{"product_id":"rebels-against-the-raj-isbn-9781101874837","title":"Rebels Against the Raj","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn extraordinary history of resistance and the fight for Indian independence—the little-known story of seven foreigners to India who joined the movement fighting for freedom from British colonial rule.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRebels Against the Raj\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of seven people who chose to struggle for a country other than their own: foreigners to India who across the late 19th to late 20th century arrived to join the freedom movement fighting for independence from British colonial rule.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOf the seven, four were British, two American, and one Irish. Four men, three women. Before and after being jailed or deported they did remarkable and pioneering work in a variety of fields: journalism, social reform, education, the emancipation of women, environmentalism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book tells their stories, each renegade motivated by idealism and genuine sacrifice; each connected to Gandhi, though some as acolytes where others found endless infuriation in his views; each understanding they would likely face prison sentences for their resistance, and likely live and die in India; each one leaving a profound impact on the region in which they worked, their legacies continuing through the institutions they founded and the generations and individuals they inspired.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThrough these entwined lives, wonderfully told by one of the world’s finest historians, we reach deep insights into relations between India and the West, and India’s story as a country searching for its identity and liberty beyond British colonial rule.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker \u003c\/i\u003eBest Book of the Year\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Insightful… Captivating… Guha’s previous works have distinguished him as an exceptional chronicler of India’s modern history. His latest volume provides fresh perspectives on the independence struggle that will appeal to those seeking more obscure eyewitness accounts. And since the book’s main figures were born outside of India, \u003ci\u003eRebels Against the Raj\u003c\/i\u003e may strike a chord with contemporary outsiders who themselves have been seduced by India’s history and culture.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Samir Puri, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mr Guha’s new book [is] a reminder of how many outsiders held (and hold) deep affection for India and its democratic cause... The stories of his seven subjects—four men and three women—are deftly interwined... Mr Guha does not overstate the role of these foreigners... His account does not change the broad narrative of how Indians won freedom for themselves. Its real point is as much about the future as the past—an argument for the tolerant, outward-looking country India could once again become.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Economist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Fascinating and provocative reading... Guha organizes his material expertly and presents it clearly and stylishly, illuminating an aspect of Raj history which is often forgotten or neglected but which is nonetheless crucial... This superb book... add[s] a new dimension to the histories both of subject India and of imperial Britain – and [is] a thoroughly good read.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Bernard Porter, \u003ci\u003eThe Literary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In an age of bigotry and narrow nationalisms, Ramachandra Guha’s new book is a welcome reminder that people’s opinions, passions and life’s work do not have to be dictated by their ethnic identities or their countries of birth.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Victor Mallet, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Guha has done well to remind us of these forgotten stories, all the more as India, like much of the world, is becoming more xenophobic and intolerant, believing all the virtues lie within national frontiers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mihir Bose, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eIrish Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Told through the lives of seven emigrants from the West who devoted themselves to India, the book offers a novel perspective of India’s fight for independence, from early in British rule through holding post-independence rulers to account…. For those looking for a new perspective on India’s fight for independence and beyond, and what drives people to devote their life and freedom to a cause not their own.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Compelling minibiographies of a group of fighters for Indian independence who were born outside India but were fiercely devoted to the cause... An inspiring education tool for those researching India and nonviolent independence movements.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Guha’s elegantly written group portrait ably conveys the passion and idealism of the Gandhian independence movement and its hold over the Western imagination.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eRAMACHANDRA GUHA has taught at Yale and Stanford universities, the University of Oslo, the Indian Institute of Science, and the London School of Economics. His books include \u003ci\u003eGandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948, Gandhi Before India\u003c\/i\u003e (a 2014 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book and a \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year), and the award-winning \u003ci\u003eIndia After Gandhi\u003c\/i\u003e. He has written on social and political issues for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, \u003c\/i\u003eand for the British and Indian press, including columns in the \u003ci\u003eDaily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eHindustan Times.