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- [00:01]
A
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com.
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B
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arn.
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A
And me, William Durampel.
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B
And today we are going to tell you about the eruption of the greatest anti colonial uprising of the 19th century. It is the story of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who is ripped away from a life of poetry and palaces and plunged into a crisis, a rebellion that will almost shatter the British Empire.
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A
Delhi is on the brink. Rumours are spreading, the sepoys are furious and British blunders are piling up. A single grease cartridge will light the spark. This is the story of how the 1857 War of Independence, or the Great Uprising, or the Sepoy Mutiny began.
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B
I think it'd be really helpful if we can paint a picture of 1850s Delhi because you sort of suggest in that opening that there it was a tumult of rumors and gossip and insecurity. I mean, just what was it like to be in Delhi in the 1850s?
- [01:32]
A
Well, it starts off at the beginning of this period as a rather wonderful place because Delhi, which has been sacked by successive armies of Afghans marching through and Marathas coming up from the south, everyone's wanted to plunder this incredibly rich city. Once the British Capture it in 1803, you have this extraordinary period when there's a revival of the city and for a brief period, the British and the Mughals are living in extraordinary harmony.
- [02:04]
B
So, I mean, this is the period of Deloney and those wonderful characters who not only are dazzled by the place, but the people as well. And they don't see them as inferior at this time. Indeed, they fall in love.
- [02:15]
A
They do. And not just Ochtaloni, who famously has 14 Indian wives, each of whom has her own elephant. And they do this wonderful procession around the Red Fort every time they go and visit the begums in the Red Fort. But there's this whole world in the residency. One of Octoloni's assistants is this guy, William Fraser, who commissions the greatest late Mogul painting paintings, who learns perfect Urdu and Hindustani, who is beloved of the Sufis, of the, of the city. And there's this sort of moment of 20 or 30 years, which is sometimes called the, the golden calm, when they're all, you know, the Brits are going to Urdu poetry readings, they're writing Urdu poetry, collecting Mughal miniatures and commissioning the great artists of the city. And then there's this slow chill because this is the period of the rise of the evangelicals and it's also just growing British arrogance. The British up to this point have always been aw of the fragility of their space in, in India. They're aware that there were Tipu Sultan, the Marathas, provincial Mughal governors, all of whom could potentially have defeated them. The great armies of the Sikhs. But after 1820, after 1830, they are, you know, the sole big dog around and they begin to restrict the freedoms and they begin to restrict the lives of the Indians who they rule. And by, you know, the 1830s, by the time that Zafa comes to the throne in 1837, the mogul's power is literally restricted to the court itself. The whole town of Delhi is under, under British rule, as is the rest of India.
- [03:46]
B
I was always interested in that transition, that sort of tipping point. And I often wondered whether it's because the people in London didn't feel they could control those who had gone native in India who had more sympathy than, you know, sort of this voracious predation that London wanted from the territories that it had now, you know, sort of taken. Was there a bit of that, that actually, you know, we've got the wrong people in there because they're just not giving us as much as we think we can get.
- [04:15]
A
There is a bit of that, but I think it's also just this, the arrogance of the British at this time that that period of, of Octolonian Fraser, when these guys fall in love with this dazzling court is, is replaced by a group of people. Charles Trevelyan, do you remember him? The guy that created the potato famine and caused, you know, a million Irishman to die. Charles Trevelyan is in the British residency at the beginning of his career and just looks down on Indians. He thinks they're savages, he thinks they're inferior. This is very different from the attitude of Octolonian Fraser, who'd love to turn up to a red fort mushaira and recite poetry into the early mornings and had Indian wives and half Indian children. And that earlier period to us seems very attractive. And it's replaced by these evangelicals who are all reading Macaulay believing that a single shelf of a good English library is worth more than the entire native literature of India and Arabia. Those sort of attitudes are now prevalent and it's in the middle of this that this wonderful final emperor comes to power. He's already a late middle aged man by the time he gets to the throne. And this is Bahadur Shah Zafar who you referred to. And Zafar is to Urdu poetry and Indian literature what I suppose the, you know, the age of Elizabeth is to the English stage and Shakespeare. Because Zafar hasn't got the money to do what his ancestors had, which is build the Taj Mahal or create these wonderful caravanserais or road systems spanning India. You know, the great marble palaces of the Moguls which dazzled all the ambassadors that came. Writers are cheap and he has around him the, the, the greatest writers of the day. There is Zork who is this rather pious and well behaved poet who produces beautiful poetry. He's from a very ordinary background and produces this dazzling verse despite his lack of education. And then there's his great rival who's Ghalib, who is the arist. Aristocrats. Aristocrat. He's one of my favorite characters. He's a fantastic character.
- [06:13]
B
Yeah, I mean the relationship is actually quite funny. I mean it is sort of that sort of Mozart Salieri. Thing is why is he getting all the attention, this young sort of brute and I'm so much more refined than him and jealousy and intrigue in the court. I wanted to ask though, why has he not got money? The money and the wealth and the dazzling riches of his forebears. Is it because the Mughal empire is just over time overextended itself? Or is it because they are profligate with them? I mean, what has happened to reduce him to keeping the company of cheap poets?
