322. Indian Uprising 1857: The Mutiny (Part 1)

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnim. And me, William Durympel. And today we are going to tell you about the eruption of the greatest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century. It is the story of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafir, who is ripped away from a life of poetry. and palaces and plunged into a crisis, a rebellion that will almost shatter the British Empire.

Delhi is on the brink. Rumors are spreading, the sepoys are furious, and British blunders are piling up. A single Greece cartridge will light the spark. This is the story of how the 1857 War of Independence or the Great Uprising or the Sepoy mutiny began. I think it'd be really helpful if if we can paint a picture of 1850s Delhi, because you sort of suggest in in that uh opening that there it was a a tumult of of rumors and gossip and insecurity.

I mean, just what was it like to be in Delhi in the 1850s? Well, it starts off at the beginning of this period as a rather wonderful place, because Delhi, which has been sacked by successive armies of Afghans marching through and maratas coming up from the south, everyone's wanted to plunder this incredibly rich city. Once the British capture it in 1803, you have this extraordinary period when there's a revival of the city. And for a brief period, the British and the Mughals are living in extraordinary harmony.

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