PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Indian National Movement
Revolt of 1857 is a ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ or ‘First War of Independence’.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
colonial / military reading — Seeley (sepoy mutiny, no popular / national character) — Majumdar (neither first, nor national, nor a war of independence) — Bayly (rebels shared no modern idea of an Indian nation) — nationalist reading answers back – Savarkar (war of liberation, The Indian War of Independence, 1857) — §S.N. Sen (national revolts often led by minorities — narrow base # no national meaning) — balanced view — Metcalf ("more than a mutiny, less than a national revolt")
Body flow
against both extremes — not a mere mutiny (mass base of princes, peasants, artisans) yet not a modern national war (no pan-Indian consciousness) — middle position corrects both poles
Counter-view
R1 neither label fully fits — not yet modern nationalism, but the first large anti-British upheaval R2 lasting weight lies in the memory of resistance — later strengthened anti-colonial nationalism — a watershed in modern India
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
