What was India's freedom struggle about? : Looking back from India @75
CV Raman Auditorium, Lecture Hall Complex, IISER Pune
Abstract of the talk
The celebrations around the 75th year of India’s Independence seemed devoid of any recall of who and what it was the Indian people fought against to win freedom and Independence. It is now 76, but the additional year has added nothing by way of knowledge and education on the subject for younger generations. Official websites dedicated to the subject tell young readers nothing about what colonialism did to this country. Nor is there any debate on who won India its Independence. A bunch of returning Oxbridge elites? Or, as Gandhi observed, ‘the people themselves’?
About the speaker
P. Sainath is a veteran journalist and author who has covered the rural deprivation in India for the last several decades. As Amartya Sen stated "he is one of the great experts on famine and hunger". He started his journalistic career with the United News of India, and his last official stint was as the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu. In 2012, he was McGraw Professor of Writing at Princeton University. He has received a large number of awards for his work, notable among them being the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2007 for Journalism Literature and Creative Communications Arts, and Ramnath Goenka Journalist of the Year in 2007. He has authored two books, the latest one being The Lost Heroes : Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom recounting the story of ordinary Indians who fought against the British empire. He is the founder of People's Archive of Rural India (PARI) in 2014.
