The Contingent Decides

Although the usual causes of greased cartridges and general dissatisfaction have been cited, one of the main reasons in Gwalior was the growing economic distress and pauperisation of the peasants and urban masses from whom not only the Bengal sepoys but the Gwalior contingent stemmed from. They were not all men from Gwalior – in fact, many were from Oudh that had been so badly handled before and after annexation. If anything, they saw their very lands parcelled off through settlements, their rightful king deposed and watched as their relations bore the brunt of all of this. Their rage at the EICo was, in some sense, justifiable.
The Muslim sepoys and officers, as well as the Rohilas and Wilayatis among Scindias and Baiza Bai’s troops, were influenced by the appeal of the revivalist Wahhabi doctrines prescribing a jihad against foreign rule under the leadership of an Imam. After the uprising on the 14^th of June, this could be seen in the unusual number of Gwalior contingent troops who chose to join the roaming ghazi bands instead of the revolt as a whole. There had been something of a centre of jihadi preaching in Gwalior for some years before the mutiny and it had gone unchecked.
While the main body of troops was at Gwalior, a number of its infantry regiments were stationed elsewhere to bolster the number of troops under English command at the various stations:
7^th Regtiment Neemuch
3^rd Regtiment Seepree
5^th Regiment Agra
6^th Regiment Sultanpur
One company of the 6^th Regiment at Burhanpur
One company of the 6th Regiment at Jabalpur, amongst others.

In spite of the Wahhabi influence in the contingent and the growing dissatisfaction in the Bengal Army, the Gwalior Contingent remained quiet from the start of the uprising in May until mid-June.  The relations with their English officers were good, and Ramsay was an efficient brigadier. Even Lieutenant-Colonel H.M. Durand, officiating agent of the Governor General in Central India, remarked in his report that “the conduct of the contingent troops has hitherto been so exemplary.” It was even considered to send the contingent to Agra to reinforce the troops there, but Scindia objected as their removal would encourage the local chiefs to rebel against him. On the 13^th, 17^th and 19^th of May, small detachments, mainly of cavalry, were sent to reinforce Agra. None of the native officers or the men objected to the move.
On the 20^th of May, at the Lieutenant-Governor’s request, troops belonging to the infantry and 100 sowars of the Sind bodyguard were marched to Etawah under Major Hennessy, who was then able to restore the district magistrates’ authority of the place.
Scindia himself strove to strengthen the impression of the contingent’s exemplary behaviour by assuring the sepoys and native officers that if they remained loyal, their position would be on par with those men under his direct employ. Major Macpherson himself contributed to strengthening this impression even further by depositing 4.5 lac rupees directly to the care of Scindia, which had been collected from the ceded district of Oorai, for the direct maintenance of the troops. After Jhansi, Scindia was given administrative powers over the ceded districts of Kuchwahgarh and “which were assigned for the expenses of the contingent” thus with the overall effect to the contingent that for the men who no longer felt an overdriving loyalty to the British, could continue serving them through Scindia without having to resort to rebellion – it at least was a mindful pacification.

