The upheaval of 1857 was first described as the war of independence by

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was the first to explicitly term the 1857 upheaval as the 'War of Indian Independence' in his 1909 book 'The History of the War of Indian Independence' written in London. This re-framing transformed the narrative from a 'sepoy mutiny' to a national freedom struggle. While Nehru, Tilak, and Lajpat Rai later recognized 1857's significance, Savarkar's work was pioneering in establishing this interpretation in nationalist historiography.