<P> The Indian Rebellion of 1857 has been variously termed as a war of independence, a rebellion, and a mutiny . Several Indian writers, who consider it as a part of the Indian independence movement that ultimately led to the country's independence in 1947, have termed it as "The First War of Independence", the "great revolution", the "great rebellion", and the "Indian freedom struggle". Several British writers, who view it as a military disturbance, have termed it as "sepoy revolt", "sepoy war", "Indian rebellion", and the "great revolt". Since the 19th century, a section of British writers have challenged the choice of the word "mutiny" to describe the events . </P> <P> The British and colonial press along with contemporary European referred to the events under a number of titles the most common being the Sepoy Mutiny or the Indian Mutiny . Contemporary' anti-imperialists' viewed this term as propaganda, and pushed to characterize it as more than just the actions of a few mutinous native soldiers although the term The Indian Insurrection was used in the British and colonial press at the time . Karl Marx was the first Western scholar to call the 1857 revolt a "national revolt", though he used the term Sepoy Revolt to describe the event . </P> <P> In India, the term First War of Independence was first popularized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1909 book The History of the War of Indian Independence, which was originally written in Marathi . </P> <P> Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, insisted on using the term First War of Independence to refer to the event, and the terminology was adopted by the Government of India . </P>

Who called 1857 revolt first war of independence