Why was the revolt particularly widespread in Awadh? What prompted the peasants, taluqdars and zamindars to join the revolt?

(a) The British annexed Awadh on grounds of mal-administration and wrongly assumed that the Nawab was an unpopular ruler. On the contrary he was greatly loved and his departure from Lucknow was marked by widespread grief and sorrow.

(b) The emotional grief of the people was aggravated by immediate material losses. Awadh’s annexation led to the dissolution of the court and its culture. A whole range of people-musicians, dancers, poets and artisans lost their livelihood.

(c) The annexation also dispossessed the taluqdars of the region. The taluqdars had earlier maintained armed retainers, built forts and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. But immediately after the annexation, the taluqdars were disarmed and their forts destroyed.

(d) The British land revenue policy further undermined the position and authority of the taluqdars. The 1856 Summary Settlement was based on the belief that the taluqdars were interlopers with no permanent stakes in land. Thus the settlement sought to remove taluqdars wherever possible and the number of taluqdars came down. Many taluqdars of southern Awadh lost more half of the total number of villages they had previously held.

(e) The grievances of the peasants were carried over into the sepoy lines since the vast majority of the peasants were recruited from the village of Awadh. Low wages, ill-treatment by the British officers, difficulty in taking leave and the issue of the greased cartridges among other intensified their discontent.

(f) The majority of the sepoys of the Bengal army were recruited from the villages of Awadh and eastern U.P. The problems that the sepoy’s families faced and the threats they perceived were quickly transmitted to the sepoy lines and vice versa.

(g) Thus a chain of grievances in Awadh linked the peasants, sepoys and the common people. In different ways all came to identify British rule with the end of their world. Thus more than any other place, the revolt became an expression of popular resistance to an alien order.