15 people share their memories of India’s first Independence Day

The importance of documenting oral histories and personal stories is brought home by a recent release on independent India’s first hours as a free nation

Put it down to author and editor Veena Venugopal’s restlessness, or to her own family history, or to a conversation she had with her publisher Chiki Sarkar, but 365 days of all those combined factors led to a book, Independence Day: A People’s History released in time for India’s milestone 75th birthday.

For Venugopal, talking to Sarkar brought home the realisation that personal stories and narratives of an India about to be born as a free nation are simply missing from our bookshelves. These personal histories needed to be documented before “it was simply too late”. Venugopal got cracking on recording stories of India’s first Independence Day. It was a tall ask, given that India is celebrating its 75th year this month, and so many people who lived during that era have passed on. Casting her net far and wide, Venugopal made sure that she gathered stories from all over the country. The “ordinary citizens” that Venugopal was in search of had to be at least four or five years old in 1947, if not older, to have any memories of the days that preceded, and followed the momentous occasion.

Her first narrative was recorded with Kodaikanal-based Girija Viraraghavan who was born in 1939. Viraraghavan, a breeder of roses, also happens to be the granddaughter of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second president of India. Over a span of days, weeks and months, Venugopal tracked women and men who provide a varied experience of having witnessed history that encompasses the Partition experiences from both the West and East of the country, the Muslim experience, a Dalit woman’s story and perspectives that ranged across geographies, from Lahore to Madurai.

On 15 August 1947, there were approximately three hundred and fifty million Indians; Venugopal’s endeavour presents 15 stories from that time. Imagine how many more stories there are like this? Edited excerpts from an interview with Venugopal, on why writing this book has been such a moving experience for her.

Where did the germ for the book come from?

I was thinking of writing a book on the #MeToo movement in India, but somehow that project just didn’t go beyond a few interviews.

When Chiki and I talked about book ideas, India at 75 came up and I shared a crazy story about my family. And her response was, “I'm sure everybody will have stories like this”. We both realised personal histories about that time are a part of history that was not heard of, because it's not in the official textbooks. That's how the book began. I cast a wide net and started speaking to people. I don’t know whether it was a coincidence but I got some fantastic stories from the first three-four people I spoke to. And the realisation dawned that this is a project worth pursuing, because I was also learning so much that I did not know about myself. The stories themselves were so poignant, and given the time we are at, it felt already too late to write them because so many people have passed on. But leaving it for later would make it much worse.

How long did it take you from start to finish?

It took about a year. Though I wish I had started this two years ago.

Was identifying your subjects a tough task?

Identifying people was a large exercise because in order to get very good stories, you have to also hear some not-so-moving stories. What I noticed is that because all of these people were five, six years old at the time of Independence, the oldest would've been 17 or 18, which means they are in their nineties right now. And their memories were fading. What I found out is that people remember this being described to them by their parents. While they were present, they have no first-person active memory of many things. But they were “this happened and I'm sure my mother told me about this when I was 10 or 11.”

Finding the subject was hard in the sense of finding people who had credible memories. While it's easy to tap into any 80-year-old’s memories and ask them what happened, getting good stories was difficult.

So the first step was to cast a wide net and once I got a good mass of stories, I started looking for specific stories. I wanted to know what the Muslim experience of Partition and Independence was, what the Dalit experience was like, what a women’s perspective was, and so on.

Who was the first person you spoke to?

The first person I spoke to was Girija Viraraghavan, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s granddaughter. That led to several leads. I also spoke to Shoma Basu at The Hindu, in Madurai, and that threw up a lot of connections. My father was also trying to write about Madurai and its place in the Independence movement. I actually spoke to the nephew of the person who runs the Gandhi Museum in Madurai. His uncle was called ‘Madurai Gandhi’! We didn’t eventually carry the story because his memories were largely tied to his uncle rather than to the movement. There were a lot of stories that I did not use in the book, but which have sort of been great for me to listen to.

Which is the story you found the most moving?

Two stories, both on Partition. The Partition is such a dark event that it cannot be matched by anything else. After I wrote the accounts and sent them back to the subjects for vetting, I began the review and proofing process to reconcile the new version with the existing version to make sure that I made all the changes. I made my daughter scan the other copy just to ensure it was matching. There were several times that I broke down.

The Partition story is so stark that even today, I cannot read it without having to pause and think: how can anyone survive an experience like this and be a whole person soon after. The other story is that of the Bengal Partition, where there was no violence in Tarun Kumar Roy’s life but was teeming with a certain energy. I found it unbelievable that there were two Independence days. You woke up one morning and did not know which country you were going to be living in. These are dramas that one hasn’t read about in history books.

We know that the borders were sort of randomly drawn, but we don't really think about how it affects the common person living there. So while my favourites are these two stories, as they're both about the same event, I think they both have very different energies. This might sound a little unfair to the other stories because the Partition is such an event that it consumes everything else. I also liked the Saeed Naqvi account because he is such a scholar and was great fun to speak to, and with my Malayalee Hindi and his Lucknowi Urdu, it was quite a leap of understanding and education for me. While it's not a dramatic story, it was a story that I quite enjoyed.

Did you actually travel to meet all your subjects?

For some of the interviews, yes. And for some, it was not possible as the subjects are old and the COVID-19 pandemic was raging. More than once or twice a family member called me to request a telephonic interview owing to the safety factor. It would've been easier to speak to them face-to-face, but I was quite surprised with some of them being adept with the phone and wanting to do video calls. And here I was struggling with my recorder, phone and face! (laughs)

What also helps is that when you do that, there is a great temptation to bring myself into the story. This [talking on the phone, off-camera] helped me keep myself out of the story and I think the book is better for it.

Did your feelings change towards the country before, during and after you started the project?

It has made quite an impact on me, which I did not expect. I have been sort of jaded about the country in the last couple of years. In the last three years that I've not been a journalist, I've tried to switch myself off from the outrage-a-day, the economy and the political events. That is, be aware of them, but not really get involved in them because I felt like there is no break from them. If you go down that path, then you can do that all day, every day. I felt mentally checked out a bit, and it was in this frame of mind that I started the book, feeling sort of lost about the country.

Then I heard the stories, and the underlying thread for all [the subjects] was that they had hope.

When I'd ask questions like, what do you feel about the country now? Do you think all the sacrifices that you made were worth it? That sort of stunned them, that I would even ask that question. What I found is that they all felt hopeful about the country. They were like, you know what, 75 years old, we're a 5,000-year-old civilisation. This is a small blip in time. We may go off course for some time, but we always find our way back. That was very revealing for me.

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