Indian Independence Movement
An Indian Pilgrim Autobiography of Subhas Chandra Bose
By Subhash Chandra Bose
“An Indian Pilgrim” takes the reader from Netaji’s parentage, birth and early childhood to his Cambridge days—and what days !—when a young man of 24 had to make up his mind either to take a path, strewn with roses, which promised nothing but ease, luxury and official honor, or a path, strewn with thorns, inviting one to selfless suffering and sacrifice and promising nothing more than blood, sweat and tears.
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Annie Besant
An autobiography Published by T. Fisher Unwin, London – 1893
Annie Besant (1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, women’s rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India and dominion status within the Empire. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress in late 1917. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929.[1]
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Bankim Tilak Dayananda
By Shree Aurobindo
Essays on three great Indian personalities: the first literary, the second political & the third religious. There are many who, lamenting the by-gone glories of this great and ancient nation, speak as if the Rishis of old, the inspired creators of thought and civilization, were a miracle of our heroic age, not to be repeated among degenerate men and in our distressful present This is an error and thrice an error. Ours is the eternal land, the eternal people, the eternal religion, whose strength, greatness, holiness may be overclouded but never, even for a moment, utterly cease.
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Essentials of Hindutva
By V D Savarkar
Sometime between 1921-22 Veer Savarkar completed his historic book “Essentials of Hindutva” while still in Andamans. This was later published under the pseudo name ‘A Mahratta’.
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India’s Rebirth
By Shree Aurobindo
I write, not for the orthodox, nor for those who have discovered a new orthodoxy,Samaj or Panth, nor for the unbeliever. I write for those who acknowledge reason but do not identify reason with Western Materialism; who are sceptics but not unbelievers; who, admitting the claims of modern thought, still believe in India. her mission, her gospel, her immortal life and her eternal rebirth.
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Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati – Pioneer in the movement for the education of the child-widow of India
By Clementina Butler
A widow without resources, a Hindu widow burdened with the handicap of religious fanaticism and superstition which weighed down any aspirations for betterment, and hedged about in all avenues of effort, and yet a valiant spirit which, recognizing a vision and a command, went forth for its fulfillment. This was Pandita Ramabai, the courageous soul who first saw the crying need of the child-widow, who realized the economic loss to the nation of setting apart a great class by ostracism to enforced inaction; the one who realized the right of the child to live, to work, and to have development of her powers in spite of the supposed curse of the gods upon her life.
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The Indian war of Independence
By Vinayak Damodar Savarkar – 1909
The Indian War of Independence is an Indian nationalist history of the 1857 revolt by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar that was first published in 1909.[1] The book, initially written in Marathi, was penned by Savarkar in response to celebrations in Britain of the 50th anniversary of the 1857 Indian uprising. The book, which describes the 1857 revolt as a unified and national uprising of India as a nation against British authority,[4] was seen at the time as highly inflammatory, and the Marathi edition was banned in British India even before its publication. The Indian War of Independence is considered to be an influential work in Indian history and nationalist writing.
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Prophets of new India – Ramkrishna Paramhans & Vivekananda
B Romain Rolland, translated by E.F Malcolm Smith – 1930
Too little is known of Indian thought in the West. May others share the experience of the Translator, and discover through these pages that the great thinkers of the earth are essentially brothers. Conditions may differ widely at the foot or up the slopes of the mountains, but above are the shining tablelands, to which our God Himself is moon and sun.
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Rabindranath Tagore – A biographical study
By Ernest Rhys
An interesting study of the Nobel Price winner by an admirer._””Mr.. Rhys brings a trained critical mind to his task, and gives us sympathetic interpretations of the poet’s varied work, and the reaction of the European mind, to a new voice from the East.”” N.Y. TIMES ILLUS.
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The Life of Dr. Anandabai Joshee – A kinswoman of the Pundita Ramabai
By Mrs. Caroline Healey Dall – 1888
Anandibai was born as Yamuna, in Kalyan of the Thane district in present-day Maharashtra, to an orthodox Hindu family. Her family used to be landlords in Kalyan but lost their economic wealth. As was the practice at that time, Yamuna was married at the age of nine to Gopalrao Joshi, a widower almost twenty years her senior. Gopalrao was a progressive thinker, and supported education for women, which was not very prevalent in India at the time. She was the first female of Indian origin to study and graduate with a degree in medicine in the United States.
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The Life of Lokamanya Tilak
By D.V. Athalye
Foreword by Chittaranjan Das – It is difficult for me to say anything about the late Lokamanya, as I feel overwhelmed whenever I think of his greatness. Yet his greatness was so simple. No analysis of his genius or character is possible because of that very simplicity. I confess I cannot analyze his greatness ; I can only say what has been said from a thousand platforms in India that he was a man of whom India is proud.
