The war over India’s First War of Independence is on

What came first—1817 or 1857? It ain’t as mind twirling a question as whether the chicken or the egg came first. Right? Wrong.

From politicians to historians and intellectuals, there are divisions within and with each other over what constitutes India’s ‘First War of Independence’.

It is an issue on which the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha and the Opposition BJP and Congress, at loggerheads at the best of times, are on the same page. Involving as it does Odia pride, the demand for recognition of the Paika Rebellion (Paika Bidroha) of 1817 in Odisha as the ‘First War of Indian Independence’ has united political forces in the state as nothing else in recent memory.

The rebellion that was