\u003c\/i\u003e He lives in Bangalore, India.\u003cbr\u003e Chapter  1\u003cbr\u003eMothering  India\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  the  year  1893,  three  Indians  destined  for  greatness  made  their mark in countries outside India. In April of that year, Mohandas K. Gandhi enrolled as a lawyer at the Natal Bar, en route to becoming the leader of the Indian community in South Africa and in time the leader of the freedom movement in his homeland. In July 1893, his fellow  Kathiawari,  Kumar  Shri  Ranjitsinhji  (always  known  as ‘Ranji’), played for Cambridge versus Oxford in the annual University Match  at  Lord’s,  en  route  to  becoming  the  first  great  cricketer  of Indian origin. In September of that year, Swami Vivekananda made a  stirring  speech  in  the  World  Parliament  of  Religions  at  Chicago, en route to becoming the authoritative voice of a Hindu Renaissance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese  overseas  debuts,  all  in  the  same  year,  were  intimations  of much more than personal fame. They presaged three different ways in which Indian culture was to profoundly impact the world. Gandhi’s leadership of the freedom movement inspired anti-colonial struggles across  Asia  and  Africa,  as  well  as  movements  for  racial  justice  in North America. Ranji’s success on the playing fields of England was the forerunner of the emergence of cricket as India’s national sport, and  of  India  as  the  epicentre  of  world  cricket.  Swami  Vivekananda blazed the trail for other Indian seers and prophets to travel overseas, taking their ideas with them. The subsequent spread of Hindu spirit-uality and of the practice of yoga across the world, owe their distant origins  to  that  famous  speech  made  by  the  Swami  in  Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a striking juxtaposition, even as Gandhi, Ranji and Vivekananda were seeking to take their ideas and expertise outside India, a Western woman  was  making  the  reverse  journey,  bringing  her  ideas  and  (as it  were)  expertise  to  India.  For  it  was  also  in  1893  that  the  first  of our  renegades,  Annie  Besant,  arrived  on  these  shores.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs  Besant  (as  she  was  usually  known)1 was  born  Annie  Wood in  London  on  1  October  1847.  She  was  three-quarters  Irish.  Her father,  a  doctor  who  went  into  the  City,  died  when  she  was  five. Annie  was  brought  up  by  her  mother  and  a  wealthy  aunt.  As  a teenager, she travelled with her aunt in Germany and France, while reading  widely  and  learning  the  piano.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  young  (and  talented)  Annie  was  courted  by  a  Cambridge-educated  priest  named  Frank  Besant.  They  married  in  December 1867, and moved to Cheltenham, where Frank had a job as a teacher. The bored housewife wrote short stories while having two children –  a  boy  and  a  girl  –  in  quick  succession.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy  1871  –  merely  four  years  into  the  marriage  –  Annie  and  Frank had  begun  to  quarrel.  The  next  year  she  became  interested  in Nonconformism,  before  moving  on  further  afield,  to  atheism.  In September  1873  the  couple  separated,  each  keeping  one  child.  Annie was now living in London, spending long hours in the British Museum, reading  Darwin,  Spinoza,  John  Stuart  Mill  and  the  like.  In  August 1874 she heard the legendary atheist Charles Bradlaugh speak for the first  time.  He  was  forty;  she,  just  twenty-six.  Soon  Annie  became  an active member of Bradlaugh’s National Secular Society. Before the year was out, she was speaking from its platforms, and making a name as an  orator.  With  Bradlaugh  she  travelled  up  and  down  the  country, speaking on secularism, science, and the rights of women. Her mentor was  a  famous  public  speaker,  but  his  young  protégée  was  not  far behind, being described in the provincial press as ‘a lady of refinement [and]  genius’  with  a  ‘matchless  power  of  reasoning  and  eloquence’.2Audiences were not always so generous; at several places the duo were heckled  by  devout  churchmen  and  even  had  stones  thrown  at  them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnder  Bradlaugh’s  influence,  Annie  became  a  fervent  republican, opposed  to  imperialism  and  all  its  works.  In  1876  she  organized  a petition  to  oppose  the  Prince  of  Wales’s  forthcoming  trip  to  the subcontinent. She got more than 100,000 people to sign the petition, which,  almost  a  mile  in  length,  was  presented  to  the  House  of Commons.  (The  Prince’s  trip  went  ahead  regardless.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  1877  Mrs  Besant’s  first  book  appeared,  a  collection  of  her essays  called My  Path  to  Atheism.  She  was  now  seriously  studying religious texts, all the better to refute them. Her critical gaze began turning  Eastwards,  as  she  read  books  on  Buddhism  and  Hinduism and  the  religions  of  ancient  Egypt.  A  newer  faith  that  came  to  her notice  was  Theosophy,  a  mystical  movement  begun  by  a  Russian émigrée  called  Madame  Blavatsky  and  her  American  associate Colonel  H.  S.  Olcott.  Apart  from  the  United  States,  Blavatsky  also found  disciples  in  Ceylon  and  in  India,  where  her  Theosophical Society  had  purchased  a  large  and  beautiful  tract  of  land  on  the banks  of  the  Adyar  river  in  Madras.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCulturally as well as geographically, India was vital to the devel-opment of Theosophy. Mrs Blavatsky spoke of being in communion with  spiritual  masters  in  the  Himalaya.  