- [06:46]
A
Well, this is the subject of the book we wrote together, Eater. First of all, when we were kicking off our partnership called Koh I. No. And that told the story of how this Persian adventurer Nader Shah turns up. And Nader Shah is again from quite a humble background. His father made hats, he was a furrier. But Nader Shah is this military genius and he invents something called the swivel gun which is like a sort of, you know, small tank, sort of artillery cannon that you construct, strap onto a camel or a horse and he invades India and there's this massive battle, the battle of Karnal. And on one hand you've got nearly a million Moguls in the field with their dazzling armor shining in the sun, their jeweled helmets, their shining spears. And then the other you've got this very small army of crack Persian troops who aren't flashy to look at but have got this amazing new weapon that's armor piercing. And so the Persians pretend to flee. The old sort of fake retreat street routine. And then the light cavalry parts just as the Moguls are advancing.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And they're lined up these swivel guns.
- [07:53]
B
But it's the bullet that does it and it's sort of technology and warfare and it's also, I guess, you know, the arrogance, the bloated arrogance of a family that's been in charge and just doesn't even question the fact that they're always going to be in charge. I mean the man at the time of the time we wrote that book, Mohammed Sharangila is just useless. I mean he sort of brings parties and jugglers and acrobats and girlfriends to the battle.
- [08:17]
A
I'm a great fan of Mohammed Shah Regula and his cross dressing ways and his pearly shoes.
- [08:21]
B
I think he's an idiot. He's an idiot.
- [08:24]
A
Certainly, certainly you wouldn't want to be led into battle by Bahamisha regular and that's what happens. And at the end of this, as you know, well, Anita, the Nader Shah comes into Delhi and he leaves six weeks later having extracted, is it 380 wagons of jewels including the Peacock throne and the Koh I Noor, everything basically the Moguls have plundered from around India for, you know, 150 years is just put into a series of wagons and driven off to Persia.
- [08:52]
B
One of the lovely aspects of that story is that some of the wagons are so heavy they tip into a river and no one bothers to fetch the stuff out because they've already got so much stuff. I mean it is, it's a ludicrous amount of looting coming to Zafre's time. So that explains why Zafar's doing things that don't cost much money. But as a man himself, himself, I mean he likes the company of cultured people but he is a cultured man himself. I mean he's a calligrapher, he's an architect, he designs beautiful gardens. I mean he has qualities all by himself, doesn't he?
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, I mean what he could have done if only he had a bit of cash. But sadly Nadeshah has run off with literally the crown jewels and there's not much left. So Zafar, he's remembered for what he did to poetry and he succeeds his father in his mid-60s when it's already impossible to do anything to reverse the decline of this dynasty. But he creates around him a court of great, great brilliance. You know, personally I've always thought he's one of the most likable, tolerant and talented of his dynasty. He's a skilled calligrapher, as you said. He's a profound writer on Sufism, a discriminating patron of miniatures. And he's a serious mystical poet, you know, if you're into Urdu poetry. He's one of the great writers in his own right. We have here in Delhi this festival called Rakta, which is all about Urdu poetry. And still to this day in 2025, vast crowds. They have a stadium now to come and listen to the. The people reciting Zafar and Ghalib and Zork. And there is this sort of wonderful backstory which everyone here in Delhi knows. It's not well known, obviously, in Britain or beyond, but with Ghalib and Zork being the kind of Mozart and Salieri of. Of Mughal India. And there's this obsessive search for the perfect couplet. The. They have these musharas, which are sort of like word game. You' the rhythm of the poetry that you have to. You're given a morning's notice to prepare your rhymes and verses and rhythms and you're told what the rhythm is going to be the tile. And then you pass a couplet onto your rival and he has to answer the couplet in the perfect rhythm. So it's like a cross between a sort of crossword puzzle and.
- [11:05]
B
And a duel.
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A
And a dual duel with words.
- [11:07]
B
Yes, A duel with a duel in verse is what. Is exactly what it is. Just on. On, you know, Zafar again himself, I'm kind of interested because he has those old courtly manners that the Mughals were really famous for, you know, the kaluf, you know, being more polite than anyone. The British are fairly rude to him from the get go, aren't they? I mean, they don't. They don't treat him well.
