Sepoys Rise Against Their Officers at Vellore

In the early morning hours of July 10, 1806, Indian soldiers serving in the East India Company's Madras Army launched an armed uprising inside the fortress of Vellore. The immediate cause of the rebellion stemmed from uniform regulations issued in November 1805 under General Sir John Cradock, the Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army. The revised dress code prohibited Hindu soldiers from wearing caste marks on their foreheads while on duty, compelled Muslim troops to trim their moustaches and shave their beards, and replaced traditional turbans with a round hat bearing a leather cockade. The headgear resembled attire associated with Europeans and Indian converts to Christianity, provoking profound religious anxieties among both Hindu and Muslim sepoys who suspected forced conversions.

Protests against the regulations had begun months before the outbreak. In May 1806, several soldiers who objected to the changes were sent to Fort Saint George in Madras, where they were publicly flogged and dismissed from the army. Tensions were further heightened by the presence of the family of the defeated ruler Tipu Sultan, who had been confined as company pensioners within the palace precinct of Vellore Fort since 1799. Conspirators gathered under the pretext of attending a wedding for one of the sultan's daughters on July 9, hoping to leverage military discontent to restore the authority of the former Mysore Sultanate.