Waiting for Swaraj
Inner Lives of Indian Revolutionaries

This book is an exploration of the rich, variegated, and intimate history of revolution as praxis.

Aparna Vaidik (Author)

9781108838085, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 September 2021

240 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.45 kg

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.

Prologue: the Intrepid Baharupiya
1. The Revolutionary-Who-Waits
2. Satyagrahi to Krantikari
3. Between Inquilab and Kranti
4. The Ascetic Kaalyoddha
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: National liberation & independence, post-colonialism [HBTR], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Asian history [HBJF]