Building a Free India Defining Speeches of Our Independence Movement That Shaped the Nation

DescriptionAs the Indian independence movement progressed-from the economiccritique of colonial rule by the early nationalists, to the unequivocal demandfor Purna Swaraj and the immense moral authority of the Mahatma Gandhiledresistance-the notion of an equal society that ensured dignity to all-irrespective of caste, class, gender or religion-came to occupy a centralplace in it. By the time the Constituent Assembly met in December 1946,not just civil rights, but the particular rights of women, of minorities, of theDepressed Classes and the Adivasis were being articulated and demanded,not as favours but as a matter of course. As the editor of this volume writes inhis brilliant introduction, the effect of the speeches delivered by the leadersof our national movement was to focus 'political action towards scripting anennobling nationalism that would give us a just and equal society'.Building a Free India brings together these landmark speeches delivered overroughly a century by the leading lights of the national movement-fromNaoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Bhikaiji Cama, Lajpat Rai and Tilak, toGandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Bose, Sarojini Naidu and Maulana Azad-as wellas a range of lesser-known but equally remarkable figures. This unprecedentedcollection is not only an invaluable history of our freedom movement butalso of the ideas of universal equality, dignity and justice that are-and mustalways remain-at the root of our democracy.