Thousands of flag-waving patriots flocked to the Mughal-built Red Fort in Delhi yesterday to kick off a year-long celebration of the bloody uprising 150 years ago by Indian rebels against British occupation.

The Indian Mutiny, or the First War of Independence as it is known in India, brought to an end the Mughal empire and the rule of the British East India Company, and led to direct governance by Britain for 90 years.

What was subsequently played down in some British textbooks as a small insurrection by a faction of disaffected, underpaid Indian soldiers – dubbed sepoys by their British commanders – is now widely accepted as a much more significant event, sowing the seeds of nationalism that eventually led to independence in 1947.

India’s leaders have chosen to use the anniversary as a unifying event for a country still riven by religious and caste divisions. “The fight for freedom united people from different religions and speaking different languages,” Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, said.

“Hindus and Muslims stood together shoulder to shoulder. We cannot forget the Hindu-Muslim unity that 1857 represented and held out as an example for subsequent generations.”

A Government-sponsored march this week by 30,000 young people covering the 50 miles (80km) from Meerut to Delhi highlighted how Muslims fought determinedly in military units that were 85 per cent Hindu.

The soldiers were galvanised initially by reports that the British were using cow and pig fat – offensive to both Hindus and Muslims – to grease the cartridges of their rifles, but their dissatisfaction became a popular revolt because of the close ties between the army and civilians. “While the sepoys were in the vanguard, the people of the country were behind them,” Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of the ruling Congress Party, said.

Mindful not to idolise one of the bloodiest chapters in Indian history, the Government has also tried to use the mutiny to focus public attention on the seminal moment of independence – won 60 years ago – without the use of force. “As a nation inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s message of nonviolence, India has consciously abjured violence as an instrument of social and political change,” Dr Singh said in a speech to parliament.

Tens of thousands on both sides were slaughtered in the uprising that was suppressed savagely in Delhi. The British took four months to quell the revolt and exiled Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, to Burma.

William Dalrymple, the British historian and author of The Last Mughal,is in no doubt that the anniversary is worth celebrating. “For all that it was a failure and accompanied by some of the most ghastly bloodshed, it was undoubtedly the largest anti-colonial revolt in the 19th century – the high point of imperialism – and unequivocally a significant event.”

The Times view

''The mutiny in the Bengal army had spread in a most alarming manner from Meerut. The 11th and 20th Native Infantry had united with the 3d Light Cavalry in open revolt; after some bloodshed they had been dispersed by European troops, but they fled to Delhi. . . Delhi was in possession of the mutineers, who had massacred almost all the Europeans without regard to age or sex, plundered the bank, and proclaimed the son of the late Mogul Emperor as king''

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