Sahgal - The Story of Indias Freedom Movement

Nayantara Sahgal is the author of nine novels, six works of non-fiction and wide-ranging literary and political commentary. She has received the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Sinclair Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has a Distinguished Alumna Award from Wellesley College, USA, and Woodstock School, India, and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Leeds. In 2011, she received the Nanjanagudu Thirumalamba Award for her contribution to Indian literature, and in 2009, Zee TV's Awadh Samman. A resident of Dehradun, she has also been awarded the Doon Ratna.

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Copyright Nayantara Sahgal 1970, 2013

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First published by National Council of

Educational Research and Training, 1970

eISBN: 9788129131782

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e take our freedom for granted. We understand now that every person is important, that each person is different from all others and has the right to decide for himself how his life is to be led. Yet it was not always natural to believe this. There was a time when slavery was accepted as a natural state of affairs. Some men were free and others slaves, and no one thought this strange. In ancient Italy, for example, there were three slaves for every free man. The free men lived in comfort and governed the land. The slaves laboured on plantations and in households, and were often brutally treated by their masters. In every ancient civilization, it was the slaves hard work that built great monuments and made progress possible.

There is a famous statue of a Scythian slave sharpening a knife. His body is bent and he seems to represent the suffering of millions in the past. Yet he is looking upward, as if towards the light, reminding us that the longing to be free is as old as the institution of slavery.

There was never a time when men did not yearn to be free. History is full of stirring examples of this urge. One of the earliest and most dramatic of these is the slave uprising that took place in the Roman Empire in 73 BCE. It was led by Spartacus, a slave who escaped from a school for gladiators at Capua. He fled to Mount Vesuvius, where he collected an army of runaway slaves like himself. For two years, he and his followers put up a desperate fight, defeating every army that Rome sent against them, but the rebellion was finally crushed. Spartacus was killed and six thousand of his followers were crucified along the Appian Way in Rome.

There are countless examples of men like Spartacus who fought to free themselves from oppression. There were othersthinkers, philosophers and scientistswho fought for freedom of the mind and spirit from the tyranny of the rigid beliefs of their time. Socrates, the Athenian, was condemned to death because he would not give up his right to speak what he believed was the truth. Galileo, to whom modern physics owes its beginnings, was the first astronomer to use a telescope. He saw the mountains and craters on the moon, discovered four satellites of Jupiter, and realized that the Milky Way is a collection of stars. We know all these as facts now, but in 1632, they were considered heresy, that is, going against the beliefs of the Christian church. Galileo was called before the religious court. He was made to go down on his knees and take back what he believed, and sentenced to live a lonely, isolated life. But he continued to work on his discoveries till he died ten years later.

It is because of men and women like these, and their determination to live and think freely no matter what, that the struggle for freedom has gone on through history. Because of them, we can take freedom for granted today and believe that it is our right to exercise it. Yet, individual freedom cannot be properly exercised if a country is not free. Every country has its own heritage and achievements of which it is proud, which it wants to pass on to each new generation. Every country is best fitted to make plans for its own future, because it is more concerned with its peoples needs than any foreign government can ever be. Only in a free country can men and women direct their lives and achieve the best of which they are capable.

But freedom from a foreign power, or political freedom, is only a starting point. The greatest Indian of our time, Mahatma Gandhi, believed that freedom would be a reality only when we had succeeded in wiping the tear from every eye, and when every citizen has the opportunity to live with dignity.

This book tells the story of Indias struggle for freedom. To understand it we have to go back in time to more than two hundred years ago. We must begin with the establishment of British rule on our soil, discover how a foreign power became so dominant in our country, and then trace the efforts that brought us our independence.

The Fall of the Mughal Empire

he year was 1707. Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughal emperors, was dead and the stage was set for a struggle to seize the prize he had left: India. There was no single power strong enough to take it. Aurangzebs own descendants were too weak to exercise any real authority. The Marathas and the Sikhs were steadily growing in power and eyeing the prize and so were two nations from across the seasEngland and Francewho had also become increasingly powerful.

The English and the French had come to India as merchants but had become involved with the quarrels of local rulers. For example, whenever there was a disputed succession in the South, the English would back one candidate to the throne, and the French the other, and both would lend out their trained troops to the warring sides. After the war, they would seize whatever they could in wealth and territory.

At this time, invaders were also waiting beyond Indias north-west frontier, ready to march down into the rich plains and plunder. It was a time of trouble and turmoil, and an ideal opportunity for adventurers, both Indian and foreign.