Few events in the history of the British Empire have attracted as much interest or controversy as the Indian mutiny-rebellion of 1857–8. Since its immediate aftermath historical readings of the tumultuous events that swept across north India during these years have focussed largely on the causes of the revolt, and explanations for it are many and various. This reflects the multi-facetted character of the military and popular uprisings that fuelled and sustained events. Widespread mutiny in the Bengal army was accompanied rapidly by massive civil unrest, and few communities in rebellious areas in the North-West Provinces, Awadh, and western Bihar were unaffected. Though British and Indian historians have claimed variously that the unrest was ‘mutiny’, ‘rebellion’, or ‘war of independence’, it is impossible to capture the essence or meaning of the revolt in such simplistic, singular ways.

Mutiny first erupted in the cantonment of Meerut on 9 May 1857, provoked by the fettering and imprisonment of a group of sowars (cavalrymen) and sepoys (from the Persian sipahi, meaning native infantry) who had refused to use a new issue of cartridges allegedly greased with animal fat. Military mutiny fanned civil unrest and that night sepoys and rebels broke open the town's two prisons.