economics causes of 1857 Related: Sepoy Mutiny - Revolt of 1857 in In...
The Revolt of 1857 which is called ‘Sepoy Mutiny’, ‘Great Revolt’ and the ‘First War of Indian Independence‘ is the watershed in the history of pre-independent and early colonial India.
It is so, as the one hundred years penetration of the British East India into different parts of India through wars and diplomacy and the introduction of alien revenue, judicial social intervention methods and language of English as the medium of instruction at the school and collegiate level destabilized the existing pre-British socio-cultural fabric.
Economic Causes:
Added to political and administrative distrust for the British East India Company, the economic policies of the British resulted in impoverishing all the segments of the Indian society except a handful of collaborators among the Indians. Owing to their colonial policies of economic exploitation, industry, trade commerce and agriculture languished and India became de-industrialized, impoverished and debt-ridden, while, William Bentinck himself admitted that by 1833-34 “The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India”.
The parliamentary reports of 1840 also record that while the British cotton and silk goods imported into India paid a duty of VA per cent and woolen goods 2 per cent, Indian cotton goods exported to Britain paid 10 per cent, silk goods 20 per cent and the woolen goods 30 per cent. Further, the abolition of the monopoly of trade in 1813 of East India Company and the introduction of free trade by 1833 increased further the exploitation of the economy of India.
The levels of exploitation of Indians were so high, that even the British felt so sad and disturbed that they wrote, “India is as much a manufacturing country as she is an agricultural one. She is a manufacturing country; her manufacturers of various descriptions have existed for ages, and have never been able to be completed by any nation wherever fair play has been given to them.
To reduce her now to an agricultural country would be an injustice to India.” While the above was the opinion of a Britisher, Mr. Martin, another Britisher, Mr Cope made the following statement before the Parliamentary Committee in 1840: “I certainly pity the East Indian labourer, but at the same time I have a great feeling for my family than for the East Indian labourer’s family. I think it is wrong to sacrifice the comforts of my family for the sake of the East Indian labourer because his condition happens to be worse than mine”.
As a result of the British economic exploitation all classes of people, peasants, landlords, traders, industrialists, labourers and middle class of India were badly affected and it is no exaggeration to state that unlimited poverty enveloped the entire society and made India an underdeveloped country.