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of 1857 (as it was fought mainly in North India), and not of the influence from the West or from the Bengal Renaissance.
The view was put forward byRamvilas Sharma in his bodkMahavir Prasad Dwivedi Aur Hindi Navjagran, published in 1977. Since then a vast corpus of literature has been produced with a large number of writers supporting and elaborating the thesis.
While Ramvilas Sharma' s developed views came in 1977, one might have a glimpse of such views and ideas from him much before, as in the following passage on the 1857 Revolt, written in 1953 in an English article:
The great struggle of 1857 was the Indian people' s struggle for national independence; it was particularly the national struggle of the Hindustani people.
The soldiers and peasants of Avadh played the role of unifiers between the people of Doab and Bihar. Men speaking Bhojpuri and Khari Boli were drawn yet more closely to one another. Jhansi, the cultural centre in Bundelkhand was another stronghold of resistance. Rani Laxmi Bai, became the national heroine of all the people of Hindustan, Hindus and Mussalmans had fought together and shed their blood against the British. Men of the different parts of Hindustan, of Delhi, Braj, Bundel Khand, Avadh, Bhojpuri areas, etc., had made a common cause against the foreign invaders. Thus, their national unity was cemented. The national character of the struggle in relation to the Hindustani people is emphasised by the fact that the peoples of Rajasthan, Punjab, Garhwal, etc., were not drawn into it to the same extent.3
In his 1977 book on Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, Sharma held that the Hindi Renaissance was distinct from other apparently similar phenomena witnessed in the rest of the country, and for this 1857 was held to be responsible. In the Hindi region, 1857 gave to Renaissance an indigenous character that was not found elsewhere.4 The 1857 Revolt specifically defined "the first stage" of the Hindi Renaissance (Nav fagran).
Later on, he developed and defined his concept systematically in terms of particular stages leading to the Hindi Renaissance thus:
The age of Bhartendu is not the first or the preliminary phase of the awakening of the people in North India. It is a particular stage