Who among the following has described the uprising of 1857 as the First Indian War of Independence?

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (V.D. Savarkar) is credited with describing the 1857 uprising as the 'First Indian War of Independence'. He authored the influential book titled 'The Indian War of Independence 1857', which was first published in 1909 [2]. Savarkar wrote this nationalist history in response to British celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the revolt, which the British typically dismissed as a mere 'Sepoy Mutiny' [2]. He was the first to challenge the colonial narrative by characterizing the event as a planned and organized national struggle for liberation [3]. While other historians like S.N. Sen and R.C. Majumdar later analyzed the revolt, Majumdar famously argued it was neither 'first' nor 'national', making Savarkar's nationalist interpretation distinct [2]. Savarkar's work became a foundational text for Indian revolutionaries, framing the 1857 events as a heroic anti-foreign combine of all classes [1].

Sources

1. [2] https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/indianwarofindep00vina/indianwarofindep00vina.pdf
2. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Indian_War_of_Independence_(book)
3. [3] Rajiv Ahir. A Brief History of Modern India (2019 ed.). SPECTRUM. > Chapter 7: The Revolt of 1857 > Eric Stokes > p. 181