Lesson video

Hi, and welcome back to history in the Oak National Academy.

My name is Mr Arscott.

Hopefully you recognise me because this is our fourth lesson and our final lesson in our inquiry on why does it matter what we call, the conflict in India in 1857? Now, if you haven't done the first three lessons of this inquiry, make sure you do those first.

'Cause if not this lesson won't make much sense.

If you have done them brilliant.

I want you to start with getting a piece of paper and a pen, and I want you to then write out today's title, 'Interpretations of 1857'.

And whilst we're doing that, I'll get them ahead of the way.

So Interpretations of 1857.

If you haven't quite got the touchdown, pause the video once you finish that, and un-pause it when you're done.

We're going to start by having a look at this picture.

And I'm going to ask you to just think about one question.

What can you see? Now when you think about that question, what can you see, I want you to scan the picture and look for some details.

So who do you think the people are at the back? These people that are wearing red uniforms. Who do you think that people are at the front? What do you think they are? What do you think is on the floor and the things that the people are looking at in the front? So I want you to just look at the picture really carefully, maybe pause the video and look at it for 30 seconds and try to spot some of these key details.

And then un-pause it when you're done.

So what can you see? Well, I'll point out some of the things that I was able to see.

So, I saw British troops.

So the people wearing red uniforms, they're part of the British army.

As one of the things I saw was British troops.

Now the front, these people are Indian soldiers.

And they happened to be from, they have to be soldiers that followed the religion of Sikhism.

So these are Indian soldiers and they're also Indian Sikhs.

Now, what is it that these Sikhs are doing at the front? What they've actually got on the floor is treasure.

And this is treasure that was stolen from another army that was defeated by the British soldiers and these Sikhs.

Now we call the treasure that stolen from another army loot.

So what do you think is happening in this picture? Well, this is a picture from 1857 or from the 1857 conflict.

And we know during 1857, that rebel Sepoy fought against the British.

But in this picture, we can clearly see Indian soldiers who are not fighting with the British.

In fact, these Indian soldiers, had fought with the British against rebel Sepoys.

And what's happening now, is that the British troops and the Indian troops are sharing out the loot after they finished fighting.

So what this picture quite nicely tells us, is that Indian troops and British troops worked together to crush the conflict, both to crush the rebel Sepoys in the 1857 conflict.

Right, I want you to have a go now.

So I want you to answer this question on your piece of paper.

What can you see? Now to help you, I've given you a couple of sentence starters.

In this picture I can see, and this picture suggests.

Now all you need to do is sort of finish those sentences based on what you can see in the picture.

That's much harder to see the second one, but have a go and see what you're able to come up with.

Pause the video whilst watching this, and then un-pause it when you're done.

Welcome back, right, I'm going to show you what I had to go doing.

So in this picture I can see Sikh troops and British troops sharing loot after a battle.

This picture suggest some Indian soldiers had good relations with British troops.

Now because these Indian soldiers aren't fighting the British troops back, that tells they had good relations.

So that's one thing that I was able to see.

I expect you've written something completely different It might still be right, so well done for having a go.

Now, if you remember our inquiry question, which has guided us for the last few lessons is why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict in India? Now so far, we've considered two names that have been given to the 1857 conflict.

The Sepoy Mutiny and the Indian Uprising.

And we've thought a bit about the people that have come up with those names.

And we thought about how accurate those names are, how well do those names capture what actually happened in 1857.

Now today we're going to consider a third name.

And that name is the Indian War of Independence.

In order to think a bit about that, We're going to find out about the man who came up with that name.

And before we do that, that's reminds us of the broad overview of what we'll be looking at.

So if you remember, from the 1600s onwards, Mughal Empire controlled India, and then during the 18th century, the East India Company took control.

There were some concerns about how the East India Company controlled India.

And in 1857, there was this conflict.

And that was partly caused by concerns about the East India Company.

After the 1857 conflict, the British government took control of India and India became known as the Raj.

Now, later on in 1947, a group of Indians were able to overthrow the British India and declare India should become an independent country.

Now at that point, India was created an independent country and also Pakistan and later Bangladesh were also created.

So after 1947, India became a separate country and is no longer part of the British Empire.

And that's going to be important as we going to find out.

So I wanted to introduce you to this man, Savarkar.

We can see a picture of Savarkar on the right.

And Savarkar was a historian who was also a nationalist.

let's find out what nationalist means.

So a nationalist is someone who is proud of their nation, and wants their nation has been independent country.

