INDIAN MUTINY OR INDIA’S FIRST WAR OF INDEPENDENCE?

This historical event has been referred to many names from the ‘Indian Mutiny’ to ‘India’s First War of Independence’ to ‘the Great Rebellion’ and to complex titles like ‘the Indian Insurrection’. All of these event names are titles for the historical event that occurred in 1857, however, what differentiates the names apart are the historical figures that name the event. Over the decades, British and Indian Historian debate passionately regarding to the name of the event employing various and unique methods to dissect the events leading to the Mutiny. As a result, what should we really refer this event as? The Indian Mutiny or India’s First War of Independence? We find out below.

Doctor Phillip V. Allingham affirmed that Britain did not have the original intention to form a new local empire in India. Britain strictly wanted to employ India’s geographical location to fund the nascent Industrial Revolution via expanding its trade to the further corners of the world. However, overtime, British influence on the Indian population was heavily impacted by Britain’s strong hopes to capture economic benefit from the nation’s land. Allingham expanded his argument – “Land was reorganized under the hard Zamindari system to facilitate the collection of taxes to enrich British coffers.” Furthermore: “In certain areas, famers were forced to switch from subsistence farming to commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and tea.”  Allingham addresses the idea that Britain’s commercially driven activity dismantled local Indian farm land completely just to “enrich British coffers”. This resulted in several famines of unprecedented scale as Indian land was confiscated by British administration. The response to this was great agitation. Allingham and many Indian historians declare that the Indian population were not happy with the westernization in India as not only were their lands were getting confiscated in order fuel British coffers, but also were unable to practice their own religious exercises. Through Allingham’s ideologies, the Indians were trapped under British control and that the Indians were indeed were fighting for freedom and independence as Britain’s way of ‘helping India’ was in fact damaging its cultural landscape and religion.

British historian Niall Fergusson had an opposing view obviously – “the Mutiny was much more than its name implies”. Surprisingly, Fergusson claims that it is ingenuous to assume that the event was just a mutiny. Fergusson regarded that the First War of Independence is something only “Indian schoolbooks call it” as he stated that “Indians fought both sides.” Fergusson’s rather condescending call that “The First War of Independence is what Indian schoolbooks calls, exposes out the Indians that had to conceal their two sided acts by attempting to change the views of this event to the younger generation of India.

It is difficult to determine a final answer from the debates of the two differing sides as not only do both views hold weight, but the reference of The Indian Mutiny and India’s First War of Independence is too vague. Ultimately, the real answer falls somewhere within the disjunction of the two names which I believe cannot be retrieved due to the disjunction and bias between the two parties.