- [11:27]
A
Yeah. By the 1830s, you know, the deference which the British initially paid when they first sort of entered as his protector is the. Is the. And the British have on their coins that they are the Fidvi Shah Alam, that they are the devot, voted a vassal of his grandfather Shah Alam. But this is abolished by 1830. By the time he comes to the throne, the British are playing rude and they're already sort of conspiring to get the Mughals out of the Red Fort to shove them into a smaller fort near where I live here in Meroli. And Zafa is this very attractive character. We have a court diary which I found in the National Archives, which is just full of daily details. And he's this sort of Benign old man, as you say, with impeccable manners, even when he's treated with rudeness. And he has olive oil rubbed into his feet to soothe his aches. Occasionally he goes and visits a garden or goes on a hunting expedition. Where I live here in southern Maraudi is his old hunting grounds. And his evenings are spent, according to the court diary, enjoying the moonlight, listening to singers or eating fresh mangoes. And he has this sort of running battle with all his young concubines because he's now quite an elderly man and they're always getting pregnant by other men, by the kind of guards at the gates and by the court musicians and so on. And this is a kind of running saga in the palace. And the Delhi school of music survives the cataclysm which is to come because we're about to enter into this great war, which will be the next eight episodes of our podcast about this sort of apocalyptic end to the dynasty. And just to look ahead, the music of Delhi survives because one of the most famous musicians gets one of his concubines pregnant and is exiled to Hyderabad, so doesn't suffer the complete wipeout that.
- [13:15]
B
Takes place in Delhi sliding doors moment. Had he stayed exactly. We would have lost so much culture in the process.
- [13:22]
A
And the other great character who, you know, we're going to be hearing, he's going to weave his way in and out of the episodes which are to come is this aristocratic poet, Ghalib, who is kind of raffish. He never has enough money, although he's very high birth. He's a great drinker, he's a great lady man. And he holds as a badge of honor the fact that he's been put into prison for gambling. And when he hears that the very pious Sabai has been made the poet laureate, Ghalib replies, how can Sabai be a poet? He's never tasted wine, nor has he ever gambled. He has not been beaten with slippers by lovers, nor has he once seen the inside of a jail, which is a wonderful definition of how the Mughal sort of poet should behave. Constantly being sort of, you know, running out of lovers apartments and letting themselves down on ropes and being imprisoned.
- [14:16]
B
Sort of a little bit like a Carry on movie with better clothes. The picture is, is one of, you know, opulence and manners and, but also naughtiness.
- [14:26]
A
I'd love to just read you my favorite letter by Galu.
- [14:29]
B
Go for it.
- [14:30]
A
So Ghalib is a great, but an extremely complex poet. And if you're a student of Urdu poetry, Ghalib is the most complex of. He's like. I suppose John Donne would be the English equivalent. You know, you really have to sit and puzzle through his lines and work out what he's. What he's actually trying to say. It all sounds wonderful, but it. It's complex and dense. But in contrast to that, Zafar's letters to his friends are funny, light and witty. And I'll just read this to give an example of the. The kind of man he was. One of Gala's best friends had a very beautiful mistress who had died. And the friend goes into deep depression, missing this girl who he thinks is irreplaceable. And Ghalib is prepared for this guy to sort of, you know, spend a couple of months mourning, but by. By six months, he says, enough. And he writes this letter. Mirza Sahab, Prince, I do not like the way you're going on. In the days of my lusty youth, a man of perfect wisdom counseled me abstinence I do not approve of, dissoluteness I do not forbid. Eat, drink and be merry, but remember that the wise fly settles on the sugar and never on the honey. I have always acted on his. Cannot mourn another's death unless you live yourself. Give yourself to God for your freedom and do not grieve. When I think of paradise and consider how if my sins are forgiven me and I am installed in a palace with the houri to live forever in that worthy woman's company, I am filled with fear and dismay. How wearisome to always find her there. A greater burden than a man could bear. The same old palace all of emerald made the same old fruit tree to cast its shade and God preserve her from all harm. The same old houri or Mah. My arm. Come to your senses, brother, and take another. Take a new woman with each returning spring for last year's almanac's a useless thing. So that's Ghalib. You got him now firmly in your sights. Anita, I'm sure you disapprove very strongly of him.
- [16:24]
B
No, no, I think he sounds like a fun guy to be with. But the thing is, you know, all of this is not preparing for, you know, the storm clouds that are gathering. So, I mean, you've got the East India Company, and you've just described how there is an impatience with the kind of indulgence that perhaps, you know, their forebears like Ochterlonian Fraser had, you know, indulging these sort of the carry on of the palace. You've got sort of increasing control You've got the missionaries who are also, you know, setting their sights on. On civilizing this part of the world because, of course, their gods are not civilized gods. But you also have, and I think sometimes we forget this, the rise of the Wahhabis as well, who themselves would have despised what Ghalib was standing for. You know, drinking and honey and sugar. I mean, they would have had their tea bitter is how they would have done it. And so all of this that has gone before. And the Wahhabis are very strict, hard line puritans from Saudi Arabia. You know, they still follow the Wahhabist Islam, which doesn't have idols, which doesn't have, you know, the kind of ornate art that the Mughal court is. Is famous for. So there are all these pressures building around, and it's almost as if the guys in the middle just aren't aware of the walls closing in on them. You know, if they're still sort of, you know, tinkering around with poetry, I mean, they may not be aware of it in the palace, but is there a change of atmosphere in Delhi itself?
