“We fought for two things – for Freedom and Independence. We attained Independence.” Said Captain Bhau (Ramchandra Sripati Lad), Freedom fighter and head of Toofan Sena.
Book Review: The Last Heroes by P. Sainath
This book is an eye-opener for me, I grew up hearing stories about the giants of the Indian Independence struggle like Gandhi, Bose, Nehru, and Patel. But this book highlights the unknown heroes of India’s freedom struggle.
These were countless men, women, and children, from all walks of life. They were farmers, labourers, homemakers, artisans, and others, who did all they could to oppose the British rule.
P. Sainath a renowned journalist and founder of Peoples Archives of Rural India (PARI) has been documenting and reporting on the issues of Rural India for over 3 decades.
Sainath and his team at PARI met many freedom fighters while working in villages and towns. In this book, he compiled the stories of 16 such anonymous heroes. In 2022, the youngest one alive was 95 years of age and the oldest was 105. Many of them were denied their Freedom Fighter Pensions due to a lack of documents and stringent rules. But all of them still take pride in what they did.
There is a lot to learn from each of them. Like Shobharam Gehervar who met both Gandhi and Ambedkar, says he didn’t see any contradiction in the thoughts of Gandhi and Ambedkar. “If I found merit in some principles of Mahatma, I followed those. Where I found merit in the teachings of Ambedkar, I followed those,” he says.
India is celebrating its 75th year of Independence. In the next few years, the last of the few remaining freedom fighters will be no more. A generation who saw independence happening will be gone. Sadly, there is no one celebrating the contributions of these men and women. Many of these nameless, faceless freedom fighters continue to live in acute poverty with meagre means, drawing satisfaction from the role they played in the freedom movement.
This book is a reminder of the efforts of these forgotten ordinary people and an effort to applaud their contributions.
As P. Sainath says “The post-1947 generation needs their stories. To learn… that freedom and independence are not the same thing. And to learn to make those come together”.
Get ‘The Last Heroes by P. Sainath’ on Kindle
Book: #227
#CuriousTitans #LearningNeverEnds #BookReview