Now, before we go on to find out anymore about Savarkar, make sure to copy down that definition of nationalist into your notes.

So pause video while you're doing it, and un-pause it when you're done.

So, Sarvarkar was a nationalist and Savarkar lived at a time when India was still controlled by Britain.

Now, Savarkar was very proud of India and he didn't think it was right that India should be controlled by Britain.

So he, with groups, with lots of other people, tried to resist the British and tried to make sure that India became an independent country.

And eventually in 1947, Savarkar and lots of the other people he worked with were successful and India did become independent.

Now Savarkar, in one of the history books famously called, 'The 1857 Conflict, a War of Independence.

' Now, that name has become very controversial calling the competent War of Independence.

So when a first of all think about, what's the evidence suggest that's true? What's the evidence to suggest that the 1857 conflict was a War of Independence? So, here's two bits of evidence that could persuade us.

Firstly, one of the things that the rebel Sepoys did, after they fought against their British officer's merit, is they marched to Delhi.

And in Delhi, they found descendant of the Mughal emperors, and they declared that descendant, the new Mughal Emperor of India.

So that suggests that they were looking for an Indian born person to lead India rather than the East India Company.

Now, another reason why the name War of Independence is quite a good name, quite accurate, is 'cause it may be captures a bit more of the nature of the conflict than the other names that were considered.

In 1857 and the conflict went on into 1858, there was fierce fighting, involved troops on both sides.

And that suggest actually the word war, maybe is more appropriate than words like Mutiny or uprising.

And you can get flavour of the nature of this conflict in the picture on the right.

Looks like a serious battle with troops on both sides in organised formations, fighting really hard.

That suggests the word war, might be more appropriate.

And if we look at some of the other parts of the story we learned about, we can also find more evidence than idea that there being a War of Independence.

So Lakshmibai, this queen of Jhansi that we've met several times in these lessons.

This is something that she said as she was trying to inspire the people of Jhansi to fight against the British.

She said, "We fight for independence, in the words of Lord Krishna, we will, if we are victorious, enjoy the fruits of victory.

If defeated and killed in the field of battle, we shall surely earn eternal glory and salvation." This something she said in 1858, Just trying to persuade her people to fight against the British.

And the picture you can see on the right, Shows British troops, trying to break into Jhansi in order to stop Jhansi becoming an independent city inside India.

Now she's crucially used the word independence.

So clearly one of the things that she wants to do is be independent of the British.

And that's reports Savarkar's idea that 1857 was a War of Independence.

So, I want you to have a go to this question.

Which of the following could be used as evidence to argue that the 1857 conflict was a War of Independence? I'm going to ask you to pause the video now, once you've read through the options, then un-pause it when you've made your choice.

Okay, welcome back.

Well done if you chose option four.

So out of those, options four, is the best bit of evidence that could be used suggest that the 1857 conflict was a War of Independence.

However, many more recent historians have been very critical of what Savarkar wrote.

They didn't think that putting it a War of Independence, accurately captures what actually happened in 1857.

Now we've seen this complicated map, on the right before, but it's important to return to it.

Now what this maps tells us, is actually the places or the parts of India that completely fought against the British that were in rebellion are actually quite small.

It's only these dark blue bits here, here, here, here, and here.

Now they're the only bit, where the whole state was in rebellion against the British and they were trying to fight for independence.

In other parts of India, the picture was more complicated.

Some States were neutral, but the ones that are green, that means they didn't want to be involved in the fighting.

The light blue States, are the ones that fought with the British against the rebels Sepoys.

And the darker blue ones, are ones that are a bit more complicated where there was state itself was trying to support the British, but there were some rebel Sepoys there.

So what this picture tells us, is that it's not that easy or clear to say that it was a War of Independence.

It definitely wasn't a war that included all Indians supporting it.

Now, in fact, some people have even said that Savarkar's cool in the 1857 conflict, a War of Independence is offensive.

And the reason they say it's offensive, is because it suggests that Indian only means applies to a certain small group.

Maybe those were involved in the fighting.

And today, there are lots of people that call themselves Indian, who don't share a background with those that are involved in the fighting.

So for example, the Sikh armies that we looked at earlier, and we can see again, the picture on the right, they fought with the British against the rebel Sepoys.

That means that lots of Sikhs today might be offended by calling the 1857 conflict.

A War of Independence or an Indian War of Independence, because it might imply that seek aren't Indian and lots of Indian Sikhs will be very offended by that.

It's also misleading because there were lots of other Sepoys armies who fought with the British against the rebel Sepoys.

