Eighty-five troopers of the 3rd Bengal Light…
May 1857 CE
Eighty-five troopers of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry at Meerut refuse on May 9, 1857, to use their cartridges.
They are imprisoned, sentenced to ten years of hard labor, and stripped of their uniforms in public.
The troops are constantly berated by their imprisoned comrades while processing on a long and humiliating march to the jail.
It is this insult by their own comrades which provokes the rebellion.
The sepoys know it is very likely that they would also be asked to use the new cartridges and they too would have to refuse in order to save their caste, religion and social status.
Since their comrades had acted only in deference to their religious beliefs the punishment meted out by the British colonial rulers is perceived as unjust by many.
When the 11th and 20th native cavalry of the Bengal Army assembles in Meerut on May 10, they break rank and turn on their commanding officers. (Contemporary British accounts suggest that some sepoys escorted their officers to safety and then rejoined their mutinous comrades.)
Some officers and their families escape to Rampur, where they find refuge with the Nawab.
Despite these actions, wild rumors are circulated about sepoys massacring Christians in Meerut (These stories will provide motivation for British forces to commit extremely violent reprisals against innocent Indian civilians and mutinous sepoys alike during the later suppression of the Revolt.)
The rebellious forces are now engaged by the remaining British forces in Meerut.
Meerut, which has the largest percentage of British troops of any station in India, but the mutineers are not deterred from marching to ...