Sunday, April 18, 2010 1857 and all that Why would a book on a historical figure – a national hero in the Sepoy Mutiny or the first war of independence – not have a single photo of the man, except for a grainy sketch on the cover? "Because not a single photograph of Tatya Tope is available anywhere. The sketch is an artist's imagination and the only photograph taken by the British in April 1859 can't be real because Tatya had died in January 1859, three months before," says Parag Tope, who is descended from the freedom-fighter. Parag's "Operation Red Lotus: Tatya and the Anglo-Indian war of 1857" has just been published. He is not a historian and does not claim to be one, but he believes Indian history is too serious a matter to be left to the British... This book, which was researched and put together by a bunch of professionals, none of whom is a historian, raises interesting questions about history writing. History is often written by victors and read by the vanquished, says Parag, but this account tries to prove that 1857 was not a sepoy mutiny but a well-planned war for independence. snipped from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5826986.cms --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar