In the mid-19th century, British officers in northern India began to notice signs of disaffection, even intimations of rebellion, among the sepoys of the East India Company’s Bengal Army. They generally failed to realize the full significance of the unrest, however. Greater leniency by the British, such as abandoning flogging as punishment and decreasing the authority given regimental officers, seemed to have eroded the discipline of the sepoys. They had become dependent on strong leadership. More fundamentally, British reforms such as the ban on sutee, the self-immolation of widows, did not sit well with the Hindu sepoys, who felt that their customs and religion were being threatened. When the British introduced a new Enfield rifle and a new greased-paper cartridge into the Indian Army, the distress within the ranks of the sepoys became acute.
In February 1857, the 19th Native Infantry at Bahrampore in Bengal refused to accept the newly issued cartridges because, rumor had it, they were greased with either pig or cow fat. Eating pig flesh was an abomination to Muslims, and the Hindu religion regarded the cow as sacred and therefore banned the consumption of its flesh. The British, realizing the problem, abandoned the use of meat fat for greasing, but the Hindu and Muslim soldiers still believed that their Christian commanders were trying to subject them to forbidden substances as a means of subverting their religion.
