In response to Ravishankar’s question on how these versions of history could be sanitised, Sanyal said that history has to be written using primary evidence to prove that the current official version isn’t true. “This doesn’t mean I am advocating a change in textbooks,” he said. As an example, he highlighted that though the Indian National Congress indeed led the freedom struggle, the Gandhi-Nehru family weren’t the sole contributor, pointing to revolutionaries like Subhas Chandra Bose, who was once elected as Congress president, pointing to revolutionaries like Subhas Chandra Bose, who was once elected as Congress president.Sanyal further alleged that attempts to incorporate the contributions of revolutionaries in Indian history had been curtailed. In the 1950s, he claimed, famous historian RC Majumdar had been deputed to write the official history of India’s freedom struggle, but he was thrown out after his first draft had detailed the role played by revolutionaries. Sanyal also highlighted the physical erasure of sites significant to revolutionary history. He noted that the Cellular Jail in the Andamans and the Delhi Central Jail—where many revolutionaries were incarcerated—were demolished. The site of the Delhi Central Jail now houses Maulana Azad Medical College.When an audience member asked about the underrepresentation of South Indian freedom fighters, Sanyal encouraged him to become a historian and write about such topics and said that a lot of material was now available online. He also invoked the role played by the Maruthupandi brothers in the fight against the Britishers and spoke about VVS Aiyar, an associate of VD Savarkar.
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