Comments by "Voryn Rosethorn" (@vorynrosethorn903) on "Why did the 1857 Indian Rebellion (Indian Mutiny) start?" video.

It was only named that a near century later and the name implies intentions the rebels likely never thought of let alone had, the vast majority of Indians also supported the British which would mean most modern Indians are descendented from people on the wrong side of a struggle for national independence. The reality it that it was a mutiny which sparked off a wider rebellion and was then crushed by loyal Indian troops, the British and a variety of quickly raised counter forces like the Sikhs and Afghanis. The only one able to turn it into a national movement was the mugal emperor and he in way in large part sympathetic to the British and only went along due to the involvement of his sons.
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They also ended infanticide and sexual slavery, which might have been more major but due to Victorian scruples they didn't like to talk about it in detail beyond a mention.
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In previous times there had been few English women in India and the British would often marry into local families of influence (indeed their half Indian descendants would turn up on both sides of the mutiny, but more often the British one), however with the arrival of British women a facsimile of English domestic life was necessary and they kept a greater distance from the men. While this might have made it harder to see the rising coming it also meant that in practice it became harder to carry out for the rebels, the servants of English households often did everything in their power to save their masters, even if the personal price was death, some regiments stiffly refused to harm anyone despite rebelling and there were often soldiers (especially Sikhs and half-indians) who would remain loyal on the basis of protecting English women and children. Many of the soldiers knew the women and children and it was as a result in part why Cowpore was such a momentous event among native troops as well as British, with both being swept into a fury of vengeance, the event also greatly delegitimised the rebel cause even among their own supporters. Civilians were particularly inhumane, but many sepoys had mixed feelings and their support while vital to the rebellion was a lot less unconditional, as the war went on many would simply dissipate and try to get beyond British vengeance or fall on British mercy, leaving the mobs of armed insurgents to be massacred by professional military forces and villages which had taken part in the mutiny (often by murdering or mistreating British civilians as they fled) to be burnt down.
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Not if you give them a national identity it doesn't.
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His sons were involved and he was forced to be by their involvement but yes he remained sympathetic to the British throughout and was horrified by the atrocities committed in his name. He was nothing but a figurehead both for the British and then the rebels, and had limited influence over either.
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Also the sepoys weren't fanatical, often they weren't very reliable, in that they would lose their heads in battle rather than mutiny. This was part of why the Sikhs were so eager to fight them, they had been insulted by being treated as inferior warriors by troops who had performed poorly against them, they saw the British as beating them fair and square, but only the British, they hated the airs of the sepoy after having been beaten by the blunt ends of the officers swords to advance on the enemy in battle and not hover around in fear while being shot by cannon. As the conflict showed the sepoys were loyal to regiment, reputation and pay but loyalty to the British was conditional.
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They used the brown bess, or matchlocks in the case of non-sepoy forces, as a result they tended to be outranged and would probably have been so more often if not for the fact that the British were very aggressive and usually took things to the sword and bayonet regardless of casualties. Due to the murder of British women and children there were many British driven by anger and the more cautious commanders typically didn't get to grips with the enemy in the first place due to being greatly outnumbered.
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