The struggle for true freedom | Sagari Chhabra

In my bedroom hangs a black and white photograph of Achint Ram, handcuffed with his feet in shackles. He was fighting for India’s freedom from the British. He was also Sukhdev’s taaya – father’s elder brother - and had raised Sukhdev as a child, as the latter’s father died when he was only a child of three. Sukhdev along with Bhagat Singh and Rajguru had been hanged by the British; they used their trial as a tool to ‘make the deaf hear’ as Bhagat Singh had famously remarked and indeed, it had resulted in a public outcry.

Today, I read in the newspapers that Indians - who are illegal immigrants - have been deported from the U.S and were ‘handcuffed and their legs were chained’. What a long journey and what have we come to? It is a crying shame that they have been treated so inhumanly, for everyone must be treated with dignity. However, we must ask ourselves while Achint Ram and Sukhdev were urging even compelling the British to leave India, why are Indians being handcuffed and chained today. They are fleeing India for economic reasons and unless all Indians have a right to work and unemployment benefits, we cannot call ourselves free. The struggle for true freedom continues.

Sometimes life gives you gifts that exceed your expectations and lasts for several lifetimes beyond one’s own mortal lifespan. It teaches one of the miracle of life; the wonderous gift of being born free because someone else sacrificed. The gift is also of being present with those who have been largely ignored and to listen to their stories. One of the greatest blessings of my life has been my meeting so many freedom fighters across India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar and to record the testimonies of their amazing contribution. It is ironical, that most of them went unacknowledged during their lifetime – the powers that be of free India chose to ignore them - yet, no one was bitter instead they looked back with joyous triumph at a great chance to do something for their motherland.

A treasure of my life is the letters that have been bequeathed to me that I hope to share with all of you, shortly. But I can not help but share a fragment of this valuable and timeless collection with you, gentle reader, right now because time is flying by!

Here is Sardarsinh Ravajibhai Rana, better known as S.R Rana writing in his own exquisite cursive hand from Paris in 1936. He writes to Mr Ketkar, that ‘Shyamji (Shyamji Krishan Varma, who founded the Indian Home Rule Society and the India House in London) never wrote a word to anybody without copying it in his book. I met him first in 1898 in London and used to meet him daily during my stay in London.’ S. R Rana writes that Varma due to his political work, ‘did not feel safe in London and shifted to Paris in 1907 just after the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai. Luckily, he left Paris before the War, or else he would have suffered as I did for five years. I was deported to the Island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea to return here in 1920’. The letter discusses scholarships for Indian students who were pledged to return to do two years of public service but we do know that India House was a place for Indian students to reside and simultaneously served as a hot underground centre for the freedom movement.

So very little is known about our women freedom fighters as we always silence and marginalize the contribution of women. However, on a letterhead, 56 Rue Lafayette, Paris dated 11th November 1937, S. R Rana writes again to Ketkar, ‘I met Madame Cama in 1903. Her brothers were my friends and used to come to Paris yearly on business, gradually we became friends. She lived with us during the exciting period of the partition of Bengal.

He reveals how she belonged to the ‘orthodox liberal party of the Congress – Dadabhai Naoroji, Phirozeshah Mehta, Gokhale but was converted to the new school of Indian politics presented by Shyamji Krishan Varma’. Varma published an open letter in the Indian Sociologist on the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh and he moved from London to Paris to preach the gospel of Indian independence.

Now Rana writes about how he and Madame Cama went as delegates to the International Socialist Congress held at Stuttgart, Germany in August 1908… It is here that a resolution for Indian independence was passed with Madame Cama making a speech and holding a flag of India in her hand’. He also notes that ‘Madame Cama was separated from her husband since 1902 and did not meet him when she returned to India. He was living with someone else. He also records that the flag was floating (sic) at the centre of the table during meetings with comrades … and that a medal was made on its lines…., which Madame Cama never left wearing even till her last breath in a Bombay hospital bed …despite jokes from her rich Parsi friends’.

Bhikaiji Cama went through immense personal pain, her husband was an imperialist lawyer on the side of the British but she chose to work for the freedom of India and separated from him, displaying exemplary courage in both her personal and political life. While her contribution is spectacular and she is a frontrunner for those times she remains largely forgotten today. While there is a business centre named after her in Delhi but the road signs bordering it are wrongly spelled - Bhikaji Kama! We do need to take our women freedom fighters as well as the contribution of our minorities more seriously, for where would free India be without them.

I also have a letter from Lakshmi Swaminathan, later Lakshmi Sahgal, the Commander of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. It is dated, 5th October 1944 – in the midst of the second World War! It is addressed to the other Ranis: Gauri, Cisey, Aruna, Maya, Rani, Lakshmi, Cameli, Rama and Prem Maya. She thanks them all for their letters and addresses them as her ‘bundar toli’ –- monkey brigade! Since Lakshmi had been dispatched to Maymyo in Upper Burma on the front where there was a hospital, I can only infer that these Ranis had written to her there. She writes in a cursive hand which is clear, bold and has a flourish, ‘I know that you all miss me, but I don’t think you are unhappy - & that is just as it should be – after all how can you be other than happy when you are living at the same place as our Netaji and also have such good dosts (friends) and … to entertain you with lovely music’. Some camaraderie this during war times while there was privation in rations and according to Gauri Bhattacharya later Gauri Sen, ‘air-raids during moonlit nights and carpet-bombing.’

I also have some letters that are very special because they are addressed to me personally from Janaky Thevar, the second person to command the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. She is the one who rescued the injured INA soldiers when the British bombed the Red Cross hospital, a war crime. She also led the Ranis along with Netaji in a grueling 21-day march through the jungles of Burma to Thailand, so they could return safely to their homes. She writes from her home in Titiwangsa in Kuala Lumpur, where I visited and recorded her several times in 2004 and she always treated me with great love and warmth, even presenting me a Malaysian housecoat. She writes on 5th November 2011, ‘Please tell me when you are sending me the book … regarding the Rani of Jhansi Regiment.’ She signs off God’s Blessings and Jai Hind Janaky Nahappan (Janaky Thevar). Unfortunately, the editor who grabbed the manuscript just sat on the book and Janaky Thevar Nahappan passed away without seeing her invaluable work placed on record, which is a shame. However, I hope to share these and much more with you shortly as their contribution is invaluable and an inspiration for generations to come.
The struggle for true freedom continues and we have to get rid of the cuffs and shackles.

(Author: Sagari Chhabra, award-winning author & filmmaker and director, Hamaara Itihaas Freedom archives)