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Hello. In 1757, Lord Clive, an Army officer for the East India Company won a battle at Plassy.

This established the company's dominance over much of the Indian subcontinent.

But there was a rumor that within 100 years there would be a revolt.

And so it proved. A century later on the 17th of March 1857, an Indian soldier in the company's army shot his officers and was hanged.

Within two months his comrades had mutated and from their rebellion spread across Northern India.

After great violence on both sides, the revolt was suppressed, but it left British rule in India transformed and arguably doomed.

But why did so many Indians rise up against British rule?

It's a story of economic strains, religious insensitivity and well-intentioned but provocative liberal reforms.

Ever since the once called Indian mutiny, it's been swayed in myths conjured by everyone from British press to Indian nationalists.

With me to discuss the Indian rebellion are Faisal Devji, University reader in Indian history at St. Antony's College University of Oxford,

Trutica Pillar, University lecturer in history and fellow undirectors of studies at Corpus Christi College University of Cambridge,

and Chandrika Cole, lecturer in Imperial and Indian history at the University of St. Andrews.

Chandrika until 1857, the events we're going to discuss, India wasn't ruled directly by the British government,

but a lot of it was run by this commercial company, the East India Company, set up by Elizabeth I in 1600.

How well was this working, let's come closer to 1857 in the 1850s?

I think on the face of it it was working very well. The company, of course, was no longer the commercial entity,

it was very much a political and military state wedded to the government in London, and it operated therefore on different lines.

It was a military state, it depended largely on three major armies, the Bengal, the Bombay and the Madras armies,

and in the first half of the 19th century, it was marked by a series of wars that it led right across the country,

right across the subcontinent from the South, right up to Punjab, in the North, which was finally conquered by the company,

...