Voices of freedom

Building a Free India: Defining Speeches of Our Independence Movement that Shaped the Nation

Author: Edited, with an introduction by Rakesh Batabyal

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Pages: 334

Price: Rs 599

Nora Ephron (1941-2012), film maker (You’ve Got Mail, Julie and Julia), journalist, and feminist (of a sort) was a very naughty girl. She was educated at Wellesley and when invited to speak at a graduation ceremony in 1996, she told the girls what she thought they should do. “Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there,” Ephron said in the speech. “And I also hope you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.”

That speech is right up there with the 1940 “We will fight on the beaches” speech of Winston Churchill,  the “I have a dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln’s three-minute Gettysburg address and Gandhiji’s stirring “The Voice of Conscience” statement at Champaran in 1917. Churchill’s punchline “we shall never surrender” makes the speech. Gandhiji’s wavering voice still managed to move millions of Indians to give their all for the struggle for independence.

In putting this book together, Rakesh Batabyal’s biggest problem must have been an embarrassment of riches — what to keep, what to leave out. He has been intelligent and sensitive in his selection. Included in the volume are some of the obvious ones: The “Tryst with Destiny” speech by Jawaharlal Nehru and the “Do or Die” speech by Gandhi.  Subhas Chandra Bose’s “Message to Gandhiji” is also part of the anthology.

But there are layers to every speech: Even as they describe the reality of that era, the speeches explain why India is where it is today. Surendranath Banerjee was a civil servant who was dismissed from the service and is often referred to as the father of Indian nationalism. His  critique of the Vernacular Press Act (passed in 1878 under which non-English newspapers were required to submit pre-publication copies of newspapers to the magistrate and the police commissioner, and not the courts to decide if the content qualified as sedition) appeals to the Englishman’s vaunted sense of justice: “The question is whether in any part of the world acknowledging British rule, restrictions should be imposed upon the liberty of speech of any portion of Her Majesty’s subjects?” he asks. “We are British subjects, and are we to be deprived of an inalienable right of British subjects in this summary and perfunctory manner?” The Act was repealed in 1881, but it left behind a definition of sedition, variants of which are with us even today.

Manu Subedar, whose 1946 speech to the Constituent Assembly analysed the implications of India joining the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, institutions that had just been born, is masterly. So is the speech by P Ananda Charlu on India’s military expenditure and Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s analysis of the Imperial Budget 1902. There are some speeches in this collection that still have the power to make your eyes well up. Gandhiji’s speech to the court after he was sentenced at Bardoli and accepted his part in the Chauri Chaura, Bombay and Madras incidents, is short and wrenching (“I know that my people have sometimes gone mad; I am deeply sorry for it. I am therefore here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty”). Sarojini Naidu’s address to students at the All India Students Conference in 1921 (“I want you all to realize that today you are recruits in the great army of freedom. You are the new soldiers in the army of peace”) are just two.

When he was working on this book, Dr Batabyal could not have known that India would get its first Adivasi President in 2022. It is entirely fortuitous that  included in this volume is the famous address by Jaipal Singh, from the Munda tribe in Bihar, who was adopted by an Anglican priest and went up to Oxford, returning to India to make suggestions to the Constituent Assembly. Jaipal Singh was the first Adivasi leader to say that nobody needed to teach democracy to the Adivasis; and more representation was needed not just of tribal men, but also women as India drafted its constitution.

There is a significant constituency of those who contributed to ideas in the freedom movement from among British leaders. Annie Besant’s speech as President of the Indian National Congress is included in the volume. But a notable omission seems to be representatives of India’s princely states who supported freedom fighters. Admittedly they were few. But their acts of rebellion were not insignificant, given the pressures they faced. One of them was Sayaji Rao of Baroda. In 1902, for example, he declared that India’s poverty was directly connected to colonialism. His speech was written by a Bengali aide: A firebrand who would later achieve fame as Sri Aurobindo. British newspapers describe Sayaji Rao’s conduct at his meeting with King George V with dismay:  He was meant to go up to the enthroned king and his wife, bow separately and take seven steps back, before returning to his place. But “he walked up jauntily swinging a stick in his hand — in itself a gross breach of etiquette — and as he passed before their Majesties, he saluted in the most perfunctory manner” before showing them his back. He capitulated to the British eventually, but is known as one of the more enlightened princely rulers of India. There is also a short, sweet speech by Madame Cama, the daughter of a Parsi, pro-British family who turned her back on a life of privilege and wealth to support freedom fighters and designed one version of the national flag. Those who exhort Indians to show their respect to the flag by changing their DP pictures on WhatsApp, might want to read this.

Start reading this book, and you will return to it in your darkest hour.