Chapter 21 sec. 3
What was the Sepoy Mutiny?
(1857-1859) A revolt by the hired Hindu and Muslim soldiers of the British East India Company; it was known to the British as the Great Rebellion, to the Indians it was known as the First War of Independence. It began as a result of the rifle cartridges that were distributed to the Sepoys had to be bitten to remove a cover before being inserted into a gun. Rumors circulated among the Sepoys that this cover had been greased with beef and pork fat. This angered Muslim Sepoys who were not supposed to consume pork, and the Hindu Sepoys who were not supposed to eat beef. So a group of sepoys at an army post near Delhi refused to load their riflesvwith the new bullets. The British arrested them, the sepoys went on a rampage and killed 50 European men, women, and children.Thus, the Sepoys revolted against the British army, which eventually ended the conflict through use of force. This resulted in the British government officially taking control of India, making it a colony. In 1876, the title of Empress of India was bestowed on Queen Victoria. The people of India were were her "Jewel in the Crown."
Who was Mohandas Gandhi?
He was born in 1869 in Gujarat, in western India. He studied in London and became a lawyer. In 1893, he went to South Africa to work law firm serving Indian workers there. He soon became aware of the racial exploitation of Indians living in South Africa. He became active in the independence movement on his return home to India. Also, he set up a movement based on nonviolent resistance. It aim was to force the British to improve the lot of the poor and grant independence to India.
What was the Indian National Congress? What was its goal?
In 1885, a small group of Indians met in Mumbai to form the Indian National Congress(INC). The goal of INC was to seek independence for all Indians, regardless of class or religious background.
Who was Lord Macaulay? What was his school system?
Through the efforts of the British administrator and historian Lord Thomas Macaulay, a new school system was set up. It's goal was to train Indian children to serve only elite, upper class Indians. 90% of the population remained illiterate.
Viceroy
a governor who ruled as a representative of a monarch
Who was Rabindranath Tagore?
most famous Indian author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913; also a social reformer, singer, painter, and international spokesperson for the moral concerns of his age; he set music to the Bengali poem Bande Mataram ("Hail to Thee, Mother), which became Indian nationalism's first anthem; he set up a school at his estate that became an international university; his life mission was to promote pride in national Indian consciousness in the face of British domination; he wrote a novel about the love-hate relationship of India toward its colonial mentor; his life's work was one long prayer for human dignity, world peace, and the mutual undertsanding and union of the East and West.
