First war of independence: 1857

[Bodhi]

Why Madras did not join Bengal in 1857?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I read Veer Savarkar’s book on 1857 - in Tamil translation - when I was about 10. It was titled Erimalai (”Volcano”) and its Tamil rendition was indeed fiery. One thing that struck me was the fact that I could hardly find a Tamil name in the book. The men had strange, unfamiliar names. The lone heroine’s name, Lakshmi, was somewhat Tamil sounding, but the suffix “Bai” betrayed its alien origin. 
 
I was moved by their bravery, but theirs was decidedly not Tamil bravery. Our heroes were Kattabomman and the Marudu brothers.
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A letter written in 1858 from Nagpur, talking of the Madras sepoys stationed at Kampti, says: “The sympathies of the Madras sepoys were entirely with the insurrectionary movement, and if they had got a tempting opportunity they would have joined it. They only want a beginning to be made, and a rallying point of some sort … We must never … suppose that the Madras men are of a different clay from those of Bengal.”
 
One of the reasons why not even a single of the many fuses of the rebellion was lit in the south is given in the above letter. There was no rallying point. They felt no loyalty towards the tottering emperor in Delhi. 
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but then he goes to bring caste in. (North Indian sepoys were predominantly high caste mostly brahmins, whereas Madras sepoys the 'low caste' - for whom British service must have been preferable than the native rule!)

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->What was the caste composition of the Madras Army’s infantry?
 
This is what an 1845 book - Travels in India, by Leopold von Orlich - says: “The Hindoo sepoy of the Madras Army is still more alien to the great body of the Hindoo people than the sepoys of Bengal; he is generally of a low caste, born and brought up in the field.”
 
The operative words are “born and brought up in the field”. This statement brings to the fore the horrendous realities of rural Tamil Nadu in the 19th century. These are explained succinctly by another author, Henry Mead, in his book The Sepoy Revolt: Its Causes and Consequences (1857): “In the Southern Presidency the families of the men always accompany them, a custom which, however inconvenient in general … affords an almost certain guarantee for the fidelity of men. Their sons, when they grow up, hang about the lines and officer’s quarters, pick up a modicum of English … and by the time they arrive at manhood, or the age at which they are permitted to be taken on the strength of the corps, they have been thoroughly identified with it.”
 
The book does not speak of the women of the families. But it is clear that only men who had absolutely nothing to hold on to at the place where their ancestors once lived would even contemplate allowing their women and children to follow them wherever they went. They must have been abysmally poor, without land, without hope. The Madras Army provided succour to them. They had no reason to revolt.
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