Nor was there an overriding revolt in the Gwalior Contingent – at least not at the start. The 1st Cavalry stationed at Agra was incited to mutiny not of their own design but by the influence of the Bengal sepoys on the 13th of May, and they did so but half-heartedly. They had also acted in a manner that was without the support of the rest of the Contingent.
On the 19th of May, the troops of the 1st Cavalry, the company of a wing of the 9th Native Infantry, marched to Aligarh to capture the treasury. It would appear their plan had been to take the treasure and then move on to Delhi, but when they arrived in Aligarh, the 1st Cavalry changed their minds. From Aligarh, they moved on to Hathras, where they tried to restore order by acting against a body of rebels who were plundering the town. Macpherson refers to the conduct as “behaved well” and approved of their actions, at least up to this point. However, on the 23rd of May, 100 of them separated themselves from this main body and rode off towards Delhi, apparently shouting “DEEN DEEN” as they went (for the faith). Although we don’t know what happened to the majority that remained in Hathras, it would appear that the 100 who left had been disgusted by their compatriots’ stalling and refusal to go to Delhi, leaving them to strike out on their own. It can be evidenced that the majority at Hathras were not acting of their own accord but on the orders of their leaders in Gwalior, who advised them that joining the rebellion at this point was counterintuitive, but they should wait and then only rise when Scindia had managed to convince the English that he could manage the Contingent himself, thus absolving them of the need to openly rebel.
As early as the 16th of May, to support this theory, leadership within the contingent was emerging, who presumed to hold negotiations with Brigadier Ramsay and the Scindia on behalf of the sepoys and the native officers. A communication from the political agent at Gwalior to the Governor-General on that day records Scindia’s directive to the contingent that it should move towards Chanderi to suppress the chiefs of Chanderi, Rayaghur, Maudhungur, Komru and Bhadoara, who had all come out against his administration. Although Ramsay approved, the sepoys were not prepared to comply, citing they would move against the Chanderi chiefs after the “rainy weather”, which was nothing but a thinly veiled excuse to deliberately disobey orders.
This is significant as it does show that there existed within the contingent an able body of leaders, men who were capable of negotiations on their behalf and who held enough authority within the contingent to influence its movements. There appears to have been a collective agreement to refuse to march out as a whole, but they did permit small bodies of horsemen to Agra on the 17th and 19th of May and a small detachment of infantry to Etawah on the 20th, but none of this amounted to more than a token dispersal. So the large-scale deployment to Chanderi when politely refused, Ramsay and Scindia entered into negotiations with the leaders of the sepoys at Gwalior and eventually had to back down as “…the leaders of the sepoys at Gwalior, apparently conceived the contingent as an organised body of professional soldiers whose basic allegiance was to their own organisation.” Their main interest was to protect the contingent as a whole. As a result, besides being opposed to the removal of the contingent from Gwalior, they were also averse to taking part in any rebellious actions that could endanger the very existence of the Contingent of which their English officers played a prominent part. Thus, their refusal to go to Chanderi was presented in a way to give as little provocation to the Ramsay and Scindia. The English officers, for their part, “vaguely appreciated this self-perception on the part of the sepoys and their leaders.”
The arrival in Gwalior of emissaries of sepoys and ordinary deserters from the rebellious units of the Bengal Army located all over Northern India contrived to make the situation in Gwalior very tense. Furthermore, as more deserters arrived in Gwalior, so did letters from the rebellious counterparts in Delhi and other stations designed to motivate the Gwalior Contingent to mutiny.

Not everyone in the ranks of the Gwalior Contingent was in favour of rebellion. Many sepoys were unconvinced that a general uprising was the answer, while others were all for overthrowing the English rulers, believing the company rule was at an end. What followed was a much torturous discussion in the lines, all of which was reported to Macpherson by Scindia himself. However, a consensus was finally reached, and the sepoys, after administering the same oaths their counterparts in other stations had, swearing on Ganga pani or on the Koran to destroy not just the English rule but rid the country of all Christians, agreed to an uprising. Scindia informed Macpherson on the 26th of May that the contingent had “ceased to be servants of the government.” It was not a matter of if they would rebel, but when.
Between the 26th of May and the 14th of June, everything suggests the Contingent planned their uprising in meticulous detail. Unlike the sudden eruptions in stations like Meerut, their sole purpose appears to have been – after ridding themselves of their English officers -to keep the Contingent itself intact. Their actions from here onwards were deliberated to throw these very officers off guard.
Scindia and Macpherson both tried to convince Ramsay and the others that the contingent was no longer to be trusted, but as they saw no untoward action on the part of their men, they stoutly refused to believe their men had thrown off their loyalty. 
A false alarm on the 28th of May, which will be discussed in the next post, did nothing to change their minds in spite of repeated warnings from Macpherson and Scindia. The troops continued to behave in an exemplary manner. After the botched rising, the 4th Regiment, who in Macpherson’s estimation was most suspect, petitioned the brigadier to be led anywhere against the rebels. On the 7th of June, the same regiment and the men of Stewart’s Battery were ordered to proceed to Jhansi under Captain Murray to quell the rebellion there; they readily complied. Significantly, the regiments stationed at Neemuch at Sultanpur did not display the same hesitation as the cavalry had in Hathras in May, so when the rebellions at those stations, on the 3rd and the 13th of June, respectively, they joined in.
Interestingly enough, the disaffected sepoys at Gwalior avoided both wholesale and individual desertion from the service, unlike the men in the direct employ of Scindia. The hold of loyalty the leaders of the contingent had over their men was stronger than their individual needs – in other words, if they had deserted, they would have had to sever all ties with the contingent itself, something they were not willing to do. The internal leadership in the contingent itself was too aware of the fact that open desertions would have meant the English officers would no longer be so easy to catch off guard.  The whole purpose was to rise as one contingent and not give the officers any cause for alarm until they were ready to rebel.
However, this only worked up to a point. On the 13^th of June when half the infantry and the men serving two of the Contingent’s guns were ordered to proceed to the villages of Parso and Sakurwuree for no apparent purpose except to get them out of the station, they once again refused to go – it appears the move had been ordered by the Brigadier after a warning he received that the Contingent was preparing to rebel. It was a last-ditch effort to single out disaffected elements, but it was too late and too ineffective.