The Muslim Diaspora, Volume 3: Indian Chronology

1803

Delhi was captured by Lord Lake on September 14 against the combined forces of the Sikhs and the Marathas in the Second Anglo-Maratha war.  The blinded Emperor Shah Alam II came under British protection from Scindia.  In the treaty of Surji Anjangaon on December 30, the British acquired the control of Delhi, Agra, Broach and other territories.  Historians mark this as the true end of the Mughal Empire.

The Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon was signed on December 30, 1803 between the British and Daulat Rao Sindhia, chief of the Maratha people at Anjangaon town located Maharashtra.  

On December 30, 1803, the Scindia signed the Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon (Surji-Arjangaon) with the British after the Battle of Assaye and Battle of Argaon.  The agreement was the result of Major General Arthur Wellesley's military campaigns in Central India in the first phase of the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-1805). As a result of this treaty, Ganges-Jumna Doab, the Delhi-Agra region, parts of Bundelkhand, Broach, some districts of Gujarat and the fort of Ahmadnagar, eventually cam under the control of the British East India Company. 

The treaty was revised twice (once in November 1805 and again on November 5, 1817). The first revision mostly entailed restoring the territories of Gwalior and Gohad to Scindia. The second revision of the treaty entailed granting Scindia more power in return for providing help to the British in their fight against the Pindaris in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. 

Shah ʿĀlam II, original name ʿAlī Gauhar (b. June 15, 1728, Delhi [India] - d. November 10, 1806, Delhi), was the nominal Mughal emperor of India from 1759 to 1806.

Son of the emperor 'Alamgir II, Shah 'Alam was forced to flee Delhi in 1758 by the minister ʿImād al-Mulk, who kept the emperor a virtual prisoner. He took refuge with Shuja al-Dawlah, nawab of Oudh (Ayodhya), and after his father’s assassination in 1759 he proclaimed himself emperor. With the intention of seeking to capture Delhi, he demanded tribute from Bihar and Bengal and thereby came into conflict with the East India Company. After Shujāʿ al-Dawlah’s defeat at Buxar (in modern Bihar state) in 1764, however, Shah ʿĀlam became the company’s pensioner, in return for which he legalized the company’s positions in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa (1765) by granting the right to collect revenue. Comfortably settled at the city of Allahabad, he sought Delhi, and in 1771 an agreement with the Maratha people of western India returned it to him. During 1772–82 his minister, Najaf Khan, asserted imperial authority over the Delhi territory from the Sutlej to the Chambal river and from the state of Jaipur to the Ganges (Ganga) River.  In 1788, however, the chief of the Rohillas (warlike Afghan tribes settled in India), Ghulām Qādir, seized Delhi and, enraged at his failure to find treasure, blinded Shah ʿĀlam.

Shah ʿĀlam spent his last years under the protection of the Maratha chief Sindhia, and, after the Second Maratha War (1803–05), of the British. With power only inside his palace, he saved more than a million rupees in his treasury. He was called “King of Delhi” by the British, who issued coins bearing his name for 30 years after his death.

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1805

A permanent provision was made for the Delhi Mughal Emperor by an order issued on May 23 by the Governr General of India, Lord Wellesley.

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1806

Indian forces at Vellore and Madras mutinied in July because they were forbidden to wear caste-marks and earrings during parade. The mutiny was speedily quelled by Colonel Rolls.

The Vellore Mutiny on July 10, 1806 was the first instance of a large-scale and violent mutiny by Indian sepoys against the East India Company, predating the Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny) of 1857 by half a century. The revolt, which took place in the South Indian city of Vellore, was brief, lasting only one full day, but brutal as mutineers broke into the Vellore Fort and killed or wounded 200 British troops, before they were subdued by reinforcements from nearby Arcot. Summary executions of about 100 mutineers took place during the suppression of the outbreak, followed by the formal court-martial of smaller numbers.

The reasons for the mutiny revolved mainly around resentment towards changes in the sepoy dress code in November, 1805. Hindus were prohibited from wearing religious marks on their foreheads and Muslims were required to shave their beards and trim their moustaches. In addition, General Sir John Craddock, Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army, ordered the wearing of a round hat resembling that associated at the time with both Europeans in general and with Indian converts to Christianity. The new headdress included a leather cockade and was intended to replace the existing turban. These measures offended both Hindu and Muslim sepoys and went contrary to an earlier warning by a military board that sepoy uniform changes should be "given every consideration which a subject of that delicate and important nature required".

