The Economist February 19th 2022 75
CultureIndia’spastandpresentA magnificent seven
H
ow do politicalwinds affect the writ
ing of history? In India those in power
have long pressed publishers to pay most
heed to their favoured historical figures.
For much of the past century, as the Con
gress party dominated public life, writers
lavished attention on the independence
heroes who were drawn from its ranks,
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
foremost among them.
In contrast, figures of similar impor
tance to the independence movement who
were (or became) rivals of Congress were
given shorter shrift. The Bengali firebrand
Subhas Chandra Bose was not forgotten,
but he was far from celebrated in the same
fashion as the Congresswallahs. (Admitted
ly, he had hurt his own reputation by rush
ing into exile to ally with the Nazis and Jap
anese during the war.) Another antiBritish
campaigner, who despised Congress as
much as he opposed imperialists, was
Vinayak Savarkar. He was long shunned by
historians, in part because of his close
association with a gang of men who mur
dered Gandhi in 1948.OflatethewindshaveshiftedinIndia.
Congress now looks flattened as a political
force. Strong regional politicians have es
tablished rival power bases; nationally it is
the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Par
ty (bjp) that breezes through one election
after another. In turn, different historical
characters are attracting sympathetic
attention from writers. Bose has been re
vived as a preeminent figurehead of Ben
gali regional pride, for example. As for
Savarkar: the prime minister Narendra Mo
di extols him. As the creator of Hindutva
(the Hindufirst movement) roughly a cen
tury ago, Savakar and his illiberal ideas ar
guably shaped the majoritarian views of
modern bjpleaders as much as anyone.
For a distinguished historian who
champions the appealing idea of India as
tolerant, humane and welcoming to adher
ents of all religions or none, this is a dispiriting moment. Ramachandra Guha has al
ready written several acutely observed
books on Gandhi’s life (among other top
ics). His latest work, “Rebels Against The
Raj”, is a study of India in the buildup to its
independence, the 75th anniversary of
which falls this year. In it, Mr Guha makes
clear his distress at India’s souring mood.
He warns of the current drift towards
national and religious parochialism. “The
rise of nativism and xenophobia”, he
writes, “has been both immense and in
tense.” India’s leaders once stood for inclu
sion, universal rights and liberal democra
cy, but today’s leitmotif is to “proclaim
with pride that you are Hindu”. Politicians
crow about throwing off a millennium of
foreign rule (meaning Muslim Mughals,
then British imperialists) and India’s grow
ing might, while suggesting they have
nothing to learn from the rest of the world.
Mr Guha’s new book challenges such
thinking with a reminder of how many
outsiders held (and hold) deep affection
for India and its democratic cause. He in
troduces a remarkable cast of seven for
eign activists who struggled for India’s
freedom from the 1910s onwards. They
were British, Irish and American, and in
cluded political campaigners, journalists,
a reformed communist, a social worker
and a teacher. All suffered for their princi
ples and were imprisoned by the British.
Nor were they alone. Other foreigners,
Mr Guha points out, played a big part in In
dia’s drive for independence, includingThe history of India’s independence heroes is bound up with the politics of today→Alsointhissection
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79 Back Story: The Western rides againRebels Against The Raj. By Ramachandra
Guha. Knopf; 496 pages; $35.
William Collins; £25