Was the indian mutiny was more than a mutiny but a lot less than a war of indepedence ?
The idea that the Mutiny was a war of independence is laughable – the mutineers attempted to restore the Mughal emperor – the last surviving descendant of a dynasty of Muslim conquerors – to the throne as ruler of India. Changing one foreign ruler for another is hardly a nationalistic policy move of any independence movement. Clever propaganda by agitators set off the Mutiny – the introduction of a new cartridge, which required the paper end to be bitten off, was said to be greased with either cow fat (the cow was sacred to Hindus), or pork fat (the pig was unclean to Muslims). However, the East India Company, whose armies the mutineers served in, had been maintaining such military forces for a century;made sure the new cartridge was in fact greased with sheep fat specifically to avoid offending the sepoys’ religious beliefs. More than a mutiny? Not really.After the initial slaughter of all the unprepared Europeans they could find the mutineers, lacking the command and control function
