BOOK NOTE: Revolutionaries - Sanjeev Sanyal

One of those books that gives you a different perspective on history. Especially interesting for an Indian reader, it makes you realize that without engaging with different parts of history, and relying only on what you were taught in school, you can never know the whole story. I have enjoyed Sanyal's other books and essays, so when the algorithm recommended this I was keen to pick it up. I listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator does justice to Sanyal's rousing prose.

The book tells the story of how India's independence was not achieved only through the non-violent movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, as history textbooks often portray. I consider Gandhi to be among the most unique and singularly inspired figures of the 20th century. What he built through non-violent resistance is one of the most remarkable stories of self-determination in history. The Mahatma was what he was recognized to be for a reason.

But there is this whole other part of how the Indian freedom movement grew. This book paints the picture of key figures like Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, Savarkar, Rash Bihari Bose, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and others who shaped the movement through a different kind of revolution. I particularly enjoyed Sri Aurobindo's journey, from the Indian National Congress to leading the revolutionary Anushilan Samiti. The story of Rash Bihari Bose and his years in Japan was compelling.

I was struck by a different Great Game playing out in the early 1900s, not the British-Russian intrigues of the preceding century, but Asian powers beginning to recognize their strength through connection. 

There is a story of fight, but also of heartbreak. A story of perseverance and grit. Some of these revolutionaries were imprisoned multiple times in some of the most dangerous and inhumane conditions in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the famous Kala Paani or Cellular Jail. This book does not dwell on that, but I could not help wondering: the stories of those who survived Kala Paani have never received the same attention as those of western writers like Viktor Frankl, yet the suffering endured and the grit displayed by these Indian revolutionaries is of the same order.