- [17:52]
A
Very, very strongly. You have on the British side, the old world of Fraser and Ottolone, who dressed up in turbans and gowns with no jewels and turned up at the poetry evenings. They're replaced with a family called the Metcalfes. And the Metcalfes are where these sort of. Of black suits, I mean, they come.
- [18:10]
B
They come up in our Koh I Noor story. Yeah, they do some members of the family. It's like makeup. But we'll come to Theo in a minute. But. Yes, tell us more about.
- [18:17]
A
Yes, Theo's gonna weave his way right through this next eight episodes. He's. Yeah, he's comes to Delhi as. As the kind of very naughty son of this incredibly straight lace father. The father, when he wants to punish one of the servants, puts on a white gloves and tweaks his ear. This is the kind of way he behaves. And he. And he. He goes to bed at sort of eight in the evening and never goes out to party. Theo is out with his dogs and his women and his. And his fancy evenings hunting and a drinking. Yeah, exactly. And what you have, what's fascinating is the way that both sides sort of go more puritanical. On one hand, on the Brits, you've got, you know, the old world of Fraser not only giving way to Metcalf. On the Indian side, as you say, there's been the wise of the Wahhabis. So the Sufis who are tolerant and allow a little, you know, alcohol can possibly help you reach God. They think the puritanical Wahhabis will not touch drink. They wouldn't allow images. They specifically try and weed out anything Hindu in Muslim practice in India. And over the centuries, you know, Indian Muslim women wear nose rings, they eat on bananas leaves. They behave like the Hindus and many of them are indeed Hindu converts. The Wahhabis try and end that. They want to look to Arabia to, to root out anything that is not pure Islamic as they see it. And so the evangelicals and the Wahhabis are sort of perfectly matched to have an enormous fight. They're both of them uninterested in becoming friends with the other. And at the same time you get the beginnings of Indian nationalism beginning to make itself felt. Previously people had often identified with the city. So, you know, you have people describe themselves as Dellavi from Delhi or somebody, Shah Jahanabadi from Shah Jahana Bharat. About your immediate horizon is your, is, is your kind of number one loyalty. But you have people beginning to leave India and come back and have a sense of India as a nation. And one of these characters is one of a character called Azimullah Khan. And Azimullah Khan goes to London, has an affair with Lucy Duff Gordon, who's a kind of very prominent British socialite and traveler in the east, and so feels, you know, very much that he's the, you know, the equal of anyone from the Brits. And then he goes on the way home to the Crimean War where he sees the Brits struggling against the Russians and this terrible stalemate and slaughter which we've dealt with in our Crimean War episodes. And when he arrives back in India, he has a strong sense of Hindustan, of India being this country ready to.
- [20:53]
B
Free itself, but also that, you know, that the Brits are vulnerable, they can be defeated. You know, if he sees sort of, you know, the, the given wisdom was that they are, you know, Shenshahibha Bhatsa, you know, they are the kings of the world. But he sees, you know, sort of in those blood soaked fields of the Crimean, they'll actually, they bleed too. And that gives an enormous amount of sort of rocket fuel to take back, saying, you know what, we can take him. You know, I've seen it done. We can, we can definitely push them out.
- [21:21]
A
And Azula Khan is one of a whole generation that's now beginning to think that, you know, it's time to unite Hindu Muslims, come together. Maratha and Mughal must come together. We must push out these foreigners. And in 1857, in March, a piece of paper is posted to the wall of the Jama Masjid in Delhi saying that the Persian army is on its way to come and liberate India. It's not true, but it causes a great sensation and there are all these other rumors beginning to spread that liberation is near. But ultimately it's not going to be the nobles or the aristocrats or even the populace of Delhi which has got the military hardware there to actually resist the might of the East India Company which now is this enormous multinational company with 200,000 mercenary troops. The people who actually try for freedom and take up arms against the British are the East India Company troops themselves, the sepoys. And as we'll see in the next half, they have got ample reason to really hate the British now. And they are, are all set to turn their guns on their officers and fight for freedom. We'll see that in the next half.
- [22:50]
B
Welcome back. We were talking about, it's almost Luther like nailing of a proclamation of defiance on the wall of the, the Jama Masjid. But there is also sort of growing paranoia if you like, about this rumbling of discontent and how, you know, maybe there's a challenge to, to British rule coming. And there were reports which I think were fascinating in the Urdu speaking newspapers at the time of these mysterious chapatis which are sort of rotis or you know, some, some Delhi newspaper said it was like fried puris which are this bread, this unleavened bread that, that is eaten in India that they're being passed from, from night watchmen from village to village across Hindustan. And there's one report in, in a publication called Nurima Maghrebi in, in February that says they're passing between villages and by early March, you know, they've reached Mathura and they're on the main road to Agra.
- [23:42]
A
So these Puris are traveling, coming towards Delhi. Yeah.
