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Books

Less sung REVOLUTIONARIES: THE OTHER and Ram Prasad Bismil,
among other bravehearts.
heroes STORY OF HOW INDIA WON ITS Rash Behari Bose, archi-
FREEDOM
Sanjeev Sanyal tect of the Ghadar Mutiny
(1915) and founder of
EADING THIS HARPER COLLINS the Indian Independence
alternative history Rs.599 Pages 351 League (IIL) who passed
Rof how India won on his baton to Subhas
its freedom from British Chandra Bose is well rep-
colonial rule, I was re- and torture. resented in the narrative.
minded of eminent British The author’s grievance To counter public The exploits of the Indi-
historian Prof. E.H. Carr’s is that “generations of In- amnesia the author an National Army against
pertinent monograph dians were sold a narrative uses the methodology British India and its 1943
which posed the question where the contribution of micro-history to slogan of Dilli Chalo were
What is History? And of these revolutionaries intervene into the too dramatic to keep out
proceeded to opine that it were shown to have been mainstream narrative of mainstream textbooks.
“reflects one’s own posi- no more than random acts of India’s freedom However, Sanyal justifies
tion in time” and “what without coherent objec- struggle as it has been controversial politicised
view we take of the society tives, and, consequently, ‘received’ since 1947 initiatives underlining the
in which we live.” as having no impact on “symbolic importance”
For economist Sanjeev the course of events.” of the recently installed
Sanyal, “correcting” the Post-independence school sive laws, physical torture, statue of Netaji Subhas
mainstream narrative of textbooks and national criminalisation and penal- Chandra Bose on Kartavya
India’s freedom movement days he believes, exclu- isation, was spread over at Path, Delhi.
is an important impera- sively highlight the role least three generations in The picture that unrav-
tive. Several revolution- of Mahatma Gandhi’s the aftermath of the Sepoy els is of youthful idealism
aries whose lives and ideology of non-violence Mutiny aka First War of and enterprise, connecting
activities are showcased and activities of Indian Independence in 1857. But with “imagined communi-
are personalities that the National Congress leaders. such often violent revolu- ties” across the country, of
generation described as Other revolutionaries tionary resistance was by resolute faith and convic-
midnight’s children, born have been systemati- and large read as confined tion in witnessing a liber-
in the independent Repub- cally marginalised, if not to regional areas and pro- ated motherland. Underly-
lic of India, are unfamil- summarily dismissed by jected as individual acts of ing the call for liberation
iar with. Some acquired mainstream historians. bravery linked to organ- were dare-devil plans of
national and international Sanyal’s effort is to resur- ised networks in Europe, the cited revolutionaries
fame as iconic individuals rect the heroic deeds of America, Canada, Japan, to equip themselves with
who offered resistance to nationalists such as Lala even Russia. Japanese arms and ammunition
British imperial domina- Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar pan-asianism, Russian through armoury and
tion. A few were admired Tilak and Bipin Chandra communism, German warehouse raids, learn-
for their leadership and Pal. But why it should be socialism, Italian facism ing to make indigenous
acts of exceptional courage at the cost of undermining and Irish nationalism are bombs and disseminating
in regional spaces. the achievements of other traced as influences on inflammatory pamphlets
Unfortunately many leaders and freedom fight- indigenous akhada culture and monographs. Against
others who suffered and ers is a moot question. represented by the Anush- this, the response of the
sacrificed their lives for To counter public ilan Samiti, Jugantar, colonial administration
the country’s freedom, amnesia, Sanyal uses the Abhinav Bharat etc. was pervasive suspicion,
were marginalised or side- methodology of micro-his- Fragmented informa- incarceration without trial,
lined. Remarkably, Sanyal, tory to intervene into the tion about these revolu- torture and counter vio-
to pen this alt history, mainstream narrative of tionary networks is pieced lence like the Jallianwala
visited sites of rebellion India’s freedom struggle as together alongside biogra- Bagh massacre.
and underground activities it has been ‘received’ since phies of obscure as well as To control this civil-
countrywide and abroad, 1947. According to Sanyal, comparatively well-known war-like situation and
family homes, the Anda- revolutionary resistance to revolutionaries includ- in protest against the
man Cellular Jail, prisons British colonial adminis- ing Aurobindo and Barin Partition of Bengal (1905),
and sites of incarceration tration, draconian repres- Ghosh, Vinayak Savarkar mass non-violent, non-

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