May 29, 2002 09:34 AM
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(Updated May 29, 2002 09:34 AM)
It was at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 that India, after a long and strenuous struggle, hectic parleys between political leaders and intermittent riots between her people, finally won freedom. That red lettered day marked the end of the British rule and heralded the beginning of a new era. We became a free nation but that freedom was far from sweet, for the country was harshly torn into two pieces. It was also the day that marked the beginning of an unrelenting hatred, bitter relations and mutual distrust between India and Pakistan.
The book was written in 1976 by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, two famous historians turned writers also known for other famous works like “O Jerusalem!”, “Is Paris Burning?”, and more recently “Five minutes past Midnight” (based on the horrific Union Carbide tragedy at Bhopal in 1984). I had been putting off reading this book for a very long time under the excuse that it was another of those boring, lengthy and avoidable bio-epics. When I finally did start reading it, I almost kicked myself for not having read it earlier!
I was pleasantly surprised by how little I knew about my country and it’s freedom struggle on reading this book. The book begins with a preface by the authors who detail the basis of their compilation of facts and the hardships they had to face. Make no mistake, this is no fictional account based on past happenings. It’s a very arduous compilation of all the real life happenings that took place around the time India got her freedom.
The hardships encountered by the authors sinks in only when one considers the fact that they started writing the book in the early 1970’s and sewed all the incidents that happened more than 20 years before purely based on classified documents, confidential letters between world leaders and several interviews with thousands of people who had anything and everything to do within the echelons of power. These people were as mundane as the servants, bellboys and attendants to administrative personnel, politicians and bureaucrats in the Government to religious leaders to the soldiers in the army or just ordinary people on the streets.
If one has always wondered what actually led to the deep-rooted hatred between the two dominant religions and the subsequent partition of the country into two, this is the book to read. The authors do an excellent job of tracing the roots of the Indians, delve a little into their social and economic strata and chart out the way of life as it was in the mid 1900’s. A lot of it may seem unnecessary but it serves as an invaluable eye opener when one encounters the problems facing us today.
The book, for a major part, revolves around the incidents that took place from the time Lord Mountbatten reluctantly accepted his posting as the last Governor General of India till the time Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Reading the book will dispel a lot of misconceptions that most of us have – including the fact that the Britishers willfully partitioned the country into two as their wanton parting shot. What comes out in the book is something that transcends the unbelievable. It almost seems as though the authors were present at close quarters and privy to everything that happened behind the closed doors of power.
What ultimately led to the forceful granting of freedom was the greedy craving for power by our leaders at that time. No, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ever have got freedom. Simply put, the situation in the country was so fluid at that time that something of the magnitude of the riots that followed was bound to happen and everyone knew it. The Indians had been fighting for their freedom for years and nothing was going to stop or delay their wait further. Damn the outbreak of riots, the attitude was, “Let the riots happen. We are confident of controlling it within no time.”
Gandhiji and Lord Mountbatten were perhaps the only two people who truly recognized the fallout and dimension of the happenings that would follow the freedom. It was a tragically classic example of political aspirations taking precedence over harsh ground realities. The relentless lobbying for power, the cold wars between Nehru and Jinnah, the grandiose life styles of the Britishers and the Indian Maharaja’s, the amazing wealth that the Britisher’s “exported” back home, the secretive flirtations between Nehru and Lady Edwina Mountbatten – all are narrated with a great amount of precision and reliability. The style of narration is very smooth and is presented as though it were a motion picture being screened in front of our eyes.
The one portion of the book that will definitely appeal to all is the one that deals with the assassination of Gandhiji. The true-to-life description of the entire sequence of events, right from the time the seeds of hatred were sown in Nathuram Godse’s mind against India’s “Apostle of peace” till the time of the actual killing makes for an extremely engrossing reading. What’s more, the authors also do a commendable job in digging out lots of information that proves that had the Indian police been just a wee bit sincere in their duty, Gandhiji would have perhaps lived for a few years more.
Of all the hundreds of books that I’ve read so far, “Freedom at Midnight” is inarguably the best I’ve come across. What makes it an engrossing read is its narration of real life incidents coupled with the divulgence of facts and events that every Indian ought to know. It is truly the ultimate chronicle of India’s freedom struggle and of the fortuitous destiny that was charted for it.
Pick it up without expecting another “Grishamian” or “Tom Clancian” potboiler and you won’t be disappointed. Trust me, this is one book that EVERY INDIAN ought to read in his/her lifetime.
