Battle of Jhelum - Indian Mutiny

Battle of Jhelum
Part of the Indian rebellion of 1857
Date 7 July 1857 Location Jhelum, British India, Present day Pakistan Result British Victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom 24th Regiment of Foot (285 men) Miller's Police Battalion (150 men) Police Cavalry (60 sabres) Moolantee Mounted Levie (250 sabres) Captain Cookes' Company, Bengal Horse Artillery (3 guns) 14th Bengal Native Infantry (100 Sikh Sepoys)	14th Bengal Native Infantry (500 Mutineer Sepoys)
Commanders and leaders
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ellice, 24th of Foot	Mirza Dildar Baig, 14 BNI Mutineers
Strength
435 Infantry 310 cavalry 100 Sikh Sepoys 3 Horse Artillery Guns	Approx 500 Sepoys
Casualties and losses
44 Killed 109 Wounded	150 Killed 25 Drowned 108 Executed

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the Indian Mutiny) a column of troops led by the commander of the 24th Regiment of Foot was sent to disarm Bengal Native Infantry units believed to be at risk of mutiny in Rawl Pindi and Jhelum. At Rawl Pindi the 58th Bengal Native Infantry were disarmed peacefully, however the 2 Companies of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry resisted the attempt by force of arms. These two companies were quickly defeated by the British, loyal native troops and the local population. In Jhelum, also garrisoned by the 14th, the concurrently timed disarmament was much more violent. 35 British soldiers of 24th Regiment of Foot (of later Rorkes Drift fame) were killed (or died of their wounds) along with a number of Loyal Indian troops, by mutinous Sepoys of the 14th Bengal Native Infantry, stationed at Jhelum. When the mutineers realised that they, with the exception of the Sikhs, were to be disarmed, they mutinied and made a vigorous defence against the force that had arrived from Rawl Pindi to disarm them. The following night a significant number of mutineers managed slip away but most were subsequently arrested by the Kashmir authorities, into whose territory they had escaped.

The background to the Indian Mutiny, or the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as it is also referred to, is complex and has its origins largely with the Hindu members of the British East India Company Army of the Presidency of Bengal (although the British view after the mutiny was that it was largely driven by Muslim members). Each of the three "Presidencies" into which the East India Company divided India for administrative purposes maintained their own armies. Of these, the Army of the Bengal Presidency was the largest. Unlike the other two, it recruited heavily from among high-caste Hindus and comparatively wealthy Muslims. The Muslims formed a larger percentage of the 18 irregular cavalry units within the Bengal Army, whilst Hindus were mainly to be found in the 84 regular infantry and cavalry regiments. The sepoys were therefore affected to a large degree by the concerns of the landholding and traditional members of Indian society. In the early years of Company rule, it tolerated and even encouraged the caste privileges and customs within the Bengal Army, which recruited its regular soldiers almost exclusively amongst the landowning Brahmins and Rajputs of the Bihar and Awadh. These soldiers were known as Purbiyas. By the time these customs and privileges came to be threatened by modernising regimes in Calcutta from the 1840s onwards, the sepoys had become accustomed to very high ritual status and were extremely sensitive to suggestions that their caste might be polluted.

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