Also: General Service Enlistment Act, Enlistment Act of 1856
Definition
The 1856 order under Governor-General Lord Canning requiring all new recruits to the Bengal Army to serve wherever sent, including overseas, which upper-caste sepoys saw as a threat to caste rules on crossing the sea and which became a cause of the Revolt of 1857.
The Bengal Army of the East India Company drew heavily on high-caste Brahmins and Rajputs from Awadh and the Bihar region. Many believed that crossing the sea, the "kala pani", would cause loss of caste. Bengal Army regiments were enlisted for "general service" only in some cases; most sepoys had been recruited on the understanding that they would not be sent overseas. In 1824, the 47th Bengal Native Infantry at Barrackpore refused to go to Burma by sea during the First Anglo-Burmese War, and the mutiny was crushed with heavy loss of life.
The Company's expanding empire, including the annexation of Lower Burma after the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852), created a growing need for troops willing to serve overseas. The Madras and Bombay armies already had general service conditions. Lord Canning, who arrived as Governor-General in 1856, issued the General Service Enlistment Act that year, requiring all future recruits to the Bengal Army to accept service anywhere, at home or abroad.
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