The major historical problem presented by the events of 1857 concerns the process by which military mutiny was converted into civil rebellion. Some of the key features of the process stand out immediately – the capture of key urban centres by the mutineers, an autonomous peasant jacquerie in the countryside, and the linking of the two by political leadership supplied from the magnate class. Bulandshahr district provides an interesting case-study of at least the two latter features. Close to the epicentre of disturbance at Meerut and bordering on Delhi, it commanded the line of communication with the Central Doab and Rohilk-hand and so took the full force of the first shock wave. In its pattern of landed tenures and revenue settlement it was fairly evenly divided between an eastern portion dominated by large landlord estates and a western half where jointly owned individual village estates were more common. And it was this pattern which rendered revolt potentially more formidable. In Meerut district to the north the elements of popular disturbance were stronger, embracing not merely Gujar, Rangar, and Rajput peasant communities but also the better organised Jat clan colonies of northern Baghpat, Baraut, Chhaprauli, Kutana, and Barnawa parganas. But Meerut district lacked large-scale landlordism with the notable exception of the Jat raja of Kuchchesar in the extreme south-east whose estates properly formed part of the Bulandshahr landlord complex. In consequence there was lacking the political leadership which could weld heterogeneous elements together and generalise revolt beyond its immediate local and caste origins.