The essential question to be asked about the Meerut outbreak is whether it was planned in advance or whether it arose through chance circumstances on the fateful evening. Put thus, however, the question conceals ambiguities. There are really three questions. Was the outbreak an episode brought on by some chance happening on the evening of 10 May? Or was it planned in Meerut itself during the preceding days or weeks? Or was it part of a plan matured much longer and with much wider scope? The second of these three questions must be considered first, because it is in relation to this question that the evidence is clearest and the answer to it enables the first of the three questions to be disposed of also.

Was, then, the Meerut outbreak planned in Meerut itself during the days or weeks preceding 10 May?

Some good authorities have held that there was no previous preparation or plan at all even among the regiments at Meerut, or at least not among the bulk of the sepoys: this last qualification, however, is pointless because, even if the bulk were not aware of any plan, they could yet have been moved according to the plans of a small group or groups. Rice Holmes was of this opinion, which seemed to him to be borne out by the evidence in the Meerut Depositions, though that is by no means the case when the Depositions are collated and closely analysed.