Book Review: Revolutionaries
- Venkateshwaran K
- Mar 27, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 28, 2023
Disclaimer: The blog article is not intended to hurt, upset, or question anyone's belief systems. Just a book review with my thoughts on it. Let me know if you find it interesting. Thanks in advance.
Quick intro - Review of a really good book named 'Revolutionaries: the other story of how India won its independence' that every Indian should read. It may get banned. (Quick intro is for the people who are busy, but want to have a glimpse of the topic of discussion, or else feel free to continue.)
I won't actually spoil the story entirely. But will make sure that by the time you end up reading the review, you'd have an entire understanding of what and why's of the book.
Name of the book : Revolutionaries: the other story of how India won its independence
The author of the book is Sanjeev Sanyal. - I'd say he's an alpha male, but you can explore him on your own, as our topic of discussion is about the book.
So the book according to me, as it's in the name, doesn't actually talk about the other story of how India won its independence, but it in fact speaks about the main story of how India won its independence. (LOL)
The author structured the book in such a clever way, that he made sure that the reader actually understands the manipulative struggles of the so-called freedom fighters and how they downplayed the actual revolutionaries who put their heart and soul into getting India out of British control without in fact speaking it directly in words in the book.
We've never heard of freedom revolutionaries like - Aurobindo Gosh, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Naliyanksha Sanyal, Pandurang Khankhoje, and other sigma revolutionaries, who were the actual reasons for shaping the freedom revolutionary moment in India and how they made British authorities tremble. The real efforts of Subash Chandra Bose, Chandrasekar Azad, Bala Gangadhar Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lala Lajpat Rai blew my mind with how great our Indian ancestors actually were. The book shows the worldly political knowledge the revolutionaries actually had and how educated they were, how they managed to maintain a number of secret societies in India to overthrow the Britishers, how they smuggled guns into the country, how they had german-level knowledge to make bombs, etc. The revolutionaries wrote many books on the real struggles of Indians which were actually banned and even entirely wiped out to avoid public hands on them. I think one of those books was showcased in the movie - Hey Ram
The author cleverly articulated the real revolutionary moment of Indians and how leaders of the INC actually played the role of puppets of Britishers without actually stating it in real terms but any good reader would easily catch up to it.
This one line from the book will actually give you a good perspective of the book which is stated as follows is picked up from the last chapter of the book.
- The chain of events triggered by Attlee's announcement of a Cabinet Mission led India to become independent on 15 August 1947, just eighteen months after the Naval Mutiny. It is not the purpose of this book to make the case that the nonviolent movement led by Gandhi was irrelevant to the freedom movement. Rather, the goal is to show how the armed resistance of the revolutionary movement was also an important part of the story. The central role of the revolutionaries in the freedom struggle is attested by many credible eyewitnesses, including Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, among others. He is on record in a BBC interview, stating that the undermining of the loyalty of the Indian soldier was the critical factor. Indeed, there is evidence that Attlee himself believed that the INA and the RIN revolt were critical to his decision to give India Independence. Phani Bhushan Chakravartti, Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, wrote in his autobiography that Attlee had himself told him in 1956 that his decision was driven by the INA and the RIN mutiny.
Unfortunately, the revolutionary leadership had been decimated by the time India became free, and the movement had splintered across the political spectrum. The only two major leaders to have survived were, ironically, the ones who had started it -Aurobindo Ghosh and Vinayak Savarkar- but both of them had drifted away from the movement decades earlier.
Therefore, revolutionaries as a group did not play a major political role in post-Independence India
Hence, INC leaders landed in political positions and manipulated the history of the freedom struggle, just what Sachindra Nath Sanyal didn't want to happen in India.
The post-independence lives of the revolutionaries were also described in the book which really saddens the reader, by how we were manipulated by the rulers which even lead us to the fact that we barely knew their existence.
The book is a very good read and talks about the horrors, struggles, love life, mutiny, betrayal, and hope of the above-mentioned revolutionaries. By whose grace we have our freedom now, but unfortunately under the totalitarian rule of democratic politicians.
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