They also had no way of knowing that many Indians thought this was part of a British plot to destroy their faith - just as some Muslims today see some aspects of Western culture as a threat to Islam. The manufacturers of the rifle had no idea that their product would, with one fell swoop, offend followers of the two dominant religions on the Indian subcontinent. "You had to bite off the end of the cartridge, and then it would bring pollution into your body." To them, it was "ritual defilement," Ramusack said. The Hindus held the cow to be sacred, and saw anything that would entail tasting beef fat product as an attempt to break their caste. "The troops saw it as one more example of foreigners having no sensitivity to them."įor Muslim sepoys - the term for a native soldier - serving in the British army, pork was unclean, forbidden by the Koran. "The choice of technology wasn't the cause, but it certainly was the trigger," said Glynn Wood, professor of international policy studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. The introduction of the Lee-Enfield rifle, seen by the British as just a nifty new piece of technology, sparked the Sepoy Rebellion - also known as the Indian mutiny or the First Indian War of Independence. In May of 1857, a misunderstanding over a piece of weaponry proved to be the last straw for Muslims and Hindus already smoldering with resentment against the British in India. To the prisoners, a Muslim was being denied his right to pray with a turban - albeit a makeshift one - covering his head. To the guards, the inmate was defying regulations and creating a security risk. Late last month, detainees from the Afghan war went on a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when American guards ripped a bed sheet from a prisoner's head. When two cultures clash, misunderstandings over seemingly small things can flare into larger clashes or even violence. Ma- Sometimes, it only takes a little bit of grease to really throw the fat into the fire.
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