Dillan. I don't think racism was a major factor in the Indian rebellion. It's true that the British were racist, but everybody was racist at that time, and in 1857 the British were one of the more enlightened colonial governments. The fact is, the average Indian peasant was usually better off under the British than he had been under his previous native ruler.
Abigail. The problem with that is that rebellions are generally not organized by peasants. They are organized by people with organizational skills, such as the thousands of people who were government officials under native governments, but who all lost their jobs to Englishmen when the English East India Company took over native states. That exclusion must have caused enormous resentment because it eliminated all possibility of advancement for thousands of educated Indians, and it was entirely due to racism.

Is there a causal chain linking racism to the Indian Rebellion? How strong is it?
If foreigners took over the United States, and your career prospects went up in smoke because they kept people of your race out of the good jobs, what would you do?

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