Brian Ghilliotti: University of Phoenix: Special Topics in Communication: How Miscommunications In Race, Ethnicity, Religion, and Gender Shaped History

1. Brian Ghilliotti
University of Phoenix
Intro to Communications
Term Paper / Spring 2019
4/29/2019
Special Topics in Communication: Examples of How Miscommunications Involving
Diversity, Technology, and Ethics Shaped History
As the researcher has an interest in history, this paper will examine these topics through
historical examples. The text defines culture as a “mental software that helps us understand
our world”. Like a computer’s operating system in a computer, culture provides the framework
by which people interpret data and information about the surrounding world for their entire
lives. (1). The text also discusses how challenging it can be for those with very different cultural
backgrounds to listen and respond to each other. As a result, the text emphasizes the
importance of understanding the nature of culture and how cultural differences can effect the
nature of communication. This is a process of adapting to others with different “mental
software” (2).
India in the mid 19th century was a patchwork as semi-independent fiefdoms that was
surrounded by lands that had been taken over by the British East India Company (EIC). Up to
that point, the United Kingdom, and its colonial proxy, the EIC, had been swallowing up India
by a combination of treaty and diplomacy, local alliance formations, forceful takeovers, and
overwhelming military force, when required.
Of particular interest were British efforts to impose English royalty succession values
into Indian affairs. The British held that all fiefdoms whose rulers had perished without natural
biological heirs could be taken over by the English Crown (3). When a local prince, the raja
of Jhansi died in 1853, his wife (Lakshmi Bai) and their adopted son were disinherited. The EIC
did not care if Indian royal succession laws considered Lakshmi Bai adopted son as a perfectly
acceptable heir, by English laws her royal family line was broken, and her fiefdom was ripe for
takeover. Lakshmi Bai refused to give into the British authorities, and she would later play a key
role in the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857 (4).
The catalyst of the rebellion was the British colonial military’s decision to issue rifle
cartridges to those Indians serving in the British colonial army that were greased with the fat of
pigs, which was unclean to India’s Muslim population, and the fat of cows, which India’s Hindu
community considered sacred (5). The English authorities must have had some basic
understanding of these cultural sensitivities, as copies of the Koran and Hindu texts were
available for them to read. It was not a question of access of information, it was a question of

2. showing an unwillingness on the part of the British to adjust their “mental software” regarding
diversity issues.
There were also grumblings within the British colonial Army’s Indian community (called
sepoys) over pay and rumored plans to force them to accept Christianity. Though the EIC
stopped issuing the offensive rifle cartridges, they wouldn’t remove those cartridges that were
already issued to sepoy units. The result was that sepoys would refuse to use them, which the
British officers in charge considered flagrant violation of orders.
We could argue that there was an ethics issue here, specifically, who can determine
what is right or wrong, and what the source of these definitions were (6). To the Indian Muslims,
their ethical system, based on the Koran, held pigs as unclean. To Hindu’s, based on their
various religious sources, bovines were sacred. The fact that the British colonial military was
willing to stop issuing these rifle cartridges greased with pig and cow fat, yet expected Muslim
and Hindu sepoys to continue to use those same cartridges that were still in circulation, must
have been perceived by both communities that the British did not take the ethical systems of
both communities seriously.
The researcher imagines it would have been easy to restrict the religiously offensive
cartridges to colonial units that were entirely manned by British soldiers. The fact that the
British made a half hearted effort to respond to the religious sensitivities of their sepoy soldiers
must have sent a non-verbal message that they did not take their religious considerations very
seriously. The text describes non-verbal communication as involving “gestures, posture, facial
expression, tone of voice, clothing, and jewelry to express ideas, attitudes, and feelings.”(7)
Non verbal communications can also involve actions as well as the lack of actions, as
was the case of the British colonial military command’s expectation for the sepoys to continue
using the religiously offensive rifle cartridges after meeting the sepoys halfway in not continuing
to issue them. If anything, this half hearted action on the part of the British colonial authorities
sent an even deeper non-verbal message to the Indian sepoys, which was that they still
considered their religious sensitivities as “ridiculous”.
In April of 1857 a group 85 sepoys in the Indian city of Meerut refused to used these
cartridges when they were issued to them, and they faced subsequent court martial. This only
sparked a wider revolt amongst the sepoy ranks, leading to violence by June where a unit
sepoys killed their British officers.
The revolt quickly spread to the capital of Delhi, north central India, Cawnpore, and the
city of Lucknow was besieged, where much of the local European population sought refuge.
The British were aided by the fact that Punjab province did not support the revolt, as it was a
Sikh dominated area who had historical rivalries with India’s former Mughal rulers that the