She  was  inspired  by  the Bhagavad Gita and by the works of the great Oxford Sanskritist F. Max Mueller, and herself visited India in 1879–80. Among the early converts to Theosophy was Allan Octavian Hume, the ornithologist and  reformist  civil  servant  who  helped  found  the  Indian  National Congress.  As  one  historian  of  Theosophy  has  written:  ‘India, Blavatsky  maintained,  was  the  source  of  all  human  knowledge. Everything  the  Egyptians,  Phoenicians,  Jews,  Greeks  and  Romans knew,  they  had  learned  from  the  Indians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnnie  Besant’s  own  first  impressions  of  Theosophy  were  under-whelming.  In  an  article  of  1882  she  dismissed  it  as  ‘a  dreamy, emotional, scholarly, interest in the religio-philosophic fancies of the past’.4 She was herself now moving rapidly to the Left, befriending Karl  Marx’s  disciple  (and  future  son-in-law)  Edward  Aveling  and the  socialist  playwright  George  Bernard  Shaw.  The  playwright  had great  affection  and  admiration  for  Mrs  Besant,  for  her  intelligence and  force  of  character,  and  especially  her  oratorical  skills.  Of  one public  debate  where  he  had  to  take  the  podium  after  her,  Shaw wrote  that  when  a  speaker  on  the  other  side  had  finished,  ‘Mrs Besant  got  up  and  utterly  demolished  him.  There  was  nothing  left to  do  but  gasp  and  triumph  under  her  shield.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1885 Mrs Besant joined the Fabian Society, and threw herself into  socialist  causes,  leading  marches  of  underpaid  workers  and craftsmen.  In  1888,  Theosophy  entered  her  life  once  more.  Sent  a book  by  Madame  Blavatsky  to  review,  she  was  drawn  to,  indeed enchanted  by,  its  contents,  writing  in  her  autobiography  of  how \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eas  I  turned  over  page  after  page  the  interest  became  absorbing;  but how  familiar  it  seemed;  how  my  mind  leapt  forward  to  presage  the conclusions,  how  natural  it  was,  how  coherent,  how  subtle,  and  yet how intelligible. I was dazzled, blinded by the light in which disjointed facts were seen as part of a mighty whole, and all my puzzles, riddles, problems,  seemed  to  disappear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs  Besant  asked  to  meet  the  author  of  the  book.  The  meeting took  place  in  a  house  in  London,  where  Mrs  Blavatsky  –  a  large, corpulent  figure  dressed  in  black,  with  her  head  covered  and  her piercing  eyes  looking  out  –  ‘talked  of  travels,  of  various  countries, easy  brilliant  talk,  her  eyes  veiled,  her  exquisitely  moulded  fingers rolling  cigarettes  incessantly’.  One  meeting  was  enough  to  convert the  once  sceptical  Irishwoman,  and  two  months  later  Mrs  Besant was  formally  inducted  as  a  member  of  the  Theosophical  Society, kneeling  before  Madame  Blavatsky  and  receiving,  through  her,  the blessings  of  the  Himalayan  Masters  she  claimed  to  communicate with.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Mrs Besant joined the Theosophical Society, its three aims were: ‘To found a Universal Brotherhood without distinction of race or  creed;  to  forward  the  study  of  Aryan  literature  and  philosophy; to investigate unexplained laws of nature and the psychical powers latent  in  man.’  (The  second  aim,  with  its  unfortunate  racial  tinge, was  later  modified  to  mean  the  study  of  comparative  religion.)  By June 1889, the middle-aged convert was writing essays for Lucifer, the magazine of the Theosophical Society. In the same year, Mohandas Gandhi, then a law student in London, was writing a series of essays for  the  journal  of  the  Vegetarian  Society  of  London.  The  young Gandhi  was  becoming  increasingly  interested  in  Theosophy,  and almost  certainly  attended  a  series  of  lectures  that  Annie  Besant delivered in August 1889, of which Lucifer remarked that ‘the Hindu gentlemen who were present, conspicuous by their quiet mien, nodded their  frequent  approval  in  silent  but  significant  manner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn her early years as a Theosophist Mrs Besant retained her interest in socialist causes. However, after Madame Blavatsky’s death in May 1891, she ‘perceived she had a higher mission’. She undertook three lecture tours in the United States in quick succession, her words and her  energy  leading  to  her  being  hailed  by  the Chicago  Tribune as ‘the most prominent theosophist of the day .  .  . on whom the mantle of  Madame  Blavatsky  has  fallen. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  moving  spirits  of  the  Theosophical  Society,  Colonel  Olcott and  C.  W.  Leadbeater,  wanted  Mrs  Besant  –  at  this  time  regarded ‘as the greatest speaker of her sex in either Europe or America’9 – to tour India, where, they thought, the growing English-speaking middle class could provide ready converts to this hybrid faith, which (unlike Christianity) treated Hinduism with respect. Mrs Besant herself was extremely  keen  to  visit  the  land  where  her  teacher’s  own  teachers were believed to reside. On 20 September 1892 she sailed from New York to London, and, after a brief halt there, carried on to Marseilles, where she took the steamer Kaiser-i-Hind, bound for Colombo. The plan was for a brief, six-week tour of Ceylon and India in the cold weather,  following  which  she  would  return  to  England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  stayed  forty  years.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300753592549,"sku":"NP9781101874837","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781101874837.jpg?v=1767735501","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/rebels-against-the-raj-isbn-9781101874837","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}