- [23:45]
B
So you know, these, these unleavened breads are sort of like, you know, edging their way towards Delhi and the Delhi newspapers are starting to get all, all crumpled up about this as well. You know, what is the significance of these Rorties and these Puris coming towards The Puris are getting closer. We know that they're just on the outskirts. You know, they start getting all sort of nervous about this, but not as worried as they are about outright declarations of war against the British. You know, that there is sort of instigation and in the shape of actual fatwas. So I mean one of them that's posted in Madras is, and I'll quote from it, calling on all believers to rise against the infidels. He who fell in such a war would be a martyr, it says. And. And that's truly worrying because that is a call to arms. And there are all sorts of rumors swirling around that either the Russians are coming to help, you know, and we've seen what they can do in the Crimea, or the Persian army is coming to help, or maybe they're both coming to help and there'll be a pincer movement and that they'll one day just pop up up in Delhi. And most prominent of all the reports that are swirling around at this time, they start coming into the newspapers, coming to the press in late March and they talk of unrest within the army in Bengal. Now that is a nightmare because the Brits are so outnumbered. They rely on these armed forces, you know, particularly in places like Barampur and Barakpur. And Theo Metcalfe, who, if you've read our Koh I Noor book or listened to our Koh I Noor episodes because he's man about town, bit of a playboy, you know, sort of hangs around the bazaars picking up gossip. He sort of is. Is the main source of intel a lot of the time and he's picking up all these murmurings that there is something big coming. And I think it's him. It's Theo Metcalf, I'm right. And he says in the spring of 1857 that the people of Delhi were perfectly aware of the want of fidelity in the sepoy army me. And the subject is being frequently discussed. So he's, you know, basically issuing a warning there's something coming and it's. It's like a disease and it's spreading around Delhi. Now.
- [25:54]
A
I found a great stash of his papers in Cambridge and they are fantastic because they're day by day reports of how, you know, things are getting more and more tense in Delhi. And what's really kicked it off, what happened, you know, a couple of years previously or a year previously is what happened in Lucknow. Now, Lucknow was another court very like Delhi. It was the. Originally the Mogul governors of Avad, which is the. The area which now Uttar Pradesh up and they had had again a court, a Mogul court that was famous for its music and its dancing and its cooking and its parties. And it was a cross between sort of Monte Carlo and. And Tehran in the 70s and Glyndebourne, I suppose, with all those sort of things put together and what you get in February 1856 is suddenly the British abolish the court. They, they exile the Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Waj Ali shah is by 1856, an enormously fat man. But in Windsor, in the Queen's own collection, they have his Ishknama, his book of girlfriends. And there's just like a sort of, sort of tinder manual or a tinder log rather, where he has just picture after picture of these beautiful courtesans and girlfriends that have been through his parlors. And in his youth he was a great dancer and so on. But anyway, he's just packed off to Calcutta and sent into exile. And this matters because actually it is from Lucknow, in the areas around Lucknow, that most of the soldiers are recruited and their pay is reduced by a third because they had been regarded as foreigners. And they're given a little kind of supplement for joining the company army from a princely state. And once other is annexed, their salaries are reduced to thirds. So all these things, British arrogance, the growing extremes of religion, both Christian and Muslim. And into all this, you've got discontent in the army. They're being paid less, there's less warfare going on because now the British have actually conquered the whole of India. There's nowhere left to loot. So, you know, previously, if you were a sepoy, as was also true the British, if you capture Tipu Sultan's kingdom, you stand quite a good chance to be able to pocket a necklace or, you know, some jewels or whatever it is that happens in the spoils of war. That's all over now. So the prosperity of the seaports in the army is going down. And they're really pissed off that the British have taken their kingdom, that their king has been sent off into exile, and all of this is adding fuel to the fire.
- [28:27]
B
So, you know, you've got this disgruntlement among those who carry guns for you, which is a dangerous thing to do for the British. I mean, it's quite a calculation because they are so very outnumbered. You've got the seizure of more territory and no less, you know, that the. The kingdom of AWA completely taken away. And then you've got something else that happens at the beginning of 1857 which is going to be really very important. The Brits used to use the Brown Bess. That was the weapon of choice. But now there is a new type of gun which arrives on the scene, and it's the Enfield rifle. It's one of those ones where you have to, you know, bite through a cartridge to pour in the gunpowder and it's faster and it's more, I guess, accurate. The Enfield rifle, it's like the cutting edge in weaponry. So the brother in law of Theo Metcalfe, you know, our boy about town and picker up of gossip, is a man called Edward Campbell and he writes to his wife about the introduction of the new Enfield rifle. And. And he's got some concerns. So he says, I'm taking a leading part as concerns the management of the new Enfield rifles. Our fellows don't like them as much as the old ones. I think they will. But it probably present do not see how it is a disfavorable circumstance because we cannot afford to unload and clean them as often as we would wish. We have so little ammunition and after firing a few rounds they get very foul and hard to load. Now he didn't go further with the technical details but this was a problem, isn't it? Because the Brown Bess was much easier and they understood the Brown Bess.
