service were of as high a caste as were the men who engaged only to serve locally. But the minds of the sipáhís were excited. The annexation of Oudh had caused them to lose faith in their foreign masters. And it is quite possible that the alteration, which did not escape the watchful eyes of the men who were fomenting disorder, acted as an additional argument to prove that gradual steps were to be taken to deprive them of their caste.
I have already referred to the action of the Maulaví of Faizábád as being instrumental in creating and increasing the undercurrent of hostility to British rule through Bengal and the North-west Provinces. It is impossible, however, to leave this subject without mentioning the action of the son of the ex-Peshwá, Bájí Ráo, and his agent, Azím-ullah Khán. It is the more necessary that such mention should be made, because, whatever may be the opinion of Europeans saturated with the western ideas, and with the conceit those ideas often engender, there can be no doubt but that, during the Mutiny, on the morrow of the Mutiny, and at the present day, the cultivated natives of India attributed and attribute a great deal of the bitterness attendant on the uprising to the treatment meted out to Náná Sáhib by the Government of India. I know that it has been contended, and recently most ably contended,[1] that that treatment was absolutely just. It was just according to western ideas. But the oriental mind does not admit of the validity of an agreement which deprives a man of his kingdom and makes no provision for his family after his death. Such was the grievance of Náná Sáhib. He had no title in law. But the natives of India believed then, they believe still, that he had a moral claim superior to all law.
- ↑ Sir William Hunter's Dalhousie, 162-3.
