The British had been far more tolerant then.

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 50.

The policies which Dalhousie had adopted towards the Indian princes had proved equally unpopular, and had not only made the princes feel insecure and resentful but had also undermined their subjects' confidence in British justice. Believing that the rule of all Indian princes was likely to be corrupt and was certainly an affront to English standards of justice, Dalhousie had annexed their territories whenever these could be shown to be seriously misgoverned or their ruler did not have an heir of whom the Government approved. It had long been recognized by Hindus that a father could adopt an heir if he had no natural son. It was a particularly treasured right amongst them because no part of their faith was more firmly held than that a man was saved from punishment after death by a son's sacrifices and prayers which could be performed as efficaciously by an adopted as by a natural heir.

This threat to the Hindu custom of adoption was seen by Indians as part of a concerted attack upon their religions as a whole. Muslims shared with Hindus this fear for their religion. Indeed, the Commissioner of Patna reported that there was a 'full belief' among even 'intelligent natives', especially 'the better class' of Mohammedans, 'that the Government was immediately about to attempt the forcible conversion of its subjects'. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal considered that the suspicion had taken such deep root that he must issue a proclamation denying it, which, far from subduing the people's fears, served merely to aggravate them.

There had been no such widespread fear in the eighteenth century. The British had been far more tolerant then. Their officials had contributed to Mohammedan processions; they had administered Hindu temple funds and supervised pilgrimages to holy places; their officers had piled their swords, next to their soldiers' muskets, round the altar at the Hindu festival of Dasehra, to be blessed by the priests. It had been perfectly well understood that the obligations and restrictions that caste imposed upon a Hindu soldier's behaviour were all-important to him, that he would have to throw away his food if the shadow of a European officer passed over it, that it would be better to die of thirst - as some soldiers did die - than to accept a drink from a polluted hand or vessel. But since then all had changed. Indian culture was less inclined to be respected than to be mocked by British officials who agreed with Lord Macaulay that it consisted of nothing better than 'medical doctrines that would disgrace an English farrier - Astronomy, which would [be laughed at by] girls at an English boarding school - History, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand years long - and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and butter'.