Page 310 - EW September 2024

Books

rehabilitation or compen- repetition of the devastat-
sation while alternatives of ing flood that hit Kerala THE LAST HEROES: FOOT
sustainable livelihoods are in 2018. It underlines the SOLDIERS OF INDIAN FREEDOM
denied to them. reality that the voices of P. Sainath
This book adequately disadvantaged ecosystem PENGUIN BOOKS
delineates Gadgil’s life- people need to be heard. Rs.499
long passion for promoting The value of this memoir Pages 256
conservation, preservation is that it covers the entire
of habitats, and sustain- gamut of environmental
able biodiversity. The problems confronting the
British historian E.P. country and offers practi- political context allowing A valiant attempt
Thompson had comment- cal solutions towards a the reader to tease out the to tell the stories of
ed how his earlier book sustainable future. connections as he zooms in 15 unsung freedom
This Fissured Land (1992) JAYATI GUPTA and out from the personal fighters of exceptional
written with historian narratives, traversing time courage who have
Ramachandra Guha “stuck and space. been almost expunged
to the pessimistic tone of Forgotten We learn of extraordi- from the narrative of
most environmental texts”. nary women. For example, the freedom struggle
However in Ecology and heroes Demati de Sabar Salihan
Equity (1995), he high- who fearlessly took on a
lights the role of the Third S INDIA commem- gun-toting British police- with a rifle but never fired
World countries’ contribu- orates 75 years man with a lathi, inspiring, a bullet’, spent six decades
tion in managing the crisis Aof independence, 40 other young women to without getting due recog-
in India and proposing Sainath’s Last Heroes cuts join her. Today she lives nition as a freedom fighter.
guidelines for ecological to the heart of the chase. in degrading poverty, her We learn of unsung
reform. Where are the images, maana patra, a certificate men drawn from rural
In this memoir, Gadgil ideas, lives and stories of of honour, a eulogy to her India. Shobharam Ghe-
expresses hope that our ordinary women, men and father, presenting her as var who participated as a
own ‘welcome genera- children who participated a supporting actor. Mallu child in the decoy games
tion’ i.e, third generation in the freedom struggle Swarajyam of the women’s of escorting the likes of
citizens born in free, represented in magnum armed squads who fought Chadrashekhar Azad
democratic India, will opus celebrations? The for bhumi, bhakti and to crude bomb making
honour the Constitution Last Heroes’ raison d’etre vimukti (land, livelihood factories, and at 96 years is
by rejecting the prevalent is a valiant attempt to and liberation) in the anti- guardian of the Swatantra
discourse of caste, creed, undo this seven-decade Nizam struggle, spends a Senaani Bhawan, a meeting
race, language and religion long erasure. To tell the lifetime fighting injustice, place for freedom fighters
which creates a divisive stories of those who have patriarchy and slavery of in Ajmer, fast fading into
society. He fervently been almost expunged all forms. Hausabai of the insignificance.
believes that “India will from the retelling and Toofani Sena, a member Captain Bhau, one of
see a turnaround only memory creation of the of the daring team of the leaders of the Toofani
when there is equitable freedom struggle. revolutionaries that at- Sena or the armed wing of
sharing of the humongous As 15 freedom fight- tacked trains, looted police the provisional government
costs of environmental ers share their stories, we armouries and participated in Satara which declared
degradation”. For him, the are introduced to lives in underground action in independence from the
primary divide is between of exceptional courage Portuguese-ruled Goa. Till British in 1943. The self-
the urban-rich population reflected in word, deed the last she had fire in her effacing Comrade RNK
constituting “biosphere and being, in a vocabulary belly, championing the who played a pivotal role
people” and the economi- marked by such simplicity cause of farmers’ rights in integrating the peasant
cally weaker rural citi- and humility that it almost at the age of 93. Laxmi struggles and anti-colonial
zens and forest-dwellers, appears surreal in today’s Panda, who at 13 years was movement, and continues
“ecosystem people”, many India of hagiographic one of the youngest mem- to struggle for the cause at
of whom have become representations and bers of Subhash Chandra the age of 97. Baji Moham-
“ecological refugees”. muscular politics. Sainath Bose’s Indian National mad, a Gandhian freedom
The recent catastrophic skillfully weaves in the his- Army, but because she fighter from Orissa who
Wayanad landslide is a tory, socio-economic and ‘never went to jail, trained offered satyagraha count-

310 EDUCATIONWORLD SEPTEMBER 2024