‘India’s 1st war of freedom was in 1849’

Patiala: Challenging the history books that describe the uprising of 1857 as the first war of independence in India, Sikh historians and scholars have claimed that first such mutiny took place in Punjab in December 1849, when Bhai Maharaj Singh, who had planned a war for January 3, 1850 at British cantonments in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, was arrested.
Maharaj Singh of Rabbon village in Ludhiana was tortured to death on July 5, 1856 in the jail of Singapore.
According to some Sikh historians, it was the first freedom movement, though unsuccessful, against the British Raj. tnn