These apparently minor changes, intended to improve the "soldierly appearance" of the men, created strong resentment among the Indian soldiers. In May 1806 some sepoys who protested the new rules were sent to Fort Saint George (Madras then, now Chennai). Two of them — a Hindu and a Muslim — were given 90 lashes each and dismissed from the army. Nineteen sepoys were punished with 50 lashes each and forced to seek pardon from the East India Company.

In addition to the military grievances listed above, the rebellion was also instigated by the sons of the defeated Tipu Sultan, confined at Vellore since 1799. Tipu's wives and sons, together with numerous retainers, were pensioners of the East India Company and lived in a palace within the large complex comprising the Vellore Fort. One of Tipu Sultan's daughters was to be married on July 9, 1806, and the plotters of the uprising gathered at the fort under the pretext of attending the wedding. The objectives of the civilian conspirators remain obscure but by seizing and holding the fort they may have hoped to encourage a general rising through the territory of the former Mysore Sultanate.

The garrison of the Vellore Fort in July 1806 comprised four companies of British infantry from H.M. 69th (South Lincolnshire) Regiment of Foot and three battalions of Madras infantry.

Two hours after midnight on July 10, the sepoys in the fort shot down the European sentries and killed fourteen of their own officers and 115 men of the 69th Regiment, most of the latter as they slept in their barracks. Among those killed was Colonel St. John Fancourt, the commander of the fort. The rebels seized control by dawn, and raised the flag of the Mysore Sultanate over the fort. Tipu's second son Fateh Hyder was declared king.

However, a British officer escaped and alerted the garrison in Arcot. Nine hours after the outbreak of the mutiny, a relief force comprising the British 19th Light Dragoons, galloper guns and a squadron of Madras cavalry, rode from Arcot to Vellore, covering sixteen miles in about two hours. It was led by Rollo Gillespie - one of the most capable and energetic officers in India at that time - who reportedly left Arcot within a quarter of an hour of the alarm being raised. Gillespie dashed ahead of the main force with a single troop of about twenty men.

Arriving at Vellore, Gillespie found the surviving Europeans, about sixty men of the 69th, commanded by NCOs and two assistant surgeons, still holding part of the ramparts but out of ammunition. Unable to gain entry through the defended gate, Gillespie climbed the wall with the aid of a rope and a sergeant's sash which was lowered to him; and, to gain time, led the 69th in a bayonet-charge along the ramparts. When the rest of the 19th arrived, Gillespie had them blow open the gates with their galloper guns, and made a second charge with the 69th to clear a space inside the entrance to permit the cavalry to deploy. The 19th and the Madras Cavalry then charged and sabred any sepoy who stood in their way. About 100 sepoys who had sought refuge inside the palace were brought out, and by Gillespie's order, placed against a wall and shot dead. 

The harsh retribution meted out to the sepoys snuffed out the unrest at a stroke and provided the history of the British in India with one of its true epics; for, as Gillespie admitted, with a delay of even five minutes, all would have been lost for the British. In all, nearly 350 of the rebels were killed, and another 350 wounded before the fighting had finished.

After formal trial, six mutineers were blown away from guns, five shot by firing squad, eight hanged and five transported. The three Madras battalions involved in the mutiny were all disbanded. The senior British officers responsible for the offensive dress regulations were recalled to England and their orders were cancelled.

After the incident the incarcerated royals were transferred to Calcutta. The Governor of Madras, William Bentinck, was recalled, and the controversial interference with the social and religious customs of the sepoys was abolished, as was flogging within the Indian regiments. 

There are some parallels between the Vellore Mutiny and that of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, although the latter was on a much larger scale. In 1857, the sepoys proclaimed the return of Mughal rule by re-installing Bahadur Shah as Emperor of India. In the same way, mutineers of Vellore, nearly 50 years before, had attempted to restore power to Tipu Sultan's sons. Perceived insensitivity to sepoy religious and cultural practices (in the form of leather headdresses and greased cartridges) was a factor in both uprisings. The events of 1857 (which involved the Bengal Army and did not affect the Madras Army) caused the British crown to take over company property and functions within India through the Government of India Act 1858 which saw the total dissolution of the East India Company.

The only surviving eyewitness account of the actual outbreak of the mutiny is that of Amelia Farrer, Lady Fancourt (the wife of St. John Fancourt, the commander of the fort). Her manuscript account, written two weeks after the massacre, describes how she and her children survived as her husband perished.