Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won Its Freedom

by Sanjeev Sanyal

By this time, Subhas and Bhagat Ram had crossed into Afghanistan. He had pulled off one of the most audacious escapes in Indian history—perhaps matching that of Shivaji from the clutches of Aurangzeb.

Rashbehari remained committed to an earlier era of nationalism, to Pan-Asianism, and to the Hindu ideals of Dharma. He did not approve of either Marxism or Fascism and wrote strongly against them.

Many of Subhas Bose’s critics to this day question his willingness to ally with the Axis powers. This is unfair, as he was merely looking for ways to end the brutal colonial occupation of his motherland.

This is why it is more than fair to state that the Bengal Famine of 1943 was deliberate and man-made.

One of the biggest political beneficiaries of the famine were the communists.

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India ran an aggressive propaganda campaign against Subhas Bose, calling him names such as ‘the running dog’ of Tojo.

A generation earlier, the same regiments had unquestioningly opened fire at Jallianwala Bagh; something had clearly changed. It is a pity that revolutionary leaders such as Sachindra Nath Sanyal and Rashbehari Bose did not live to see the revolt, as this was exactly what they had repeatedly attempted to trigger over the decades.

Gandhi came out publicly against the rebels: ‘In resorting to mutiny they are badly advised

It is not the purpose of this book to make the case that the non-violent 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.

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.

In 1965, the Congress Chief Minister of West Bengal P.C. Sen made every effort to disallow a Bengali play by Utpal Dutt named Kallol about the Naval Mutiny.

The idea of an independent Bengal had never been in serious discussion, but, in April–May 1947, it suddenly took the shape of a concrete proposal that had the support of Jinnah and a section of the British officialdom (and possibly even Gandhi until Patel dissuaded him).

by the 1980s, the akhadas had become youth clubs affiliated with different communist factions. Later they were taken over by the Trinamool Congress, the regional party that rules West Bengal today. Nonetheless, they have continued to organize the annual Durga Puja festival in each neighbourhood—an echo of their origins.

Let it be clear that the assassination of both the Gandhis was wrong, but so was the mob violence against whole communities that followed.

When researching the post-Independence lives of some of these freedom fighters, I really felt sad about how they had just been abandoned.

As readers will recall, British intelligence had invested heavily in infiltrating Sikh gurudwaras in Canada and Britain to counter the Ghadarites. Their effort focused on separating Sikh identity from the Hindus and creating a wedge with Indian nationalists. This is why the Khalistani separatist movement remains concentrated in Canada to this day.

One of the ironies of history is that Independent India refused to rehabilitate the INA veterans and RIN rebels.

Two important offshoots, at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, were the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

They also disliked the CPI/CPI(M)’s attempts from the 1960s to appropriate the legacy of the revolutionary movement, despite having actively opposed the INA and Subhas Bose during the Second World War.

Instead, the RSS decided to help Syamaprasad Mookerjee, now a Cabinet minister, set up a new party after he left the Hindu Mahasabha due to his differences with traditionalists within the party. A new party named Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) was formed in 1951.

Thus, generations of Indians were sold a narrative where the contributions of the revolutionaries were shown to have been no more than random acts without coherent objectives, and, consequently, as having no impact on the course of events.