A Independent india 100 years in advance.

The Sikhs would never get involved on the rebel side, though. They hated the Mughals far, far, far more than they ever could have hated the British.

True, but here they wouldn't be fighting for the Mughals, but for themselves. Either way, without them, the Rebels likely win. And the Mughals won't seriously recover their power; Bahadur Shah was essentially a puppet for the rebels.
 
A victory for the mutineers was quiet unlikely in 1857, due to several reasons. The organisational and technological superiority of the British Forces was very much decisive. The mutineers did not have a definite plan or strategy or a unified leadership to command. The old Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was only a figurehead or a symbol and not an inspiring one also. The different leaders and commanders had their own goals and much less co-operation. Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, who was the bravest among the leaders fought for the freedom of her native kingdom of Jhansi. Nana Saheb and Tantia Tope had the restoration of the Maratha Empire as their goal. The supporters of the Mughal Emperor alone wanted a Mughal restoration. When so many leaders had so different goals and without any practical co-ordination of actions, the final defeat was assured. The failure to get the support of the Sikhs and many of the native princes and the failure to spread it beyond the Central India to the South, the East or the Northwest sealed its fate.
A chance for independent India was a hundred years before the Mutiny. At a time when the British had not firmly planted their feet in India. When the other powers like the French were also seriously in the contest. When the Maratha Empire was in its prime. If they had been successful in the Third Battle of Panipat and had befriended the Sikhs, the Rajputs, the Jats etc. and most important they had resolved their internal feuds, the Marathas could have established their empire in place of the Mughals. They had spread their hegemony over about half of the subcontinent in the eighteenth century.
 
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