The project received support from Indian nationalists in Britain, including the likes of Madame Cama, V.V.S.

Acharya, as well as Indian students who had dared not show their support or sympathy for India House openly.

[5] Karl Marx had published a short article named "The Indian Revolt" in the New-York Tribune in 1857.

[6] Some later writers have wrongly claimed that Karl Marx inspired Savarkar's use of the term "war of independence" for the event.

Marx never used the term to describe the 1857 revolt, although a volume of his articles was published in Moscow in 1959 under the title The First Indian War of Independence 1857–1859.

[8] Publication of the English translation faltered after British printers and publishing houses were warned by the Home Office of its highly seditious content, while the British foreign office brought pressure on the French government to prevent its publication from Paris.

[8] In July 1909 Madan Lal Dhingra, a member of Savarkar's Abhinav Bharat Society, had assassinated the British official Curzon Wyllie.

On the other hand, he describes such acts by the British as oppressive and disproportionate, giving the example of massacres by General James George Smith Neill.

Stating that Krishna advised Arjuna to abandon the code of ethics against an enemy who was unethical, Savarkar argues that the cruel acts committed by Indians in revenge were justifiable.

[15] Regarding the national character of the revolt, some erstwhile and modern histories draw similar conclusions as Savarkar,[16] while others, including R.C.