A story of pigs, cows and rifles.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny among the sepoys of the army of the British East India Company on 10 May, 1857. Hostilities started in the town of Meerut and quickly spread throughout central India.

The causes of the rebellion were complex but the final straw was a controversy over the ammunition for a new muzzle-loading Enfield Rifle. The cartridge for the rifle consisted of a bullet and a tube of gunpowder pre-wrapped in paper. To load the new rifle, the sepoys had to bite off the end of the cartridge, pour the powder down the barrel and then ram down the wad of paper and the bullet. A rumour started that the paper cartridges were greased either with fat from pigs, which are regarded as unclean by Muslims, or from cows which are sacred to Hindus.

On January 27, it was ordered that all cartridges were to be issued free from grease so that the sepoys could grease them themselves with an acceptable fat. The loading drill was also modified so that the cartridge could be opened by hand, and not bitten. This however, merely caused many sepoys to be convinced that the rumours must be true. The result was a very bloody affair indeed.