Saffron Swords

One chanced upon a book ‘Saffron Swords: Centuries of Indic Resistance to Invaders” (Garuda Publications:2019). The book is authored by Manoshi Sinha  Rawal and Yogaditya Sinha Rawal. The book does attract attention for the very reason of its title. It brings out the story of those numerous heroes and heroines that have Indic gallantry and resistance to those hordes of invaders dating back to the pre-Alexandrian days to the current. As one glances at the book, there is a reminder of the famous thesis put forth by Chris Anderson in an unrelated context, what he had called the Long Tail. Simply put, the Chris Anderson argues, the days of the Pareto rule are over. While some super-hit products continue to dominate shelves, the digital domain has given a fresh lease of life to those numerous niches which remain unavailable for lack of demand and thus costly to produce. It is not that there is no demand, but the demand is so diffused that it hardly makes sense for a producer to cater to those extreme niche markets.

History too is replete with similar analogies. History is a continuum yet a product of discrete events. At the centre of the events lie an individual. History is about the contextual actions of these individuals. Their actions might have defined the path the history would traverse yet with passage of time, the individual would lose the identity in the journey of time. there would however remain an individual or two whose exploits might be remembered for centuries, yet for each such individual, there are countless others who become nameless. There are events whose outcomes define the journey of a civilization yet what counts are the final outcomes. The wars are rarely won without damage. There are battles, perhaps one too many that the victor has to traverse. There are paths full of thorns that need to be covered. There are casualties, there are defeats yet what gets counted as one teaches history would be the final outcome. The trade-off between richness and the reach would obviously be skewed in favour of the decisive ending. As one looks back at history particularly of the last millennia or so, the skewness becomes visible. Neither Islam nor the British which followed it were able to win at a single shot. Neither their wins ensured complete and decisive control. The victors were rarely at peace. It must be remembered of all those who continue to fight for freedom and disturb the apparent victors seeking to savour their wins. The vagaries of time would diminish the identity of all those who sought to disturb the victor’s peaceful nights as they ventured in the quest for regaining freedom. It might be pointless to blame the text books alone. There are of course instances of tales of these victors being glorified and given justice in their respective regions. At the same time, there are many whose contributions have been forgotten by the history. The author’s contribution is exactly to bring these long lost heroes and heroines of history back to life and to memory.

To a purist interested in prose, the style might not appeal, but apparently there is a passion coming out across pages, the passion to tell stories. The stories are about those individuals who in their unique ways sought to make their mark in reclaiming their independence or even before, resisting so that their independence remains sacrosanct. The freedom struggle for the Indic civilization is not something of post 1757 construct as is popularly assumed. The freedom struggle dates back to a millennia or more. Maybe in popular memory, it could well be Porus to be first freedom fighter or maybe even before of those countless who have been lost to the tides of history. The book brings to life these soldiers of the Indic freedom struggle. The stories are fascinating. They might be brief but again that would apparently be an outcome of eternal trade-off between the length and breadth and the depth, or the trade-off between the reach and the richness. The digital domain would obviously incentivize into a permanent e-book of sorts wherein the chapters are constantly added.

There is without doubt, a fascination and awe when reading the accounts of each of those players who have defined what we know as India today. It might be Rampyari Gurjar resisting Taimur or it might be of Jhalkaribai of Jhansi impersonating as the Queen to allow Maharani Laxmibai to escape and continue her struggles. It might be a story of an unknown Yogi playing his role in the events of 1857 or Kuyili in the deep South becoming a human bomb to destroy the British ammunition dump. r It might be a twelve year old Baji Rout or an eighty four year old Roipulliani of Mizoram, the age did not matter when it came to protecting their rights. Their stories which lay forgotten or find themselves washed away in the tides of history find themselves alive as one goes through the book.

There are some stories of those fighters who are well known like VD Savarkar or Bhagat Singh or Chandrashekhar Azad. There are new dimensions to the stories as we know for instance, the Battle of Haldighati. There are stories long forgotten but slowly coming back into memory of rulers like Suheldeo. There is a new dimension to the Battle of Rajasthan of 738 AD. In fact, one of the injustices if it might be termed would be consigning this historic battle to sidelines in the history books of India. The battle has the same significance to India perhaps what battle of Vienna in 1683 or Battle of Tours of 732 AD have to the Christian and European civilization. This one single battle ensued the Islamic invasion was delayed by at least two centuries.

As one goes through the pages and relives history, it would be obvious these tales need to be popularized and spread wide. History is rarely best understood through text books. Whatever history one gets is through stories one reads and hears from elders in the family or through the books. Amar Chitra Katha or the Chandamama played the critical role in spreading Indian civilizational history. It needs to be taken further into animation, gaming, toys etc. as one presents these brave tales to the newer generations. The author promises further volumes on the way. Might be the heroic anecdotes of Vanaki Obavva of Chitradurga or Baba Saheb of Nargund might the place there as would be several others. Yet as pointed out in the very beginning, the number of actors would simply be so large that individuality gets lost into a collective identity and outcome. In the context, the physical book as we know it might itself be insufficient. As one prepares to venture into this long tail of history, maybe one should wonder the digital medium being explored further.