sepoys, the scum of the British army.

Soon after dawn on May 11 1857, 150 years ago this week, the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was saying his morning prayers in his oratory overlooking the river Jumna when he saw a cloud of dust rising on the far side of the river. Minutes later, he was able to see its cause: 300 East India Company cavalrymen charging wildly towards his palace.

The troops had ridden overnight from Meerut, where they had turned their guns on their British officers, and had come to Delhi to ask the emperor to give his blessing to their mutiny. As a letter sent out by the rebels' leaders subsequently put it: "The English are people who overthrow all religions ... As the English are the common enemy of both [Hindus and Muslims, we] should unite in their slaughter ... By this alone will the lives and faiths of both be saved." But this did not happen , the Indian mutiny remained a smallish affair as most indians stayed out of it.

initially the British recruited sepoys from the local communities in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies, the emphasis being on recruits having adequate physique and being of sufficient caste. In the Bengal Army however, recuitment was only amongst high caste Brahman and Rajput communities of erstwhile Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Recruitment was done locally by battalions or regiments often from the same community, village and even family. The commanding officer of a battalion became a form of substitute for the village chief or "gaon bura". He was the "mai-baap" or the "father and mother" of the sepoys making up the "paltan" (unit). There were many family and community ties amongst the troops and numerous instances where family members enlisted in the same battalion or regiment. The "izzat" or honour of the unit was represented by the regimental colours; the new sepoy having to swear an oath in front of them on enlistment. These colours were stored in honour in the quarter guard and frequently paraded before the men. They formed a rallying point in battle. The oath of fealty by the sepoy was given to the East India Company and included a pledge of faithfulness to the salt that one has eaten.Following the formation of the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes) in 1719, companies of Indian sepoys (cipayes) were raised to augment the French and Swiss mercenary troops available. By 1720 the sepoys in French service numbered about 10,000.Although much reduced in numbers after their decisive defeat in India at the Battle of Wandewash in 1760, the French continued to maintain a Military Corps of Indian Sepoys (corps militaire des cipayes de l'Inde) in Pondicherry (now Puducherry) until it was disbanded and replaced by a locally recruited gendarmerie in 1898

The sepoys entered Delhi, massacred every Christian man, woman and child they could find and declared the 82-year-old emperor to be their leader. Before long the insurgency had not snowballed into the largest and bloodiest anticolonial revolt against any European empire in the 19th century but had kept itself more or less as a mutiny, it was never a revolution..It is said that the 139,000 sepoys of the Bengal army, all but 7,796 turned against the British but if this is true why didn't they win.. In many places the sepoys were supported by a  civilian rebellion.

The salary of the sepoys employed by the East India Company, while not substantially greater than that paid by the rulers of Indian states, was usually paid regularly. Advances could be given and family allotments from pay due were permitted when the troops served abroad. There was a commisariat and regular rations were provided. Weapons, clothing and ammunition were provided centrally, in contrast to the soldiers of local kings whose pay was often in arrears. In addition local rulers usually expected their sepoys to arm themselves and to sustain themselves through plunder.

This combination of factors led to the development of a sense of shared honour and ethos amongst the well drilled and disciplined Indian soldiery who formed the key to the success of European feats of arms in India and abroad.

Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the surviving East India Company regiments were merged into a new Indian Army under the direct control of the British Crown. The designation of "sepoy" was retained for Indian soldiers below the rank of Lance-naik, except in cavalry and rifle regiments where the equivalent ranks were "sowar" or "rifleman".