CBSE Questions for Class 8 History When People Rebel Quiz 1 - MCQExams.com

Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi (19 November 1828 – 18 June 1858) was an Indian queen and warrior. She was one of the leaders of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and became for Indian nationalists a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British East India Company in India.

First War of Indian Independence is a term predominantly used in India to describe the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The event challenged and ended the power and control of British East Indian Company in India to be replaced by nine decades of British colonial rule, known as the British Raj.

British historians called it the Sepoy Mutiny, Indian historians named it the Revolt of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence. The Revolt of 1857 had been preceded by a series of disturbances in different parts of the country from the late eighteenth century onwards.

C. Bahadur Shah Zafar

Bahadur Shah Zafar  was the last Mughal emperor. The son of Mirza Akbar Shah II and Lalbai, who was a Hindu Rajput, Zafar became Mughal Emperor when his father died on 28 September 1837.

Rebellion broke out in Berhampur in Bengal when a soldier called Mangal Pandey attacked a British sergeant and wounded an adjutant while his regiment was in Barrackpore. General Hearsey ordered another Indian soldier to arrest Mangal Pandey but he refused. Later the British arrested Mangal Pandey and the other Indian soldier. The British killed both by hanging them because what they had done was thought to be treachery. All other soldiers of that regiment lost their places in the army.

• Defeat of Sirajuddaulah- Establishment of English East India Company rule in India
• Defeat of Prithviraj Chouhan- Establishment of Delhi Sultanate in India
• Defeat of Ibrahim Lodi- Establishment of Mughal empire in India
• 1857 revolt- Transfer of power from company to crown

• Ill-treatment of Indian soldiers
• General Service Enlistment Act
• Larger Proportion of Indians in the British Army
• Bleak Prospects of Promotions
• Deprivation of Allowances
• Faulty Distribution of Troops
• Poor Performance of British Troops
• Lower salaries

Manikarnika was born into a Maratha family at Varanasi. She was married to Raja Gangadhar Rao, the Maharaja of Jhansi in 1842, and became the Rani of Jhansi. After her marriage Manikarnika became Lakshmibai, so named in honour of the goddess Lakshmi. Before her marriage, she was known as Chabeeli because of her jolly ways. In 1851, Rani Lakshmibai had a son, Damodar Rao. He died at the age of about four months. On the day before the raja's death in November 1853, he adopted a son. His name was Anand, but was renamed Damodar, after their actual son. The raja wrote a letter to the British government of India requesting that his widow should be recognised as the ruler of Jhansi after his death during her lifetime. After the death of her husband the head of the British government of India, Lord Dalhousie, refused to allow her adopted son to become raja and Jhansi was then ruled by the British.

Mirza Abu Zafar Sirajuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Zafar was the last Mughal emperor. He was the second son of and became the successor to his father, Akbar II with his death on 28 September 1837. He used Zafar, (translation: victory) a part of his name, for his nom de plume (takhallus) as an Urdu poet, and wrote many Urdu ghazals. He was a nominal Emperor, as the Mughal Empire existed in name only and his authority was limited only to the city of Delhi(Shahjahanbad). Following his involvement in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British exiled him to Rangoon in British-controlled Burma, after convicting him on conspiracy charges in a kangaroo court.

In India, the term First War of Independence was first popularized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1909 book "The History of the War of Indian Independence", which was originally written in Marathi. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, insisted on using the term First War of Independence to refer to the event, and the terminology was adopted by the Government of India.