So some people had said that, Savarkar's name for it, The Indian War of Independence is offensive and therefore shouldn't be used.

So, let's think about our inquiry question again.

Why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict? So you cannot two key things to think about.

Is the name accurate or is the name offensive? So, I just want you to have a bit of a think about that for the Indian War of Independence.

You might want to write down a couple of notes in your book, a couple of bullet points in your notes, thinking about whether you think the name Indian War of Independence is accurate or offensive.

Then un-pause the video once you're finished.

So here's some things that we can think about.

Here's some questions.

So, when we think about whether the name is accurate, we can think thinking we're rebels fighting for independence? Now maybe some of them were, but we don't know that all of them were.

Were all Indians involved? But it definitely wasn't the case.

Not all Indians were involved in rebelling against the British officers or the East India Company, 'cause lots of them fought with the British.

Is it offensive? So does the name ignore the experience of some people? And I think lots of Indian secrecy, yes it is.

It does ignore the experiences of the Sikh armies that fought with the British against the rebel Sepoys.

So, I want you to have a go try now finish this sentence.

Some Indian seeks might find the name, 'Indian war of Independence offensive because? See if you can finish that sentence off.

So pause the video was having gauging that and unpause it when you're done.

Welcome back.

Now, I'm going to show you what I wrote, it might not be the same for what you wrote, but what you wrote might still be right.

So some Indian Sikhs might find the name, 'Indian War of Independence' offensive because the name ignores the fact that many Sikhs fought with the British against the rebels.

So here's our big question again.

Why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict? Well, across the last few lessons, we've looked at three main names that could be given French.

The Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Uprising and Indian War of Independence.

And in lessons we've been thinking about, what are the names accurate? And today we've just started thinking about, could these names be offensive? Now I want you to be thinking about those two considerations, whether they're accurate, whether they're offensive and your back of your mind as you go through and have a go at the reading.

So, we're now in really good position for you to have a go at the comprehension questions.

So shortening and asked you to pause the video, go to the next slide, read through the worksheet slides and then have a go with the comprehension question based on what you've read.

Now hopefully you've make the questions as clear as possible I'll read through them first now.

What was the name of Savarkar's 1909 book? Two, what evidence could be used to explain why the 1857 conflict was a war of independence? What evidence could be used to explain why the 1857 conflict was not a war of independence? That's question three, question four, why might an Indian nationalist be more likely to view the 1857 conflict as a 'War of Independence? And question five, why am I calling the conflict The Sepoy Mutiny cause offence? In other words, be offensive.

So we're going to ask you to do now is pause the video, go to the next page, read through the worksheet slides, have a go at the comprehension questions, then return to the video and we'll go through the answers.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at some of the answers.

So question one, what was the name of Savarkar's 1909 book? Acceptable answers can be, 'The Indian War of Independence' a good answer in a full sentence is, Savarkar's 1909 book was called 'The Indian War of Independence.

' Now what you can always do with these videos, is if you've got something wrong or you want to add a bit more to your notes, then you can pause the video and then add those now.

That's a really good idea with these questions to always have a go answering in full sentences, 'cause that's going to mean it's a good answer.

So I can get this next few questions as I do.

If you want to change anything, it's your answers, just pause the video and then unpause it once you've answered it.

Question two, what evidence could be used to explain why the 1857 conflict was a War of Independence? And acceptable answer, is 'New Mughal Emperor, large scale fighting, or some aimed to be independent.

Good answers in a full meaningful sentence.

The 1857 conflict could be interpreted as a 'War of Independence' because rebel Sepoys asked a descendant of Mughals to become the new ruler of India.

Some rebels like Lakshmibai, also declared their fighting for independence.

The apology is that missing the, in that answer.

Question three, what evidence could be used to explain why the 1857 conflict was not a War of Independence? Acceptable answers could be, not all of India, many Indians opposed the rebels.

A good answer in full sentences, arguably the 1857 conflict should not be interpreted as a 'War of Independence' because many parts of India, were unaffected and many Indians did not support the rebels.

Furthermore, when leaders called for independence, they often wanted their local area to be independent rather than all of India.

That applied to Lakshmibai the queen of Jhansi she wasn't actually asked saying that, all of India should become independent she just wanted her town Jhansi to become independent.

Question four, why might an Indian nationalist be more likes to view the 1857 conflict as a 'War of Independence'? That's a very difficult question.

So, some key words that might, you might have an incorrect answer, is political beliefs affect how they see the past.

