Rising at Bareilly (1816)

The immediate cause of upsurge was the imposition of the police tax which aroused the burning indignation of the citizens. The issue became religious when Mufti Muhammad Aiwaz, a venerated old man, gave a petition to the magistrate of the town in March 1816.

The situation aggravated further when the police, while collecting tax, injured a woman. This event led to a bloody scuffle between the followers of the Mufti and the police.

Within two days of the event, several armed Muslims from Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur and Rampur rose in rebellion for the defence of the faith and the Mufti. In April 1816, the insurgents murdered the son of Leycester (judge of provincial court of Bareilly). The uprising could only be suppressed with heavy deployment of military forces in which more than 300 rebels were killed and even more wounded and imprisoned. The upsurge seems to have been the product more of discontent than of actual grievance—the elements of discontent lying in the very nature of the alien administration.