Revolutionaries | Sanjeev Sanyal

Synopsis:

The history of India’s independence movement is usually presented as a non-violent struggle. Yet, the story of armed resistance to colonial occupation is just as important. Despite the notable attempts to whitewash India’s resistance to imperialism, names such as Veer Savarakar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bagha Jatin, Sachindra Nath Sanyal, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose continue to rule people’s hearts. Even so, their struggles are almost always presented as acts of individual valor detached from a wider movement. Their contributions to or impact on India’s overall struggle for freedom are dismissed as negligible. However, these revolutionaries were part of a large network that sustained armed resistance against the mighty British Empire for half a century. They not only created a wide network inside the country, but also established nodes in Britain, France, Thailand, Germany, Persia, Russia, Italy, Ireland, the United States, Japan and Singapore. At various points, they even received official support and recognition from the governments of these countries!

Even the internal dynamics of the Indian National Congress hardly make any sense without understanding the contributions of these revolutionaries. The truth is that theirs was no small-scale movement of pointless individual heroism, but a well-planned struggle involving a large number of young men and women connected to each other in several ways. In Revolutionaries, Sanjeev Sanyal tells the story of these unsung heroes, a story that is replete with jaw-dropping adventure, intrigue, espionage, bravery, diabolical treachery, and shockingly unpredictable twists of fate.