'1857 rebellion was beginning of struggle against imperialism'
DU Correspondent
Speakers at a discussion yesterday said the great rebellion of 1857 was the beginning of the people's struggle for liberation from imperialism and it had a secular character.They also blamed the historians influenced by the European school of thought for misinterpreting the people's revolt as the Sepoy rebellion caused by accumulated grievances. The reality is that it was the people's uprising against the colonial rule, they added. The National Committee for the Observance of 150 Years of Great Rebellion of 1857 organised the discussion at the Teacher-Student Centre on Dhaka University campus, marking the beginning of its two-year celebrations of the armed uprising against the British imperialism. The committee will hold seminar, symposium and debate and publish booklets as part of the celebrations. Prof Serajul Islam Chowdhury said the rebellion began as a mutiny of the largest army in Asia -- the East India Company's Bengal Presidency Army -- but it turned into peasants' uprising from Meerut to Chittagong. Several historians tried to give it a religious colour, but it was a secular one as people from all communities took part in the uprising, he said. Writer Jatin Sarkar said the colonial rulers brutally crushed the mutiny, but the so-called educated elite did not raise their voice against the repression. Badruddin Umar and Salimullah Khan also spoke at the discussion.
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