India's Struggle for Independence- The Gandhian Era: 1915-1948

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India's history is, at the same time, both fascinating and intriguing. Today, it is the second most populous country in the world with more than a billion people, occupying a land mass of only 2.4% of the world's total land area, with a diversity beyond one's comprehension. We have people professing/practising 8 major religions of the world, belonging to 1686 ethnic groups, speaking an estimated 1652 languages and dialects and divided into 3800 castes and communities. I do not think that any other country has such a vast diversity and long a heritage. Historians, Scientists, travellers and great thinkers have all been struck with awe by our country's contribution to the human race.

Albert Einstein said: "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made". Mark Twain said: "India is, the cradle of the human race, the birth place of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only".

French Scholar Romain Rolland said: "If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India". Lin Yutang said: "India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature and the world's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian nights, animal fables, chess as well as in Philosophy. India inspired Goethe, Herder, Emerson, Schopenhauer and perhaps, Aesop."

Therefore, writing the history of such a unique country and that too relating to the most crucial phase of its existence, is a daunting task. Both Dr. G. Balan and Dr. Justice P. Jyothimani, have done well in accomplishing this task.

"India's struggle for Independence - The Gandhian Era : 1915-1948" is a very unique book, through the pages of which, the second half of the life of Mahatma Gandhi and the country's struggle for independence unfold, in a manner that one reflects the glory of the other. The history of India is presented in this book by its authors Dr. G. Balan and Justice Dr. P. Jyothimani, by way of parallel narratives, in a very subtle manner, without any one narrative (freedom struggle) drowning the other (Gandhi's role and personality). What makes this book very interesting is that it gives us a glimpse of most of the important characters that had a role to play in shaping the freedom struggle of the country.

Both before and after the Indian National Congress passed a resolution seeking Purna Swaraj for India, many western scholars thought, believed and advocated that India was not one nation. In 1888, Sir John Strachey wrote that there was no Indian nation in the past and there will never be one in future.