Nationalist feeling against British colonialism in the Indian subcontinent first manifested itself during the nineteenth century as a rising sentiment against a foreign overlord. During the 1857 struggle between the British and the Indians they governed—viewed either as a “Mutiny
” or a “first war of independence
”—British surveillance of native activities included the collection of song texts in areas of the country where anti-British sentiment was of concern. After the 1857 uprising, when the British...
