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succeed in uprooting the British power from India, became the

precursors of the major Revolt of 1857. The revolt started as a
mutiny of sepoys of East India Company’s army on 10 May 1857 in
the cantonment of the town of Meerut. Thereafter it spread to upper
Gangetic plain and central India in the form of mutinies of the sepoy
and civilian rebellions Major conflict zones were confined to present
Uttar Pradesh, northern Madhya Pradesh and Delhi region.

1.3 NATURE AND CHARACTER OF REVOLT:

The historians have divergent opinion regarding the nature

of uprising . The British considered it just a ‘A Military Revolt’ which
had neither the leadership of any of the Indian leaders , nor the co-
operation of the people. The Indian patriots considered that uprising
as National War of Independence. As a whole, there are the main
following views regarding the nature and character of the Revolt of
1857 A.D.

(1) A Military Revolt

(2) An Attempt for establishing the Mughal Power
(3) Aristocrate Reaction
(4) A Peasant Reaction
(5) A National Revolution
(6) A racial struggle for supremacy between Black and White
(7) A struggled between Oriental and Occidental Civilization and
Culture
(8) A National War of Independence

From the above mentioned view, only two of the views are famous:

(1) A Military revolt :

Many Historians have called the Revolt of 1857A.D. as a
military revolt. among these historians, Sir john Lawrence and
Seelay thought it as a Military revolt and nothing.

The other British Historians like Kaye, Malleson,Trevelyan

Holmes have painted it as ‘a mutiny’ confined to the army which did
not command the support of the people at large. A similar view was
held by many contemporary Indians like Munshi Jiwan Lal,
Moinuddin (both eye-witness at Delhi) Durgadas
Bandopadhyaya(eye witness at Bareilly) Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan
and many others. . In the words of Seelay that the Uprising of
1857 was the revolt of those soldiers who were selfish and without
the feeling of patriotism, it had neither a leader nor the popular
support of the people. P. E. Roberts also supported the views of Sir
John Lawrence and wrote that it was purely a military revolt and
whose cause was the incident of cartridges. Even the Indian
Historian like R.C. Mujumdar in his book ‘The Sepoy Mutiny and
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The Revolt of 1857’ argues that the revolt of 1857 was not a war of
Independence.

All these scholars and historians considered uprising only a

military revolt. According to them the revolt had not the support of
the people.. These scholars presented many arguments in favour of
their view as:

Arguments in favour:
(1) The revolt had spread only in some Northern India. It had not
spread in southern India and in many areas of North India
especially in Punjab.
(2) That revolt started from military cantonment area and its
development and influential areas were military centres.
(3) The peasants and other citizens took a very little part in the
revolt of 1857.
(4) The revolt did not spread to in the villages and It was limited
only to the cities and towns.
(5) It is true that the rulers like Nana Sahib, Bahadur Shah and Rani
of Jhansi wanted to take revenge against the British. But they
took up the arms against the British when soldiers took up the
arms against the British. Otherwise they had no courage to
revolt.
(6) If the revolt of 1857 was the National War of Independence,
then the small portion of British troops could not suppress that
revolt.

(2)First War of Independence:

Most of the Indian hitorians and scholar had called the
Revolt of 1857A.D. as the First War of Independence. Dr. K.M.
Panikar has called that revolt as a National Revolution. V.D.
Savarkar and Ashok Mehta have called it as the War of
Independence. Where as Jai Chand Vidyalankar and Pandit Nehru
accepted the revolt of 1857 A.D. as the First war of Independence.
Even Dr. S.N. Sen belives that the rising of 1857 was a war of
independence. H e contends that revolutionaries are mostly the
work of minorities, with the active sympathy of the masses. Here he
compares it with the American Revolution of 1775-83 and the Frech
Revolution of 1789.

The contemporary leader of Conservative Party of England,

Mr Benjamin Dasraily called it as a National Mutiny and according
to him revolt was not the result of any immediate cause instead it
was a result of deliberate and organised plan.