A good answer, which tries to put that in a full sentence.

An Indian nationalist is more likely to view the 1857 conflict as a 'War of Independence' because they believe passionately that India should be independent.

As a result, they might assume people in the past felt the same.

And question five, the challenge question.

Why am I calling the conflict the 'Sepoy mutiny' cause offence? So some exceptional answers, ignore some people name used by supporting the British Empire.

A good answer which tries to put that a full sentence.

Some people might find the name 'Sepoy mutiny' offensive because the name implies the British and/or the East India Company were justified in ruling India as a colony.

The word 'mutiny' suggests some soldiers disobeyed orders.

And those soldiers were in the wrong for rebelling.

Right, brilliant work having to go with that.

That would be very complicated.

What we're doing today is we're looking at interpretations.

So we're looking at how different people in the past have viewed the same event in different ways.

It's a really difficult way of thinking.

There's a really important way of thinking to develop.

So really well done for having good that, what we're going to try and do now is put all of that into practise in our extension activity.

Sorry, extension activity is our attempt to answer our inquiring question.

Why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict in India.

So, as I've said across the last few lessons, we've considered three main names writ.

The Sepoy mutiny, The Indian Uprising and the Indian war of Independence.

And we've seen that all three of these names have certain problems. Now it's also the case that some of these names are more associated with certain people than other ones.

So at the time of the 1857 conflict, lots of people in Britain called it, 'The Sepoy mutiny' including the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston.

And then after 1857, the Sepoy mutiny was the name used by lots of people that supported the British Empire, and therefore supported British rule over India.

Now lots of people today think that it was wrong that Britain ruled India.

And India at the time, but it was wrong too.

So that means the words of the Sepoy mutiny might be offensive to what might cause offence because it's implying the British Empire was justified in ruling India.

Now, the other name that I put on the right, the Indian war of Independence is also associated with certain people.

That's the name used by Indian nationalists.

So there's people which help fiercely proud of Indian, what it to be an independent country.

So these names carry with them, certain political meanings that can tell us a bit about the people that are saying them, they're using these names.

So, in order to help us have a go trying to write something about why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict.

I put a series of bullet points on the screen.

Now some of these are relevant to us, trying to answer, why does it matter what we call the victim conflict? And some of them aren't relevant, they wouldn't help.

So I want you to do, is I want you to shortly pause the video, read through the bullet points and try to work out which ones are relevant and which ones aren't.

Any ones that you think are relevant, I would actually copy them down into your notes and then we have to use them, when we have a go at answering this question.

Any that aren't relevant, you can just ignore them.

So pause video now, what you copied on the ones you think are relevant, Right, let's see what you chose.

So the ones in green and in bold are the ones that I think are relevant to answering this question.

When Palmerston first described the conflict, he did not have all the information.

Does that suggest that maybe Palmerston's first word first, where he described the conflict as the Sepoy mutiny might have been based on bad information.

'Cause It took so long to get news from India to Britain.

The second one, some names can be used to show political beliefs.

The next one, many Sikhs fought with the British against the rebels.

And finally, words can give an inaccurate impression of what happened to the past.

So all of these are important points that we might want to include in our answer.

Now you notice that there's one I haven't in bold in green, but also haven't crossed out, that's this one.

During the conflict, massacres and extreme violence were used by both sides.

Now it's not complete obvious how that one connects to the question.

But you might want to include it because, the 1857 conflict was so bloody and so violent that it matches that we try to describe it correctly.

We might think that because there were massacres and because it was a tragedy, it's important as historians, that we use the right words to describe it.

So, what I want you to have a go at doing now, is now trying to answer our inquiry questions.

We've been thinking about for four lessons.

Why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict in India? Now I want you to have a go at trying to write a couple of paragraphs to answer this, to really show off all the great thinking you've be doing the last few lessons.

Now below in this box, I put a couple of paragraph starts you can use.

So the first sentence, and then a couple of sentence prompts to help you develop your explanation.

I've also put a few key words you might want to include to really push your answer further.

And if you get a bit stuck in your shorter right, it might be a good idea to look at your notes in the last few lessons, see if there's any extra details you can put in there to create a really print answer.

So, I'm going to say how are we going to doing that now, and once you're done, you'll be at the end of the lesson.

So now you've had to go to answering that inquiry question, putting in your own words.

I want you to please stop the video and then go to the final quiz.

Really well done for your hard work today and hope you've enjoyed learning about why does it matter what we call the 1857 conflict in India.