3 Review(s)

The awakening of the average Indian and his conscious strivings to have his voice heard resumed not long after the Mutiny of 1857. It was suppressed by the Raj with iron hands. The native response grew hard and more organised—ranging from Pheroze Mehta’s constitutional pleas to Tilak’s bold demand for ‘swaraj’ and from Gandhi’s idealistic nonviolence to Bose’s armed patriotism. Unlike 1857, this struggle was not a shortlived intense, violent upheaval that could be savagely subdued. India was patient and determined for a longhaul struggle.This captivating work brings a large part of this fascinating period back to life. It records, in a single canvas, complex strands of events beginning with the 1877 grand Durbar at Delhi, to the eve of Indian Provincial Elections in 1936. It chronicles the sacrifice of the revolutionaries, political challenge by the Swarajya Party, mass movements led by Gandhi, identity politics of Jinnah, British strategy of ‘divide and rule’ to frustrate the Indian aspirations, and finally Congress’s submission into participating in the 1936 elections.A second part of this narration in Volume II begins from 1937, where we leave the reader in this book. It describes the culmination of this grand movement in the midnight of 15 August 1947 and the legacy that the new India inherited.