TheDaak review

Book: Waiting for Swaraj: Inner Lives of Indian Revolutionaries by Aparna Vaidik,  Cambridge University Press, Hardcover, Published: 30^th September 2021, 240 Pages, ISBN: 978-110883808,  Rs 845.89

by Chetna Trivedi

Waiting for Swaraj is written across the time and space of the 1920s, around the lives of valiant revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and the Hindustan Republican Socialist Association (HRSA) who challenged the British Raj. The book not only delineates a teleological view of the revolutionaries’ spectacular movements and events in the freedom struggle. It also intricately engages with the questions: When does a person say, ‘I am a revolutionary’? How did a revolutionary live out the vision of revolution? What were their everyday conversations? How did their life transform in the quest for revolution in exile? The book examines the history of revolutionism as a lived vision. It is like a rich and intimate history of the revolution as praxis. 

The book seamlessly takes us through the revolutionaries’ struggle and their waiting to attain the ideal of Swaraj. This waiting, however, did not consist of that ideal of one day when the British raj would perish. It instead involved everyday strategies, practices and conversations between the revolutionaries concerning various aspects of their being as revolutionary. The conversations among the revolutionaries, which frequently surface in the book, provide us with a more profound insight into their thoughts and aspects of their lives that are either misinterpreted or have failed to find a place in the historical narrative of revolutionism. 

The book is divided into four chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter starts with an interesting story of Chandrashekhar Azad’s guise in exile as Harishankar, a sanyasi. The king of Orchaa grew fond of this sanyasi and his hunting skills and realised that he had to be either a revolutionary or a dacoit. Azad continued to meet the other revolutionaries to keep him abridged about the court cases and activities unfolding in the cities. His stay in Dimapur was cut short due to a murder of an ordinary man by a sanyasi. Azad later took refuge in Bundelkhand and befriended the Raja, who later gave him access to his forests for hunting, testing bombs and shooting. Chandrashekhar Tiwari, alias Chandrashekhar Azad, was an intrepid bahurupiya (Polymorphous), an audacious impersonator. Not only Azad but Bhagat Singh was also known for his ability to adopt semblances; disguised as an Englishman to escape from Lahore after the political assassination of a British officer. Surya Sen could also quickly disguise himself as a gardener or sanyasi (Hermit/ascetic); there was a widespread belief that he could vanish in the air. A part of the revolutionary’s life consisted of being in exile and waiting. This meant frequently changing life and places and living in exile as they waited for swaraj. It consisted of an interesting underplay of visibility (when an appeal or threat has to be made) and, invisibility (when strategy and planning have to be undertaken), the performance of violence and subterfuge. Ironically, the revolutionaries were often narrated as impatient young men who were in haste to achieve swaraj through their recourse to violence. Their portrayal as impatient was either valorised or romanticised, and it became a model to justify their assumed ‘failure’. 

This portrayal of haste was also an important part of the self-characterisation of the revolutionaries’ ontology (their being). They would often talk in the language reflecting excitement, courage and restlessness. ‘Our hot blood cannot wait’ or ‘aami bidrohi chiro ashanto’(I am a rebel, forever restless); these were part of their day-to-day conversations. However, in sharp contrast to their portrayal as fanatics or young men with haste and their self-characterisation as restless, excited, hot-blooded, parts of their identity and personality are linked closely with their purpose of revolution. This included ascetic renunciation and discipline, leading a life of principle denigrations of materialism through poverty, chastity, brahmacharya (celibacy), meditation, exercise and self-control. It helped them realise self-rule as individuals and swarajya as nationalists. As they waited, the young men embodied a sense of varied transformations that would mould them into socialist and revolutionary and bring them closer to swaraj. 

The book extricates the dominant historiographical narratives that study the revolutionary movement primarily as a historical account of Bhagat Singh’s life and activism. It also questions the assumed significance of socialism as an ideology adopted by the revolutionaries; it was instead the later developments as the reading of Russian literature frequented and permeated in the revolutionary circles that the ideals of socialism were automatically seen as indispensable in the aim of achieving swaraj. 

