The Politics of a Popular Uprising

This is a study of the 1857 Mutiny and the accompanying rebellion in Bundelkhand, a division of the North-Western Provinces in present-day Uttar Pradesh. A brief review of the existing literature on 1857 shows how a stereotype evolved to set the standard model for writing the history of that subject. Causal explanations have, by and large, provided the principal tool by which the events of 1857 are reproduced. Dr. Roy's argument against these stereotypes, as well as her justification for a fresh appraisal, is that such histories shift attention from the moments of violence to the preceding context which lies outside the sphere of the politics of the uprising. Must the narrative of rebel actions - the account of those moments of violence - always appear between themes which relate to broader concerns and wider issues? . In the narrative sequence of this book, Dr. Roy privileges the actions of the people, who constitute her principal theme. She pursues the trajectory of rebel actions through various undulations to their final suppression in order to explore details often overlooked. These details in turn help clarify and rethink some of the received notions about this momentous uprising.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.