- [29:56]
A
So what's happening is that a musket like the Brown Bess has a smooth barrel inside and that the ball just goes out of it and out it goes. A rifle has these sort of corkscrew patterns inside. And the idea is that it turns the ball in the barrel as it leaves and that makes it go more accurately. If it's turning, it doesn't swerve off left or right or up or down, it goes straight. But in order to get these breech loaded cartridge, the powder and the shot into a rifle is much more difficult because you've got all these corks, screwy pattern in it. So when you try and shove it down it's constantly rubbing against the thing. So what they do is they lubricate it. And these cartridges for the Enfield rifle come pre lubricated. And what clearly happened is that the Indian armory at Dum Dum, which is just outside Calcutta where these things are made, that something had gone wrong in the manufacture of them. And these cutches which are meant to be lightly lubricated, you know, could have been olive oil, it could have been, you know, anything but they're actually clogged with fat. And this is what he's talking about in his letter saying that they get very foul and hard to load because the lubrication is so heavily put on the cartridge that when they ram it down it soon begins to CL like that, you know, layers of vas if you like. Exactly.
- [31:18]
B
And that actually the grease will become the problem not just because they get claggy but because something much more important because the rumor goes around that the grease that they're using is coming from the rendering of pigs or stroke, cows. Right? No, that, that is offensive to everybody somehow because of course, you know, sort of pork is prohibited in Islam. And if you are a Hindu, having anything to do with, do with any, anything to do with a cow or beef can yank you out of cast. So it is an absolute disaster because they don't know what these claggy things are coasting. They're required to bite into them so that they can pour the, the gunpowder in and what are they putting in their mouths. So this kind of term already, you know, you've had the nailing up against the wall, you've got paranoia about chapatis coming closer and closer to Delhi, but now something very tiny, tangible, which is we are having to touch something that either will condemn us in the eyes of our God in Islam or yank us out of caste and condemn us for not just this life, but all lives to come. So, you know, that's a real problem. And the sepoy discomfort at not having enough pay turns into sepoy anger.
- [32:39]
A
You see, what's happened is that you've got a real thing which is these new rifles with new cartridges which are being over greased in manufacturing. That's a kind of a simple physical mistake by the armory at Dum Dum. But the fact that at the same time we talked about how the British are becoming more fundamentalist too, they're becoming evangelical Christians. And you have these evangelicals who start reading the Bible to their sepoys at parade. You know, the sepoys are standing there, they're told to be a detention. And rather than just sort of, you know, telling them about they're going to invade Afghanistan or teaching them about military tactics, the colonels in charge starts reading them a passage of the Bible. Now enough of this. This is. There is never a plan to convert all the people of India to Christianity, but there's enough religious fanatics in the army for the sepoys to be suspicious. And they, when they're given these new cartridges, they think this is part of a wider conspiracy to take away their religions. Exactly. So, so there is a problem that there's too much Greece. And even the British soldiers who are using these cartridges complain. It's like putting a mouthful of vanishing gasoline in your, in your, in your mouth. You know, these are horrible tasting things. But because of this religious fundamentalism in the officer ranks, this in among the sepoys, a conspiracy rumor really takes root. And they convince themselves that there is an organized Conspiracy to convert the entire army to Christianity.
- [34:07]
B
How interesting.
- [34:08]
A
And there's enough people that believe this for this to be a real problem. Problem. And you begin to hear the same sort of time that that Theo spots this notice on the back of the Jama Masjid. At the same time there's these rumors in the papers about these mysterious japatti, this mystery, what do these chapattis mean? Why are they being passed from village to village? This is the moment that the Enfield rifle is being passed and the whole army thinks there's a massive conspiracy to convert them to Christianity. And there's other things going on in the army which also gets them all sort of hoity toity and upset.
- [34:43]
B
British are worried because they start talking about changing the recipe. You know, they know they've stuffed up because this is serious and the kind of murmurings of discontent are very serious. So they change the recipe of the lubricant, you know, this thick clag that goes around those, those powder cartridges into a recipe that involves beeswax and ghee. Ghee is clarified butter that Indians use in cooking. And that should be offensive to nobody, but it's kind of too late because even though they say we have now changed the recipe, nobody believes them. So, you know, you've got this sort of breakdown of trust. And at the same time you have got this division that is appearing in the army because it used to be, you know, the British officers mixed with their men, they ate with their men, they laughed with their men, you know, and suddenly there is a distance. So you have people reporting that, you know, their officers are now treating them with a great deal of rudeness. Where there was camaraderie, there's now only superiority. They're sort of treating, treating them as lesser men. This is the end of the days of the White Muggles that William's written so beautifully about. You know, when they danced with or wrestled with or had affairs with sisters of or, you know, all of that is over. There's no more of that sort of chess playing while waiting for your orders. There's this wonderful memoir by a man called Sitaram Pandey who's a sepoy who writes, in those days the sahibs could speak our language much better than they do now. And they mixed our more with us. Although officers today have to pass the language exam and have to read books, they don't understand our language. The sahibs used to give nautches, which are the dance displays and dancing girls for the regiment. And they attended all men's games. They Took us with them when they went out hunting. Now they seldom attend nautches as their Padre Sahibs, which is the name is given to priests, have told them, this is wrong. These Padre Sahibs have done and are still doing many things to estrange British. British officers from the sepoys. From their sepoys. When I was a sepoy, the captain of my company would have some men at his house all day and he talked with them. I've lived to see great changes in the sahib's attitudes towards us. I know that many officers nowadays only speak to their men when obliged to do so. And they show that the business is irksome. They try to get rid of the sepoys as quickly as possible. One sahib told us he never knew. Knew what to say to us. The sahibs always knew what to say and how to say it. When I was a young soldier. So you've got men who serve for a great deal of time who are telling their younger recruits, you know what? This is a different breed. This isn't what it used to be. This wasn't what it was like when I first joined up.
