Interview with Sanjeev Sanyal

Your book speaks about the ‘other story’ of the freedom struggle. Is it an attempt to rewrite history?

The usual telling of the history of India’s freedom struggle gives the impression that it was mostly a non-violent movement and that occasional acts of armed resistance were irrelevant. This is not accurate. There was constant armed opposition to British occupation from the 18th century. This book is about the revolutionary phase of this armed resistance from the 1890s till the Naval Revolt of 1946.

You speak about how the current narrative has been dominated by non-violent stream of the freedom struggle. But stories about Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose are well-known, and they are revered figures across the country.

The impression you get from the current narrative is that their activities were individual acts of heroism that had no impact on the larger story. You are also never told how these names were linked to each other. This is misrepresentation. As my book demonstrates, the revolutionaries used well-developed national and international networks to sustain armed resistance against the British. They had clear objectives, sophisticated organizations, and linkages with many foreign governments. Even the Indian National Congress cannot be understood without them as the revolutionaries had a big presence within it. Netaji demonstrated this by defeating the Gandhian faction in an open election for party president.

You have a personal connection to the freedom movement. Tell us about that.

Both my mother’s and father’s family were part of the revolutionary movement. My father’s family were based in Bengali Tola, Varanasi and were heavily involved with the Ghadar plot, Kakori case and other incidents. Sachindra Nath Sanyal is well-known, but there were many others. It was a truly family effort. Similarly, my mother’s grandfather Nalinaksha Sanyal was similarly involved with the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar group. Some these forebears appear in my book but I left out several others in order to avoid making it sound like a family history.

You have presented the rivalry between the “extremists” and “moderates” in the freedom struggle as that between “nationalists” and “loyalists”. Can you explain?

The term “extremist” suggests that Lal-Bal-Pal were being unreasonable by asking for freedom while the “moderates” were being sensible by asking for crumbs. Since this book is explicitly written from the revolutionary point of view, I used the terms that Aurobindo Ghosh used for them – “Nationalist” and “Loyalist” respectively.

You acknowledge that the heroes of the Revolt of 1857 proved to be an inspiration for the revolutionaries. Then why is the Right so hesitant to accept Tipu Sultan’s contribution in fighting against the British?

There is little evidence that Tipu Sultan was fighting for India’s freedom, but plenty of evidence of his atrocities on fellow Indians. He may have fought the British, but he also fought the Marathas, Travancore, the Kodavas, the Nizam to name just a few. If you are looking for a Muslim patriot, let me suggest Ashfaqullah Khan, the revolutionary who was hanged in the Kakori case.

Culturally do you think we are still trapped in the colonial retelling of history?

Have you noticed how mainstream history always presents Indians as losers? No matter when the battle happens – Plassey, Panipat, Buxar – the Indians always lose. Surely, in our long history, we must have won some wars. Where are they in the story? British colonial historians carefully edited them out as they wanted to show Indians as always being a subject people. This is why you get the impression that the Mughals ruled India, and then the British took it over. The intervening eighty years of Maratha empire are glossed over. This systematic bias needs to be corrected.

Last year you had raised concerns over the ranking of India in various western indices including academic freedom and democracy. Is this not shooting the messenger?

There is no problem if these indices are objective measures. As I have explained in a working paper co-authored with Aakanksha Arora, these global indices on democracy, freedom and other subjective issues do not stand up to scrutiny. Their methodology is laughable, and their results are based on the opinions of a tiny group of unknown experts. Even the response of these think-tanks to our criticism has been ridiculous. Rather than refute our objections, the head of one of these think-tanks made a statement that their results must be correct because they involved “high maths” and the use of “supercomputers”. I get the impression that we were expected to be awestruck.

You have earlier talked about old Left cabal that is targeting the right historians (in the context of Vikram Sampath’s plagiarism row). Why do you feel you and others are targeted.

Vikram has not just faced arbitrary accusations of all kinds, he was pushed out of the Bangalore Literature Festival that he founded. Both of us routinely face irritants such as having our Wikipedia page vandalized. Long articles have been written about how I have not been schooled in the methodology of historiography. This an odd accusation since I have never claimed any formal degree in history, nor am I the first person ever to write on a subject outside my field. The old cabal is just unhappy that they did not have the opportunity to brainwash me.