Mangal Pandey, Khudiram Bose, Bhagat Singh, Ram Prasad Bismil, Subhas Chandra Bose — the names are known, but the legal record of what they faced, and what they did, was left in the National Archives to gather dust. The Nehruvian dispensation treated the revolutionaries as a footnote; school and university syllabi followed suit. Their trials, their statements, their sacrifices were not simply undercelebrated. They were actively suppressed.
Justice S.N. Aggarwal brings a jurist's discipline to the task of recovery. He draws on case files, court judgements, and documented proceedings to reconstruct the revolutionary movement from the 1857 uprising through the Kooka movement, the Ghadar patriots, Veer Savarkar's work in London, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and the Kakori Conspiracy Case. The result is not a tribute — it is a legal and historical record assembled with the rigour of a scholar who believes that forgetting these men was not an accident.
Part 1 of a two-volume work, this book is aimed at readers who want the evidence, not the summary.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Justice S. N. Aggarwal has undertaken the mammoth task of salvaging the selfless contribution of the revolutionaries, as a labour of love, from the National Archives where it had been consigned by the toxic Congress ecosystem and its offshoots, the successive political dispensations. For them, the brave deeds of revolutionary patriots, which shook the foundations of British empire, was a forgotten chapter of history, not to speak of giving any prominent place to these patriots in the School or University syllabus. The Nehruvian government of free India blotted out the historic role of the revolutionaries, dismissed their sacrifices and disdained them as lesser mortals, not worthy of consideration. Fiery and honest, this segment of radical youths, from every region, religion and clime of the subcontinent, fought the British with a single-minded determination to liberate their motherland. They placed their lives at stake, despite horrific odds. The Crown responded with brutal measures, including barbaric torture, inhuman treatment and incarceration in the notorious Cellular Jail. The British made every effort to shatter their will but could not quell their spirits. Mangal Pandey, Kooka Movement, Veer Savarkar, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Khudiram Bose, Madan Lal Dhingra, revolutionaries of Ghadar Movement, Bhagat Singh, Ram Prasad Bismil, Subhas Chandra Bose-it is a long list of warriors from 1857 till INA trials, who sacrificed their lives for our Independence and went down the pages of history unhonoured, unknown and unsung. Justice Aggarwal applies his acute legal mind, painstaking scholarship and jurisprudential acumen to turn the spotlight even more intensely on this all but forgotten chapter of the revolutionary movement. He has cited innumerable legal documents and case histories in this self-assigned task. Lest we forget the revolutionary heroes, this book is a 'must read' for the younger generations.
