Place · cantonment city · India
Meerut
The military cantonment city in western Uttar Pradesh, 70 kilometres northeast of Delhi, where the Indian Rebellion of 1857 began on 10 May 1857 when 85 Indian sepoys of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry were court-martialled and sentenced to ten years' hard labour for refusing to bite the greased cartridges of the new Enfield rifles. The next day their fellow sepoys of the 11th and 20th Native Infantry rose in open mutiny, killed 50 British officers and civilians, released the imprisoned 85, and marched the 70 kilometres to Delhi to proclaim Bahadur Shah Zafar as the restored emperor. The Meerut sepoys' march on Delhi set off the eighteen-month uprising. Meerut is now Uttar Pradesh's eighth-largest city and India's largest sports-equipment manufacturing centre.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.985, 77.706
Connections (4)
- Historical routeBarrackpore
Mangal Pandey attacked his officers at Barrackpore in March 1857 and was hanged; the 34th was disbanded; six weeks later the Meerut garrison rose and rode for Delhi. The two events are fifteen hundred kilometres apart and there is no organisational link between them, but both turn on the same cartridge rumour and the same accumulated grievance in an army recruited heavily from a province annexed the year before.
- Sacred water transferHardvār / Haridwar
Meerut and Baghpat in western Uttar Pradesh lie roughly 200 kilometres south of Haridwar along the Delhi-Haridwar axis. Kanwariyas walk this stretch barefoot in Shravana, carrying Ganga water to Augharnath at Meerut and Pura Mahadev at Baghpat. These shrines anchor one of India's largest annual foot pilgrimages, drawing several million.
- Site adjacencyVarnavata / Barnava
Barnawa and Meerut are closely connected through the archaeological and historical landscape of the Upper Ganga Yamuna Doab. Barnawa lies about 40 kilometres northeast of Meerut, while Meerut developed as a major regional settlement and urban centre. Together they represent interconnected settlements within western Uttar Pradesh and the wider ancient Doab landscape.
- CampaignKashmere Gate
The Meerut sowars rode forty miles to Delhi on the night of 10 May 1857 and no pursuit was sent after them — the single decision that turned a cantonment mutiny into a rebellion, because it gave them the old imperial capital and an emperor to proclaim. Delhi was then held for four months and stormed through Kashmere Gate in September, after which the city was emptied and looted for weeks and the Mughal line ended.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Meerut”. Parliamentary Papers and the Mutiny Narratives; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Awadh in Revolt; William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal.
Open Meerut in the repository →