Revolutionaries

This is an abridged edition of Sanjeev Sanyal's Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won Its Freedom, shortened and illustrated for younger readers.

You may have read the history of India's freedom struggle from the perspective of the non-violent movement. Yet, the story of armed resistance to the British Empire is just as interesting.

Revolutionaries such as Subhas Chandra Bose, Vinayak Savarkar, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhikaji Cama were part of a large network that sustained armed resistance against the British Empire for half a century. They not only created a wide network inside India but also established nodes in Europe, Asia and the United States. This was no small-scale movement of individual heroism-this involved a large number of extraordinary young men and women who were connected in multiple ways to each other and to the evolving events of their times.

This is a story of swashbuckling adventure, intrigue, espionage, incredible bravery, treachery and shockingly unpredictable twists of fate.