Explain briefly the importance of the Deccan Riots Report of 1878.
The Deccan Riots Report:
(i) When the peasants’ revolt spread in the Deccan, the Government of Bombay was initially unwilling to see it as anything serious. But the British Government of India, worried by the memory of 1857, pressurised the Government of Bombay to set up a commission of enquiry to investigated into the causes of the riots.
(ii) The commission produced a report that was presented to the British Parliament in 1878. This report, referred to as the Deccan Riots Report, provides historians with a range of sources for the study of the riot.