British while some of his troops rose. Bihar questions on 1857 almost always turn on Jagdishpur and Arrah, so keep those two place names with Kunwar Singh.

The correct answer is B, the greased cartridges of the Enfield rifle. The new rifle needed a cartridge whose end had to be bitten open, and the sepoys believed the paper was greased with the fat of cows and pigs, which offended Hindus and Muslims alike. The refusal to use these cartridges led to the disbanding of regiments and then to the rising at Meerut.

Option A is wrong because the annexation of Awadh in 1856 was an important political cause but not the immediate one. Option C is wrong for the same reason: the Doctrine of Lapse of Lord Dalhousie created the grievances of Jhansi, Satara and Nagpur years earlier. Option D is wrong because the Vernacular Press Act belongs to 1878, two decades after the revolt, under Lord Lytton. Distinguish carefully between the long term causes and the immediate spark, since the question is set both ways.

The correct answer is C, 1856. The General Service Enlistment Act of 1856, passed while Lord Canning was Governor General, required new recruits of the Bengal Army to serve wherever they were sent, including overseas. Crossing the sea was held to involve loss of caste, so the law was read as an attack on religion and became one of the military causes of the revolt.

Option A is wrong because 1850 is the year of the Religious Disabilities Act, which allowed a convert to Christianity to inherit ancestral property. Option B is wrong because 1853 is the year of the Charter Act and of the first railway line and telegraph line in India. Option D is wrong because 1859 is the year of the Peel Commission, which reorganised the army after the revolt. Three army related years are worth keeping apart: 1856 for enlistment, 1857 for the revolt and 1859 for the commission.

The correct answer is A, Rangoon. The last Mughal emperor was captured at Delhi in September 1857, tried by the British, deprived of his title and sent to Rangoon in Burma, where he died in 1862. His sons were shot, and with his removal the Mughal dynasty came to a formal end.

Option B is wrong because Singapore was not the place of his exile, though other political prisoners of the empire were sent to distant colonies. Option C is wrong because Aden, then administered from Bombay, held prisoners of later years and not the emperor. Option D is wrong because Mauritius received indentured labourers from India rather than state prisoners of 1857. One more pair often asked with this is the exile of the deposed ruler of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, who was sent to Calcutta.

The correct answer is B, Hugh Rose. Sir Hugh Rose led the central India campaign, took Jhansi in April 1858 and pursued the rebels to Kalpi and Gwalior, where Rani Lakshmibai died fighting in June 1858. Tantia Tope escaped from that campaign and was captured and executed the next year.

Option A is wrong because Sir Colin Campbell commanded in Awadh, relieving and then retaking Lucknow. Option C is wrong because John Nicholson led the assault on Delhi in September 1857 and was killed there. Option D is wrong because Henry Havelock marched on Kanpur and Lucknow and died at Lucknow in 1857. The commander and centre pairs are examinable in the same way as the Indian leaders, so learn Jhansi with Hugh Rose, Delhi with Nicholson and Lucknow with Campbell.

The correct answer is B, Government of India Act of 1858. Known as the Act for the Better Government of India, it abolished the East India Company along with the Board of Directors and the Board of Control, vested the government of India in the Crown, created the office of Secretary of State for India with a Council of India of fifteen members and gave the Governor General the additional title of Viceroy.

Option A is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 was the last of the charter acts and introduced open competition for the civil service. Option C is wrong because the Indian Councils Act of 1861 came later and began the association of Indians with legislative work. Option D is wrong because the Act of 1919, the Montagu Chelmsford reforms, introduced dyarchy in the provinces. The word Crown in the question is the signal for 1858.

The correct answer is B, Lord Canning. Canning was Governor General when the revolt broke out and became the first Viceroy of India under the Act of 1858. He read the Queen's Proclamation at a durbar at Allahabad on 1 November 1858, which promised that treaties with the princes would be honoured, that annexation by the Doctrine of Lapse was at an end and that Indians would be admitted to office without distinction of race or creed.

Option A is wrong because Lord Dalhousie, the author of the Doctrine of Lapse, had left India in 1856. Option C is wrong because Lord Lytton came two decades later and held the Delhi Durbar of 1877. Option D is wrong because Lord Ripon, remembered for local self government and the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act, came in 1880. Canning's double distinction, last Governor General of the Company and first Viceroy, is itself a favourite question.

The correct answer is C, R. C. Majumdar. He held that the rising of 1857 was not the first armed challenge to British power, that it did not cover the whole country or unite its people, and that it was not fought for a clear idea of national independence; his summing up is quoted in this exact form in examinations.

Option A is wrong because V. D. Savarkar took the opposite view and called the revolt the First War of Indian Independence. Option B is wrong because S. N. Sen, who wrote the official centenary history, concluded that the revolt began as a fight for religion and ended as a war of independence. Option D is wrong because Benjamin Disraeli was a British politician, not a historian of India, and he described the events as a national rising in a parliamentary speech. Learn these four views as a match the following set.