Friday, June 03, 2005

The Freedom Struggle

After wading through quite a few books on Indian History, I finally found one that is immensely readable! It is almost as if Indian History authors are hell bent on writing their books as difficult to read as possible. "India's Struggle for Independance" by Bipan Chandra et al., is one book that will make you want to know what comes when you turn the page. The book is so well written, easy on the reader and written in a nice narrative style.

I was quite surprised to know that there are almost five different popular interpretations of the freedom struggle. The freedom movement is so recent in our history that one would think that it was very well know, understood and there would be agreement on what exactly happened. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There is the Imperialist school of thought, the Nationalist school, the New school, the Marxist school among quite a few others!Perhaps, our freedom movement is a subject of intense academic study.

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