Mutiny at the Margins: New perspective on the Indian Uprising of 1857

'Mutiny at the Margins' was a two-year project that aimed to provide new insights into the Indian Uprising of 1857-58 through thematic, collaborative research, a network of scholars centred on Edinburgh, and international conferences. The project's objectives were:

1. To provide long overdue revisionist perspectives on the Indian Uprising of 1857 by undertaking new research on the subject in a thematic and collaborative fashion. Discrete, but interlocking research strands were to explore the involvement of various socially marginal groups that are often written out of traditional 'elite' historiography of 1857. This was achieved by the allotment of research time to the Principal applicant and Co-investigator and by the employment of two research assistants. Together this research team aimed at producing a single authored monograph, and several academic articles.

2. To create a network of interested scholars nationally and internationally and to make Edinburgh the focal point for researchers working on projects relating to the seminal events of 1857. It was a major objective of the project to bring together the most cutting edge research in the field. To this end there were conferences in Edinburgh and New Delhi in 2007, a further conference in London in 2008, together with workshops, seminars and quarterly meetings of interested scholars. The outcome was the production of edited volumes bringing together the best of on-going research.

3. To take advantage of the 150th Anniversary of the Uprising to raise public interest and to disseminate the findings of the research to a wide audience, both within and outside the academic community. This was to be achieved through collaboration with institutions such the National Library of Scotland, which organised an exhibition entitled 'Tea and Tiger' in 2007 and through public lectures, seminars and articles in the non-academic press.

4. To provide resources to assist with teaching on this subject, in both schools and universities, by the production of a website advertising the project and providing downloadable primary source material, abstracts of on going research, references and useful links. The aim was also to produce a source book containing primary source material, emphasising lesser known aspects of the Uprising, for the benefit of scholars and students.