- [37:20]
A
Yeah, exactly that. And there are other things that are pissing them off too. For example, they have to go and fight in Burma. The Brits don't see what the problem is. But for a sepoy, it's crossing the water. Water. And at this time of heightened religious tension again, they think there's a deliberate sort of ploy to, to make them lose caste. And, and, and they don't want to cross the water. They don't want to lose caste. They want to stay in India. Now all these things come to a head in May 1857 in, in the, in the hot weather and at the end of April you begin to hear rumors that there's been a small uprise in Barrackpool. A man called Mangalpandi has shot some of his officers. The rumors are confused, but it spreads from cantonment to cantonment. And in a sense this taboo has been broken. Someone has shot a British officer. This never happened before. You know, the ultimate act of insubordination, of actually killing the man who commands you.
- [38:17]
B
It's unthinkable. Yeah, unthinkable. And that name, by the way, Mangal Pandey is. You mentioned, may not have heard of it if you live in Britain. But legendary name and the stuff of Bollywood blockbusters. Mangal Pandhi is like sort of heralded as this huge hero. The man who fired the first shot, the man who pushed back first.
- [38:33]
A
Those who are members of the club will know the story of Mangal Pandi because we had Amir Khan on in December talking about making this movie and my kids were in it.
- [38:42]
B
Can I just say for those of you, you can only get this good stuff if you're a member of our club and just get to empirepoduk.com empirepoduk.com and Aamir Khan, literally the Brad Pitt of Indian cinema, like a major box office blockbuster of an actor. And his Mangalpande is one of his, regarded as being one of his greatest hits if you like. But William, when does this come to a head? Because you've got the Mangalpandi story that's spreading. When does it finally reach that point of no return? When it is inevitable that there is going to be an uncontrollable problem for the East India Company.
- [39:18]
A
It nearly explodes in barrackpor. The political historian Vier Savarkar wrote a book called First War of Independence which was the first time that term was used and he tries to make mangalpundi the whole story. In reality, my understanding is from what my research, that he is a factor but he's not the kind of the key figure. The key area which Savarkar doesn't like is actually the Mughal court. Now Savaka the did like the Mughal court and so he marginalizes its importance. But the great first flashpoint is Meerut in May 1857 at the Heat of maize, which is the hottest month in North India. It all comes to head and it begins to happen in the end of April on Friday 24 April 1857 in Meerut. They decide to make the sepoys use these new cuts cartridges. And there's been a huge amount of resistance. There's been very polite petitions from the men saying we don't want to do this, we want to continue to use our old rifles. And what's unfortunate is that the two commanders in Mira are complete idiots. There's this very, very timid Archdale Wilson who will be hearing more about because he remains a sort of timid and hopeless figure and he will become the bete noir of John Nicholson who is the sort of evangelical avenging angel that we met briefly in our Irish shears and he's going to be coming back into the story. And his number two is an elderly guy called Bloody Bill Hewitt who even Wilson, who is no kind of bright spark himself, writes, is a fearful old dot, an exasperating idiot. These two are running the biggest cantonment, the biggest sepoy depot and they're only 50 miles north of Delhi. So they don't keep an enormous number of sepoys in Delhi. They put them 50 miles to the north so that they can call on them if they need them, but they're out of the way. And they don't sort of get caught up in the, in the, in the bazaars of Delhi and all the temptations that that could mean. But it is here, with these two hopeless officers that everything goes wrong. And on the 24th of April, they decide to force their men to use these cartridges for the first time. And no one's been talking about anything else for the previous two months. And idiotic Wilson and Hewitt decide to put it to the test. And on the afternoon of the 24th of April, they line their men up. 90 men of the 3rd Light Cavalry put on command and told to bite the bullet. This is where that phrase comes from.
- [41:50]
B
That's where the phrase comes from, bite the bullet.
