Through the eyes of the people

The List of Eighty- Four Rules

In his book Majha Pravas, Vishnu Bhatt Godse has written that, "The English were determined to wipe out religions of the Hindus and the Muslims. They had made a list of eighty- four rules and announced these in a gathering of all big kings and princes in Calcutta.

They said that the kings refused to accept these rules and warned of dire consequences and massive upheaval if these were implemented. All the big people began making plans. A date was fixed for the war of religion and the secret plan had been circulated from the cantonment in Meerut by letters sent to different cantonments."

" There was soon excitement in every regiment"

Subedar Sitaram Pande a sepoy in the Bengal NativeArmy, served the English for 48 years and retired in 1860. He helped the British to suppress the rebellion. On retirement he was persuaded by his commanding Officer, Norgate, to write his memoirs. He completed the writing in 1861 in Awadhi and Norgate translated it into English and had published under the title From Sepoy to Subedar.

Sitaram Pande wrote : Seizing of Oudh filled the minds of the Sepoys with distrust and led them to plot against the Government. Agents of the Nawab of Oudh and also of the King of Delhi were sent all over India to discover the temper of the army. They worked upon the feelings of sepoys, telling them how treacherously the foreigners had behaved towards their king.

They invented ten thousand lies and promises to persuade the soldiers to mutiny and turn against their masters, the English, with the object of restoring the Emperor of Delhi to the throne. They maintained that this was wholly within the army's powers if the soldiers would only act together and do as they were advised.

It chanced that about this time the Sarkar sent parties of men from each regiment to different garrisons for instructions in the use of the new rifle. These men performed the new drill for some time until a report got about by some means or the other, that the cartridgs used for these new rifles were greased with the fat of cows and pigs.

The men from our regiment wrote to others in the regiment telling them about this, and there was some excitement in every regiment. Some one pointed out that in forty years' service nothing had ever been done by the Sarkar to insult their religion, but as I have already mentioned the sepoys' minds had been inflamed by the seizure of Oudh.

Interested parties were quick to point out that the great aim of the English was to turn us all into Christians, and they had therefore introduced the cartridge in order to bring this about, since both Mohammedans and Hindus would be defiled by using it.