British colonial writers scapegoated Muslims for the 1857 revolt despite equivalent Hindu involvement

Evidence

But as with most Islamophobic authors in British India, Wilson viewed one event to hang particularly heavily over Muslim heads: “They remind us of the part they played in the terrible mutiny, when they pressed to the front and through rivers of blood made a furious dash to seize the standard of empire.” 29 As the terrible series of vengeful reprisals reaped immediately following the end of the rebellion demonstrated, Muslims took the brunt of British blame although they were no more seditious than Hindus and many Muslim soldiers and officials had remained loyal. However, at the revolt’s height, the Mughal emperor had reluctantly sided with the mutineers who pressed for his support. In the later effort to explain the seemingly sudden reversal of reverence for British rule, many Britons described a resentful monarch leading disenfranchised nobles and sullen soldiers in a vain struggle to reestablish the decrepit former order of Muslim position and prestige. As Wilson’s comment demonstrates, a half century later, this view and the passion behind it had not dissipated much among Britons and many members of the colonies. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 133

Categorization

• XREF: The scapegoating logic here — blaming a single group for a complex multi-actor event via a single dramatic image (rivers of blood) — resonates with the reader’s interest in fear serving a function for the fearer.
• SEED: The ‘single image does the work of evidence’ dynamic — one dramatic scene like ‘rivers of blood’ carrying an entire blame narrative — could anchor an essay on how colonial (and modern) intolerance trades on vivid scenes over data.