It is an oft-spoken adage that history is written by the rulers, for the rulers; with its custodians’ bias, it becomes a sort of illegitimate account, spoken by unreliable narrators. The history of India’s freedom struggle is no different. While it is by no means an account only of the ‘primary’ ruling class’ views – the British’s – it is still one composed by those who saw themselves in the power of a newly independent India, leaving much room for obscuring the histories of those who did not conform with the ‘secondary’ ruling class: the emergent political mainstream.
Kavitha Rao’s Spies, Lies and Allies (Westland, `499) is an account of two such individuals – Virendranath Chattopadhyay and MN Roy – whose views led them to paths divergent from the ‘popular’ freedom struggle. History, simply put, chose to forget them.
Both Chattopadhyay and Roy, fervent revolutionaries in the struggle, were not exactly diminutive figures in their own right. Roy is credited with the founding of the Communist Party of India, effectively being the harbinger of Marxism in the country; Chattopadhyay, who was a devoted communist as well, is unfortunately known best for being the brother of Sarojini Naidu. Rao, whose book invites the reader on an exciting journey beyond a simple historical tract, explains her choice of these two figures as the centre of her book, saying, “I have always wanted to write exciting non-fiction that reads like fiction. I realised that Chatto and Roy had incredibly thrilling lives. They fled all across Europe, America and Mexico in search of money and arms for the Indian independence movement, pursued by British intelligence. I also found it immensely tragic that Chatto was Sarojini Naidu’s brother, but had been erased from public memory. So too had Roy, though less so. I felt like their stories had to be told in a book accessible to everybody, not just scholars.”
Rao being based out of London, most of the research for the book had to be carried out in England. “It was basically an archival book, by which I mean I had to rely on memoirs, letters, newspaper reports and so on. The families of these two men had no recollection. So most of the research was done in the British Library in London,” she notes. While one might raise an eyebrow contemplating the authenticity of British material regarding India’s freedom struggle, Rao assures, “The British Library has Indian resources. My sources were mostly Indian and included Roy’s memoir, Harindranath Chattopadhyay’s books, Nirode Barooah’s biography of Chatto and Sibnarayan Ray’s biography of Roy. I did use the accounts of some British and American journalists as well for balance.”
The fundamental force behind communism is solidarity and a shared belief in inculcating empathy. Chatto and Roy, both too sharp for the mainstream struggle, reaped the opposite of what they sowed and saw themselves abandoned by those they considered their closest allies. It is easy to wonder how they must have coped with this abandonment; as Rao responds, “It’s hard to tell, but I think they were resigned to it. Chatto certainly displayed a certain fatalism as his death approached in the Soviet Union, having nowhere else to go. He also was not willing to temper his views on Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress. Roy too realised that he was too much of an individualist and maverick for the Comintern, and then later for the Congress.”
The strongest elements of Rao’s book perhaps lies in its allyship with those that burnt brighter – even if shorter – than most. “They failed with courage and integrity and also did not get fair credit for their work. It is immensely important to study the men and women who did not follow the Gandhian path and were therefore forgotten,” says Rao.