The prohibition of sati (burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands); the putting a stop to female infanticide; the execution of Brahmins for capital offences; the efforts of missionaries and the protection of their converts; the removal of all legal obstacles to the remarriage of widows; the spread of western and secular education generally; and, more particularly, the attempt to introduce female education, were causes of alarm and disgust to the Brahmins, and to those Hindus of high caste whose social privileges were connected with the Brahminical religion.  Those arbiters of fate, who were until then all-powerful to control every act of their co-religionists, social, religious or political, were quick to perceive that their influence was menaced, and that their sway would in time be wrested from them, unless they could devise some means for overthrowing our Government.  They knew full well that the groundwork of this influence was ignorance and superstition, and they stood aghast at what they foresaw would be the inevitable result of enlightenment and progress.  Railways and telegraphs were specially distasteful to the Brahmins:  these evidences of ability and strength were too tangible to be pooh-poohed or explained away.  Moreover, railways struck a direct blow at the system of caste, for on them people of every caste, high and low, were bound to travel together.

The fears and antagonism of the Brahmins being thus aroused, it was natural that they should wish to see our rule upset, and they proceeded to poison the minds of the people with tales of the Government’s determination to force Christianity upon them, and to make them believe that the continuance of our power meant the destruction of all they held most sacred.

Nor was opportunity wanting to confirm, apparently, the truth of their assertions.  In the gaols a system of messing had been established which interfered with the time-honoured custom of every man being allowed to provide and cook his own food.  This innovation was most properly introduced as a matter of gaol discipline, and due care was taken that the food of the Hindu prisoners should be prepared by cooks of the same or superior caste.  Nevertheless, false reports were disseminated, and the credulous Hindu population was led to believe that the prisoners’ food was in future to be prepared by men of inferior caste, with the object of defiling and degrading those for whom it was prepared.  The news of what was supposed to have happened in the gaols spread from town to town and from village to village, the belief gradually gaining ground that the people were about to be forced to embrace Christianity.

As the promiscuous messing story did not greatly concern the Mahomedans, other cries were made use of to create suspicion and distrust amongst the followers of the Prophet.  One of these, which equally affected the Hindu and Mahomedan, was the alleged unfairness of what was known in India as the land settlement, under which system the right and title of each landholder to his property was examined, and the amount of revenue to be paid by him to the paramount Power, as owner of the soil, was regulated.