1857 Sepoy Mutiny: Each side outdid the other in violence

The summer of 1857 saw violence, perpetrated by the Indians and Britons, on an unprecedented scale

Anniversaries are important in India. Thus it will surprise nobody if the 160th anniversary of the revolt of 1857 is celebrated with some fanfare. Speeches will be made extolling the revolt as the first war of Indian independence, as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar called it. Such celebrations invariably have a propensity to underplay a very integral element of the rebellion: violence. The summer of 1857 saw violence, perpetrated by the Indians and the Britons, on an unprecedented scale. Never before and never after in the history of British rule in India was there violence at the level that 1857 witnessed.

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