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The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore
By Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The book explains itself. The popularity of the writings of Sir Rabindranath Tagore shows that there is neither East nor West in the realm of spirit, and that his work meets a general want and satisfies a universal demand. What is the demand, and how it is met, are questions which I have tried to answer in this book.
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The discovery of India
By Jawaharlal Nehru
The Discovery of India was written by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru during his imprisonment in 1942–46 at Ahmednagar fort in Maharashtra, India. The Discovery of India is an honor paid to the rich cultural heritage of India, its history and its philosophy as seen through the eyes of a patriot fighting for the independence of his country. The book is widely considered one of the finest modern works on Indian history.
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The story of my experiments with truth
By Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
The Story of My Experiments with Truth is the autobiography of Mohandas K. Gandhi, covering his life from early childhood through to 1921. It was written in weekly instalments and published in his journal Navjivan from 1925 to 1929. Its English translation also appeared in installments in his other journal Young India. It was initiated at the insistence of Swami Anand and other close co-workers of Gandhi, who encouraged him to explain the background of his public campaigns.
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Young India
By Lala Lajpatrai Rai
In this book Lala Lajpat Rai describes the political situation of the country as it was in 1915 and a history of freedom struggle before 1915. This book is very helpful in understanding true nature and contribution of different freedom fighters of India.
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Eight months campaign against the Bengal sepoy army
By colonel Gorge Bourchier – 1858
The notes in this book that were originally intended for private circulation only were taken just as opportunity could be snatched from more important duties. The details for siege of Delhi have been taken from major Norman’s journal. Much other information has been gleaned from public dispatches. Account of mutiny at Cawnpore has been given by Mr Sherer.
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Gadar Lehar di Kahani
By Jaiteg Singh Anant
The Ghadar Mutiny, also known as the Ghadar Conspiracy, was a plan to initiate a pan-Indian mutiny in the British Indian Army in February 1915 to end the British Raj in India. The plot originated at the onset of the First World War, between the Ghadar Party in the United States, the Berlin Committee in Germany, the Indian revolutionary underground in British India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The incident derives its name from the North American Ghadar Party, whose members of the Punjabi Sikh community in Canada and United States were one of the most prominent participants in the plan.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 1
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
It was not without much hesitation that I undertook to write this narrative of the events, which have imparted so painful a celebrity to the years 1857-58, and left behind them such terrible remembrances. Publicly and privately I had been frequently urged to do so, before I could consent to take upon myself a responsibility, which could not sit lightly on any one capable of appreciating the magnitude of the events themselves and of the many grave questions which they suggested. If, indeed, it had not been that, in course of time, I found, either actually in my hands or within my reach, materials of history such as it was at least improbable that any’ other writer could obtain, I should not have ventured upon so difficult a task.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 2
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
When the first volume of this book was published, I had little expectation that the second would be so long in course of completion, as the result has shown it to have been. In truth, I had not measured aright the extent of the work before me. But when I came to take account of the wealth of my materials, and to reflect upon the means of converting them into history, I saw clearly that the task I had undertaken was a more arduous and perplexing one than I had originally supposed.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 3
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
In offering this volume to the public I take the opportunity of stating that I have re-read and re-examined all the documents and authorities on which the first edition was based ; and that, while I have found it impossible to change the opinions then recorded with respect to any one phase of the history or any one individual therein mentioned I have re-written many passages which seemed obscure, and have added notes on all points, the meaning of which might be misinterpreted. If I may judge from the criticisms which appeared on the previous editions, there were but two matters on which any difference of opinion really existed.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 4
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
The present volume narrates the story of the storming of Delhi, the subsequent clearing of the country in the vicinity of that city, and the march to Agra and Kanhpur. It proceeds then to deal with Sir Colin Campbell’s journey from Calcutta to Kanhpur ; his relief of the garrison of Lakhnao ; and his safe escort of the women and children of that garrison to Kanhpur. It devotes then a chapter to the attack of the Gwaliar contingent on that central point, and to Windham’s consequent action ; another, to Colin Campbell’s reply to their daring aggression. Narrating, then, the movements of the several columns of Walpole and Seaton, and of the main body under Sir Colin, in the North-West ; the action of the Nipal troops under Jang Bahadur ; and of the columns under Rowcroft and Franks in the Azamgarh district and in eastern Oudh ; it proceeds to describe the four months’ defence of the Alambagh by the illustrious Outram ; then, the last movements which preceded Sir Colin’s attack on Lakhnao; then, the storming of that city.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 5
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
The present volume concludes the history of purely military events of the great Indian uprising of 1857. The question whether that uprising was simply a military mutiny, or a revolt of which that military mutiny constituted the prominent feature, was debated keenly at the time, and is to this day as warmly contested. In the concluding chapter of this volume I have endeavored to throw some light on the dispute, by the simple process of tracing effect to its cause.
