HistoryModern India: Rebels and the Raj

In a Punch cartoon of 1857, how is Governor General Canning shown?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 1

The correct answer is Option (1) → As a looming father figure protecting a sepoy

Option (1) As a looming father figure protecting a sepoy — Correct. Canning had asked for <strong>leniency and a show of mercy</strong>. So Punch drew him as a <strong>looming father figure</strong> with his protective hand over a sepoy's head.

Option (2) As a stern judge sentencing sepoys to hang — Incorrect. Sepoys hanging in a row is the Illustrated London News picture of executions at Peshawar. Canning is absent from that picture.

Option (3) As a general leading troops to recover Delhi — Incorrect. The cartoon is about Canning's plea for mercy. It shows him with one sepoy, with no troops or Delhi in it.

Option (4) As an avenger striking down a rebel sepoy — Incorrect. Canning stood for mercy. Punch mocked him for protecting the armed sepoy with his hand.

NCERT (2026-27): “5.5 No time for clemency
At a time when the clamour was for vengeance, pleas for moderation were ridiculed. When Governor General Canning declared that a gesture of leniency and a show of mercy would help in winning back the loyalty of the sepoys, he was mocked in the British press.”

“In one of the cartoons published in the pages of Punch, a British journal of comic satire, Canning is shown as a looming father figure, with his protective hand over the head of a sepoy who still holds an unsheathed sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, both dripping with blood (Fig.10.17) – an imagery that recurs in a number of British pictures of the time.”