The second chapter weaves a narrative with the life accounts of Chandrashekhar Azad, a Gandhiwadi who later became a Krantikari. It highlights an interesting point that there are uniform narratives of the revolutionary’s childhood, and selected stories are told to build a picture of their heroism preceding their political maturity. Vaidik calls this the ‘cultural thinning’ of the revolutionary’s life. The stories weave a superhuman narrative of revolutionaries’ as if their revolutionary selves always existed. Then what does the journey and struggle of bringing revolution and swaraj inculcate in them? The chapter also focuses on the Bismil-Ashfaqullah friendship, often used by many as the epitome of Hindu-Muslim unity, without exactly taking into account the limitation of HSRA for not being able to mobilise many of the Muslim youth as their cadre. Another point highlighted in the work as it progresses is the assumed link between atheism and revolutionarism has to be better foregrounded in the historical context. For instance, Azad, Surya Sen, and Bismil did not find a conflict between their religious beliefs and being revolutionary. 

There is an intriguing entry point into the historiography of post-colonial scripting of the revolutionaries in the third chapter. To begin with, the slogan of inquilab zindabad (long live revolution) did not popularise in the revolutionary circles up until the bombing of the central legislative assembly in 1929. Many such rhetoric, symbols, slogans and characteristics/perceptions of individual personality are used by the post-colonial state to delegitimise the social movements of the 1960s and 70s. The revolutionaries are presented in two ways, either as self-sacrificial heroes or as misguided youth pitched against the present-day protestors resisting unjust policies; this narrative quickly cements the post-colonial state’s propaganda of delegitimising social movements. In a similar vein, adherence to socialism is precluded to the revolutionary movement.

In contrast, it was only after the insistence of Bhagat Singh that the word ‘socialist’ was incorporated into HSRA hence,  HSocialistRA. To engage with the masses and to ensure their support, some of the strategies were changed. For instance, a complete halt to dacoities and the assassination and raising of funds was primarily done by donations and the goodwill of their supporters and associates. It was time to take the revolutionary struggle from swaraj to the masses. Socialism added this additional consciousness in the revolutionaries to wage a collective struggle towards oppressions of all kinds. In 1923, Russian socialist writings were being read by revolutionaries of HRA. Marxist literature began to flow from the USA and England. One finds an unmistakable resonance of the post-1876 wave of Russian populist revolutionaries known as the Narodniks in Bhagat’s political orientation and the actions the HSRA carried out. The major change through the influence of socialism in HSRA can be read in what Chandrashekhar told Shaukat Usmani (member of the communist party of India) that they wanted to change their line ‘from individual action to mass action’. However, the admiration that HSRA had for the communists never culminated in a coalition. 

The vocabulary of the HSRA youth echoed their ongoing metamorphosis into non-practising believers, agonists or atheists but one that had not entirely scraped out the religious habitus. This may explain why they did not feel the need to rewrite the HRA’s constitution. The book’s last chapter emphasises the traits and identity of the ascetic Kaalyoddha. Most revolutionaries adopted the ascetic identity and the principles that are essentially a part of the ascetic being. They identified themselves as ascetic revolutionaries. Also, their practice of asceticism was firmly tied to their notions of masculinity. This masculine construction of politics and roles also limited women’s roles to a rescuers or co-partners in the struggle. 

While they waited in exile at different locations, they practised self-rule upon and among themselves and manifested that this was the swaraj they aspired for the nation. The revolutionaries approved violence as the last resort because it was coupled with their willingness to sacrifice their lives and material comforts. Their covenant with death was such that it was seen as a contribution towards inspiring many others for the cause of free India. They were also unaware that if the death of a revolutionary martyr is not hailed as a deliverer and hero among the people for a particular type of work, there is no scope for a revolutionary movement. 

The book is a major departure in three ways from the historical accounts and narratives written around the theme till now. To begin with, it provides a more detailed narrative of the revolutionaries’ struggle, ideological transformations and their life highlighting even conversations of the day to day life.  Furthermore, this book is an alternative standpoint against partial, linear and post-colonial scripting of the revolutionaries’ struggles and caricatures. Lastly, it brings forth the roles and contributions of other revolutionaries, such as Chandrashekhar Azad, in shaping revolutionary struggles and HSRA. This work compels us to not only rethink the given historiography of revolutionaries but will also constantly remind the reader of their own journey of transformations; through their lived experiences, exposure to ideas, activism, and education.

©TheDaak2023