3. sepoys had proclaimed as their loyalties toward. There was also less support for the revolt in
southern India (8).
This was because the southern regions of India attempted a general popular revolt in
1801, which was effectively suppressed by the EIC. After the revolt, the EIC significantly
restricted the public’s access to arms. The 1857 revolt was institutional in nature, involving the
British colonial military structure, heavily dependent on sepoys, against its European leaders
(9).
The revolution reached Jhansi by June of 1857, where Lakshmi Bai was in her current
standoff with British authorities. The local EIC superintendent had all Europeans and Christians
gather in the city of Jhansi for safety. They left the city two days later under a guarantee of safe
passage by Lakshmi Bai to a more secure city, though this was not put in recorded form. As
this refugee group left, a group of rebels moving toward Delhi intercepted the refugees and
massacred them, proceeding on to Delhi afterwards.
Those Europeans and Indian Christians who remained in Jhansi appealed to Lakshmi
Bai and demanded why she had allegedly reneged on her agreement. She explained to the
refugees and local British military forces, that she had no involvement in the massacre, and
that it was done by rebels passing through that she had control over. The local British military
authorities believed her intentions, and agreed to let her local militias take over the city and
establish control as they were heavily tied down elsewhere.
However, a lack of technology to facilitate and record this diplomacy, or even a tangible
group a documents recording this entire process, caused many pro-British residents to be
skeptical of Lakshmi Bai’s true intentions. When two local Indian rival princes decided to
invade her domain in favor of the British, Lakshmi Bai felt that she was now the one stabbed in
the back. Many pro-British refugees welcomed her departure, as they felt that she was the real
culprit behind initial the massacre of the pro-British refugees.
Again, if a solid group of documents had been established recording this diplomatic
process, or some sort of technological system was available at the time that could have been
used to record events, this doubt would have not been available for her local rivals to exploit
on behalf of the pro-British population.
The news of the initial massacre of refugees soon made headlines back in England, and
there were uproars for revenge. The incident sparked intense feels of racial, sectarian, and
even sexist outrage. British tabloids at the time described her as “Demon Queen of Jhansi,
Jezebel of India” for her alleged role in the massacre. Still she appealed for help from the local
British military forces who had initially trusted her. When they ignored her, she rallied a local
militia and drove off the armies of the two invading princes.

4. The English press continued using Lakshmi Bai as a hate inspiring propaganda device
to fuel the British counter revolutionary movement at home. As the rebellion dragged on, a
British expeditionary force was sent to her city of Jhansi. Lakshmi Bai was still open to working
with the British as they approached, but a combination of military duty and ethnocentrism,
always a barrier to effective communication, undoubtedly nurtured by months of hate filled
press propaganda at home, compelled the approaching British force to only accept her
unconditional surrender and eventual execution.
Lakshmi Bai decided refused these conditions, and the British began to besiege her
city. She had no choice but to seek support from the rebels. A rebel relief force of 20,000 was
intercepted and defeated by the British. The British then managed to take over her city;
however, she was able to escape. According to legend, she fled through the besieging lines on
horseback with her adopted son hanging on her back.
This event, true or not, created a massive propaganda mechanism for the Indian rebels,
who circulated this story a means to encourage continued resistance. This form of
communication, exploitation of heroic deeds to sustain continued resistance under
overwhelming odds is a form of communication even used today. A most recent example is
Bid Laden’s many years of evading western anti-terrorism forces, despite not being in control
of the battlefield.
Her exploits continued to fuel the Indian rebels for several more months, where she
managed to take the remnants of her garrison and meet up with the main rebel army at the
fortress of Kalpi. She continued to resist British forces, often leading her men dressed in male
armor. Her fame had so much propaganda value that many local princes who were unfriendly
to the rebels faced mutiny when they mobilized their militias against them.
Lakshmi Bai was mortally wounded while leading a delaying action against pursuing
British forces. She clearly understood the propaganda role she played, and told some of her
soldiers to remove her body from the battlefield and cremate before the British obtained it. She
was fearful that if her body was captured by the British, it would be ruthlessly exploited by
them for propaganda purposes in order to weaken morale amongst the Indian rebels. This
propaganda concept plays a role today in modern day war time communications.
However, the British were able to capture her body. Surprisingly, the commander of the
pursuing British column, General Rose, actually honored her request, which he must have
heard indirectly. She was not treated like Bin Laden when she was killed, as general Rose
described her as “remarkable for her bravery, cleverness, and perseverance…the most
dangerous of all the rebel leaders.”
This statement reinforces my assertion that Lakshmi Bai was really a propaganda
mechanism in the first truly modern propaganda communications war. It encompasses all the

5. best and worse of the racial, gender, sectarian, and technological and ethical mechanisms that
are used in modern day war propaganda (10).

6. Notes
1. Bebe, Steven A, Bebe, Susan J, and Ivy, Diana K. Communication: Principles for Lifetime
Pearson Education, 2013, page 146.
2. ibid, page 147.
3. Indian Mutiny. By: Luft, Eric v. d., Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2016. http://
eds.b.ebscohost.com.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/eds/detail/detail?
vid=3&sid=7707d278-91b6-48df-9941-1dabd8ab3ebe%40pdc-v-
sessmgr02&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=87322704&db=ers
4. Conliffe, Ciaran. “A Legend To India And A Monster To Britain – Lakshmi Bai, The Rani Of
Jhansi.” www.headstuff.org Last updated Oct 6, 2015.
5. Indian Mutiny. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2019.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/eds/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=0ea9a771-
a378-4d8bbbdd-3e522eface89%40sessionmgr4008&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#
AN=134521169&db=f5h
6. Bebe, Steven A, Bebe, Susan J, and Ivy, Diana K. Page 9.
7. ibid, page 8.
8. Indian Mutiny. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2019.
9."When the Tamils rose up against British 200 years ago." Times of India, 8 Feb. 2017. Global
Issues in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A480323442/GIC?
u=uphoenix&sid=GIC&xid=49b952f5. Accessed 29 Apr. 2019.
10. Conliffe, Ciaran. “A Legend To India And A Monster To Britain – Lakshmi Bai, The Rani Of
Jhansi.” www.headstuff.org Last updated Oct 6, 2015.