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India mutiny of 1858 vol 6
By Kayes and Mallesons – 1888
In tiled original edition of this work I attached to the fifth — in that styled the third—volume an account in detail of the events of the Mutiny in five civil districts. There was no special reason why five districts only should be selected, and my publishers yielded readily to a suggestion I made them that in this complete edition, a short sketch should be given of the occurrences in other civil stations in which mutiny was rampant. I have endeavored to accomplish this task amid many difficulties, for during the ten years which have elapsed since the first edition appeared, many of the actors have been removed, leaving no journals and no record of the scenes through which they passed. The reader, however, will, I think, find in this volume much information, which, if not altogether new, is now, for the first time, allotted its proper place in a history of the Mutiny.
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Main nastik kyon hoon
By Bhagat Singh (In Hindi)
Baba Randhir Singh, a freedom fighter, was in Lahore Central Jail in 1930-31. He was a God-fearing religious man. It pained him to learn that Bhagat Singh was a non-believer. He somehow managed to see Bhagat Singh in the condemned cell and tried to convince him about the existence of God, but failed. Baba lost his temper and said tauntingly: You are giddy with fame and have developed and ago which is standing like a black curtain between you and the God. It was in reply to that remark that Bhagat Singh wrote this article.
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Mutiny Memoirs
By Col A R Mackinzee – 1891
In jotting down the reminiscences and sketches contained in the following pages, my aim is to record simply and truthfully certain episodes of a stirring period of Indian military history. Englishmen can never cease to be interested in the story of the great Sepoy Mutiny and I trust that even so modest a contribution as mine to the narrative of some of its details may not be considered superfluous.
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Freedom at Mid night
By Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre – 1975
It describes events around Indian independence and partition in 1947-48, beginning with the appointment of Lord Mountbatten of Burma as the last viceroy of British India, and ending with the death and funeral of Mahatma Gandhi.
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History Of The Freedom Movement In India Vol 1
by R C Majumdar
This is a magnum opus by R C Majumdar on the freedom movemement. An absolute classic and must read. Vol. I: Preface. I. Sporadic outbursts against British rule: 1. Establishment of British rule. 2. The condition of the people. 3. Early reactions against British rule: A. Bengal. B. Other parts of India. 4. Early movements for driving out the British. 5. Discontent and disaffection. 6. Resistance against the British. 7. The outbreak of 1857-8. 8. Anti-British outbreaks after 1858. II. Indian nation in making: 1. The impact of western culture. 2. Birth of Indian nationalism. 3. Development of political ideas and organizations (1858-85). 4. The Indian National Congress. 5. The nationalist movement in politics. 6. Muslim politics. Appendix: History of the history of freedom movement in India.
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History Of The Freedom Movement In India Vol 2
by R C Majumdar
This is a magnum opus by R C Majumdar on the freedom movemement. An absolute classic and must read. Vol. II: Preface. III. The era of nationalism: 1. The partition of Bengal. 2. The Swadeshi movement. 3. Split in the Congress. 4. Muslim politics. 5. British politics. 6. Militant nationalism. 7. Home rule movement. 8. Revolutionary activities. 9. Repression and reforms. Index.
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History Of The Freedom Movement In India Vol 3
by R C Majumdar
This is a magnum opus by R C Majumdar on the freedom movemement. An absolute classic and must read. Vol. III: Preface. IV. The struggle for freedom—1919-1945 non-co-operation and civil disobedience: 1. The year 1919. 2. The Khilafat agitation. 3. The non-co-operation movement. 4. Political events (1921-1928). 5. British attitude towards India. 6. The civil disobedience movement. 7. Revival of revolutionary activities. 8. Indian politics (1934-37). 9. The Second World War and Indian politics. 10. Subhas Bose and the Indian National Army (I.N.A.). V. The achievement of freedom: 1. Negotiations for settlement. 2. Freedom and partition of India.
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The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857
by R C Majumdar
This volume by the RC Majumdar brings an Indian (sometimes called “”nationalist””) view to bear on the events of 1857. The name “”mutiny”” is avoided; RCM prefers to call it the “”great outbreak”” (pages xv, 394, 481).At one point he quotes from a diary on the “”siege of delhi””, how indians awaiting punishment were tortured: “”The hair on their heads were pulled by bunches, their bodies were pierced by bayonets””… but says in his foot note how he has “”not been able to secure a copy of the book and the quotation was given on the authority of Savarkar.
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