Waiting for Swaraj : the inner lives of Indian Revolutionaries

Set in British India of the 1920s, Waiting for Swaraj follows the cadence and tempo of the lives of the intrepid revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association and the Hindustan Republican Socialist Association who challenged the British Raj. It seeks to comprehend the revolutionaries' self-conception - what did it mean to be a revolutionary? How did a revolutionary live out the vision of revolution, what was their everyday like, did life in revolution transform an individual, what was their truth and how was it different from that of the others? The book locates the essence of being a revolutionary not just in the spectacular moments when the revolutionaries threw a bomb or carried out a political assassination, but in the everyday conversations, banter, anecdotes, and in the stray fragments of the life in underground. It demonstrates how 'waiting' was the crucible that forged a revolutionary. "Set in British India of the 1920s, Waiting for Swaraj follows the cadence and tempo of the lives of the intrepid revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association and the Hindustan Republican Socialist Association, two organizations that challenged the occupational forces of the time. This book seeks to comprehend the revolutionaries' self-conception and dwells on some of the key questions like: what makes a revolutionary? What did it mean to be a revolutionary? How did a revolutionary live out the vision of revolution? Did life in revolution transform an individual; what was their truth and how was it different from that of the others? It locates the essence of being a revolutionary not just in the spectacular moments when the revolutionaries threw a bomb or carried out a political assassination but studies them in everyday conversations, banter, anecdotes, and in the stray fragments of the life in underground. This book demonstrates how 'waiting' was the crucible that forged a revolutionary. It did so not by robbing the young men of the romance of resistance but by coddling, nurturing, and emboldening it. This monograph is an exploration of the rich, variegated, and intimate history of revolution as praxis. Moving away from a traditional model the author experiments with methodology and style of narration in Waiting for Swaraj. Written in lucid prose, it ambitions to appeal to a much wider audience beyond the academia"-- Provided by publisher This book contributes to a lively and burgeoning field of historical scholarship on the history of revolutionaries and revolutionary organizations in the Indian subcontinent. It reimagines the revolutionaries' self-conception and its relationship with time. Its narrative style will appeal to the specialists in the field, graduate students and general readers.