Almost all the published non-official contemporary accounts of the first war of Indian independence are from British sources. Adding to this vacuum of native views is the unfortunate non-existence of very few narratives of Indian participants or observers. In this volume, we have selected some contemporary accounts by Jiwan Lal, Mainodin and Sambhu Chandra Mokherjee which are mainly compiled from the contemporary accounts written originally by natives. It includes meticulous research and exacting hard-work on the part of these eminent compilers. These selected documents attempt to reveal the how and why of the loyalty to the British rulers during the 1857 uprising. We are given to understand through the native accounts that the collaborators believed in liberalistic methods of agitation. Although they believed in the efficacy of political moderation, they were not dumb camp-followers of the British but violence against the white rulers was to them an anathema. It also includes a list of orders of Merit awarded by the colonial rulers to natives in the war of 1857. It lets us carefully re-examine the arguments of both the camps from these contemporary accounts. Therefore, the richness of information and valuable documentary evidence compelled us to compile this volume in two parts, one dealing with native fidelity and the other native narratives. This we hope is very essential for an objective, scientific, unbiased and holistic understanding and analysis of this profoundly important landmark of the Indian freedom struggle.