- [41:52]
A
Exactly. They have to take off the top of the cartridge, pour it into their, their rifles and then ram it down. It should have been perfectly easy, but because it's covered in all this grease and fat, and now there are the rumors that it's a deliberate means to change their religion, this becomes a massive thing. So the men who were all veterans of many years service, many who won medals for long service, they were the loyalist troops in the company they'd fought in Afghanistan. They petition that this they don't, you know, we really don't want to do this. But Hewitt and Wilson forces them to it and they're lined up on parade. Wilson says that he insists on it because if we don't do it, it will be like we are afraid of them. So he forces the matter. And so the Havildar major, who's the senior most sepulchre, lines up his men, 90 men of the 3rd Light Cavalry and instructs them to load and fire. And he then demonstrates how to do it and does it himself. And then he asks the men one by one to do it. And every single one of the men but five. So out of 90 men, only five do what they're told. The rest of them all refuse and, and those five are then dismissed until they can go back home. The 85 who are in trouble are taken off duty and confined to their line. So there's then a court of inquiry which is actually run by the sepoys themselves. The senior most sepoys come to a decision on what should be done. There was a whole variety of different options. They could have recommended death, which this is Insubordination in the direct order. What they do is they take the lightest possible option in the rule book and they sentence them to 10 years imprisonment. But they put in a recommendation that there should be mercy, and what should be their sentence should be commuted on grounds of previous good behavior. In other words, they want to just smooth the whole thing.
- [43:53]
B
But Hewitt's not in the mood to smooth anything over it. See, that's the problem. You describe them as idiots, and one might say this is. Is a prime example of idiocy, because on the afternoon of Saturday, the 9th of May, in 1857, Hewitt marches that entire cantonment onto the parade grounds and under the guns of a European artillery regiment. And in front of the entire cantonment, these offending men, these 85, are brought before them, and they are stripped of their uniform. It's like, meant to be this deliberate act of humiliation to strip a soldier in front of a crowd of witnesses. They're ordered to remove their boots. They are then publicly fettered and shackled like criminals, chained up like a chain gang. And they are marched in this kind of beleaguered, humiliated way. And remember, as William said, some of these are medal winners who've been on former campaigns in Afghanistan, who are heroes, you know, who are marched to prison. And on the way, these men, you can just tell what the feeling is because they throw boots at Hewitt.
- [44:55]
A
Yeah, we should explain this. They've had to take off their boots to put the shackles. Yeah. So they're walking past with them carrying their boots.
- [45:02]
B
You know, they're holding them in their hands. Right. And so just. Yeah, the image is. Is very strong. So even then, shackled and, you know, sort of supposedly meant to be head bowed, this act of defiance happens where they throw their boots at Hewitt. Now, if you've seen that video, it was George W. Bush having shoes thrown at him. You know, in parts of the world, that is a really low form of insult, that you are the dirt underneath my shoes. And they start. Not only do they throw their boots at Hewitt, but they start cursing him out in Hindustan money. So Hewitt, it's like, okay, wasn't expecting that. I was not expecting that. He goes home and he writes in his diary that he was glad the men had not been sentenced to death, but either way, justice had been done. And he writes somewhat hopefully, and as William said, idiotically, so ends this business. I hope that we shall have no more of it here. But is he right? William? No, he is not right, is he?
- [45:54]
A
He's absolutely right. So all The Brits. This is Saturday evening and the Brits are getting ready for their big weekly regimental dinner, which happens on a Saturday night. They're all getting drunk and getting ready as they are in their cups. There is reports coming in from the bazaars of Meerut that enough is enough. This is the moment to rise up. And it is the prostitutes who say they will not sleep with any soldier until the soldiers have liberated the hero boys, the 85 men who stood up for the let them out of prison and then fall on their offices and they say, we're not sleeping with a single man until you do this. And so it's allegedly the girls who call the shots here. And rumors come that a plan has been made to fall on the British community when they're in church the following evening, Sunday, Sunday, they know that every Sunday the Brits spend their, you know, go back and read their Bibles at home. And in the evening they meet in the church and they crucially have to leave their rifles at the door. And the story comes from spies in the cantonment and sympathetic Indian officers that there is this plot. But Hewitt doesn't read the letter. He stuffs it in his pocket and he goes to his dinner and nothing happens. And. And he thinks it's all over and he thinks it's all stuff and nonsense and this is all past. And this is the crucial mistake that will unleash the mutiny the following day, May 10, 1857.
- [47:31]
B
And if you want to get the next three episodes in this series, right now all you have to do is join Empire club. That's@empirepoduk.com empirepoduk.com you can binge your hearts out. You get ad free listening and a weekly newsletter with book discounts. What's not to sign up for? Till the next time we meet, it is goodbye from me, Anita Anand.
- [47:52]
A
And goodbye from me, William Durham. So what's really going on between Donald Trump and Venezuela right now? I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist. And I'm David McCloskey, author and former CIA. And we together, the hosts of the Rest Is Classified. In our latest emergency episodes, we go deep into the inside track of what's really going on in the spy war in Venezuela. And we're looking at how, with the help of the CIA, Donald Trump has managed to oust Venezuela's leader. So get the full insider scoop by listening to the Rest Is Classified. Wherever you get your podcasts.