Who did not term the revolution of 1857 as a revolt, but instead, called it as…

Colonial and many early accounts of the 1857 uprising described it as a 'mutiny' or 'revolt' — a localised army rebellion, not a full national struggle. Indian nationalist writers rejected this framing and re-read the events of 1857 as an organised uprising against British rule for national freedom.

Veer Savarkar's 1909 book, originally titled The Indian War of Independence 1857 (written while he was a student in London), was the first major nationalist work to explicitly reject the 'mutiny' label and instead term the 1857 uprising the 'First War of Indian Independence'. This reframing later became the standard nationalist description used in Indian historiography.

The Government of India's own commemorative material on the 150th anniversary of 1857 (2007) credits Savarkar's 1909 work with popularising this description, distinguishing it from the earlier colonial 'mutiny' narrative.

• Madan Lal Dhingra carried out the 1909 assassination of Sir William Curzon Wyllie in London as an act of revolutionary protest; he is remembered for that act, not for reframing the historiography of 1857.

• Lokmanya Tilak built mass political mobilisation around slogans such as 'Swaraj is my birthright' and led the Home Rule Movement; the specific reframing of 1857 as the 'First War of Indian Independence' is not attributed to his writings.

• Shyamji Krishna Varma founded India House and the Indian Sociologist in London to organise and publish revolutionary nationalist writing; he is not credited with authoring the reinterpretation of 1857 discussed here.