There were several reasons behind the war of independence in 1857. It was the last major try
by Indians to remove British East India Company through power of military forces. People of Sub
continent were forced to take this major step. Main reasons to initiate war was political, Economic
and religious. If we talk about political reasons first so we can say that Britishers expanded their control in the
name of security of East India Company. They start grabbing the lands through different methods
like doctrine of lapse introduced by lord Dalhousie. According to doctrine of lapse any princely
state or territory under the British East India Company would automatically be annexed if the ruler
died without a male heir. They declared English as the official language and removed Persian.
Indians wants to take back power in their own hands because they believe they have a right to rule
on their own lands not those who came for trading. Britishers excluded Indians from all high level
jobs. In 1849 lor dalhouise announced that Bhadur shah zafar will not be allowed to stay in Red
fort and they forced him to move near qutub minar. In 1856 lord canning announced that after death
of bhadur shah zafar his successors will not be allowed to rule here.
Another major reason was military causes. Salary of seapoys were too low as compared to British
soldiers in the army. There were few chance for them to get promoted to higher ranks. An
agreement was force fully signed by Indian soldiers that if needed they have to fight out side India
India and according to Hindu soldiers its very impossible to leave their mother land and fight outside
which also create disturbance. British introduced cartridge greased with cow or pig fats, which was
not allowed in Hindu and Muslim religion. Soldiers have to chew the cartridge before use so they revolted against British. Teaching of Bible was made compulsory so Soldiers were afraid that they
will be forced to convert in Christianity. Muslim soldiers were quite angry because were forced to
fight against their Muslim brothers in Sindh and Afghanistan.
Religious reasons also force to start the war. Britishers were trying to spread Christianity and it was
became dangerous in eyes of Hindus and Muslims. They also ban satti and child marriages.
Widows were allowed to re marry and this made Hindus quite angry. Converters were allowed to
inherit the property of family.
Education also became the reason of revolt because English was made the language for education
and removed Sanskrit and Persian. Bible was thought and co-education was introduced. Parda was
ban in school.
Economic reasons were there to initiate the war against Britishers. Indians have to pay heavy taxes.
Farmers were forced to grow only cash crops which effected Bengali which cause many deaths in
Bengal because of food shortage. Indian industry was forced to destroy because of heavy taxes on
their good and British goods were cheap because no duties were imposed on them. Due to different
steps taken by Britishers unemployment rate of Indians were getting larger every day. There were many reasons for the failure of war of Independence 1857. Lack of unity was the major
reason for the failure. They don’t have common purpose to fight for which cause their strength to
decrease. Muslims were fighting to regain power and bring Mughal empire back In power. They
don’t have any common leader. There were several rebellious groups. They don’t have any sort of
plan but they were aiming to destroy British power. Sikhs and Hindus don’t want Muslims to rule
again on India so oppose Muslims too in this war. British were quite strong they have modern
weapons. They have common goal, they have a leader so unity was there in British army. They were
well trained and supported by their government through all means either its money, weapon etc.
British use its allies like Kashmir who sent a large number of soldiers o fight against Indians.
Rebellions destroyed property which displeased locals so they also supported Britishers. Sindhi’s and
Punjabi were also not supporting rebellious groups. There was no proper communication channel.
These were the major reasons why rebellious groups faced defeat against Britishers.
After this war it was clearly seen that Mughal Empire has come to its end. British became the new
ruler of India. EIC was abolished and Britain came to power. Viceroy was introduced who was
responsible to control India and representative of Britain. Major blame was put on Muslims head
and because of this British became anti Muslims. They stopped funding Muslim education systems and Muslims don’t wanna go to British schools so level of uneducated students start rising in Muslim
students. Sikh and Hindus allied with British and became friendly with them. After war British didn’t
allow Indians to keep weapon.
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