An Analysis of intelligence during revolt of 1857 and post revolt modifications in the intelligence

The revolt of 1857 took place during the governorship of lord canning mainly in the northern and eastern India. The revolt started as a sepoys mutiny and worked as a catalyst for the evolution and development of information/intelligence system by British in India. The intelligence gathering methods before the revolt was only meant to understand the local population and to learn the language and other customs of India by the Britishers and the main source of their information were the newspapers etc. However, both traditional and modern networks of information were enlisted by the rebels during the revolt of 1857 for their gains against the British. With the outbreak of the revolt, the Britishers felt their weakness in the area of intelligence, as they were not aware of any discontent in the sepoy ranks among the army and were ignorant about the conspiracies hatched among different classes of the people especially sepoys.

During the revolt, while introspect the problems and weaknesses of british during the fall of important places like Delhi, Awadh etc, they tried to establish new channels of information and at the same time blocking different channels of information to the rebels, which later gave rise to the institutionalization of intelligence in british India and emergence of Anti seditious acts in the legal framework.