Who first described the Revolt of 1857 as the ‘First Indian War of Independence’ ?
V. D. Savarkar
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar gave it that name — option 1.
The book. Savarkar wrote The Indian War of Independence, 1857 in 1909, while a student in London, and it was published under a pseudonym. The manuscript was proscribed by the British government before it was even printed — an unusual distinction — and copies had to be smuggled into India in disguised covers. Against the official view that 1857 was a mere sepoy mutiny, Savarkar argued that it was a planned, national and popular uprising for swaraj and swadharma, and his phrase entered nationalist usage permanently.
| Writer | Their view of 1857 |
|---|---|
| V. D. Savarkar | The First War of Independence — planned and national |
| R. C. Majumdar | Argued the opposite: that it was neither first, nor national, nor a war of independence |
| S. N. Sen | Wrote the official centenary history, Eighteen Fifty-Seven; held that it began as a mutiny and became a war of independence in some places |
| Sir John Seeley | A “wholly unpatriotic and selfish sepoy mutiny” |
| Benjamin Disraeli | A “national rising” |
| Karl Marx | A national revolt |
Why option 3 is the sharpest distractor. R. C. Majumdar wrote extensively on 1857, and his Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857 is a standard work — but he took the contrary position, and his sentence rejecting all three parts of the description is one of the most quoted lines on the subject.
Why the label matters. The naming of 1857 became a political question in its own right. Calling it a mutiny confined it to the army and made it a disciplinary matter; calling it a war of independence made it the first act of the national movement and gave the movement a lineage. Historians today generally describe it as a revolt that began in the army and drew in peasants, artisans and dispossessed rulers, with its character varying from region to region.
Hence, the answer is V. D. Savarkar.
Similar Questions
Match the List – I of authors with List – II of the books on 1857 and choose answers from the code given below :
List – I List – II a. V. D. Savarkar i. The First War of Independence b. S. N. Sen ii. The Peasant and tde Raj c. Eric Stokes iii. Civil Rebellion and in the Indian Mutinies d. S. B. Chaudhuri iv. Eighteen Fifty-Seven Match List – I of leaders with List – II of their territory and select answer from the code given below :
List – I List – II a. Kunwar Singh i. Faizabad b. Hazrat Mahal ii. Bareilly c. Khan Bahadur iii. Jagdishpur d. Maulvi Ahmadullah iv. Lucknow
Important Questions from The Great Revolt of 1857
Who was crowned as the “King of Awadh” by the rebels of 1857?
Match List - I and List - II with the assistance of codes given below :
List - I
(Leaders of 1857)List - II
(Places)1. Bakht Khan a. Kanpur 2. Nana Sahab b. Awadh 3. Ahmadullah Shah c. Arrah 4. Kunwar Singh d. Delhi __________ , popularly known as ‘Ali Gauhar’, was defeated in the Battle of Buxar.
With reference to the extent and intensity of the Revolt of 1857, which one of the following statements is correct?
I. The Revolt of 1857 spread mainly in northern India.
II. The revolt of the soldiers was followed by popular uprisings of the civilian population.
Who among the following did not help the British during the Revolt of 1857?
