Question

Who was Mangal Pandey? How was he responsible for the outbreak of the war?

Answer 1

Instructions:
Introduce Mangal Pandey and contextualize his actions that led to the outbreak of the war.

Solution:
Mangal Pandey was a soldier in the British East India Company’s troops stationed at Barrackpore.

British provided ‘Enfield rifles’ in place of the then-existing guns. The cartridges of these guns need to be bitten off before they could be loaded into the guns. These cartridges were rumored to be greased with the fat of cows and pigs.

Since cows were sacred to Hindus and pigs were detested by Muslims, the soldiers refused to use these cartridges. The soldiers were punished for their insubordination. Mangal Pandey, thus, shot a British officer. Mangal Pandey was arrested and hanged after a trial. This created unrest among soldiers stationed in Barrackpore and Meerut, starting the revolt of 1857.