The years between 1900 and 1947 in British India were characterised by growing anti-colonial resistance and the increasing striving for independence. This manifested itself in different methods of struggle and corresponding forms of organisation, which exhibited a broad spectrum in terms of content and goals, regional and supra-regional anchoring and international networking. Some activists believed in the goodwill of the British colonial government and hoped to gain concessions for participation in the government or dominion status within the British Empire through appeals and petitions. Others wanted complete liberation from colonial rule, not someday but immediately or at least in the foreseeable future. People joined together to form groups and societies and founded parties in order to realise their respective goals. On the side of the colonial power, repression against any form of resistance was the main method of choice: stricter press censorship, bans on what they considered to be seditious thoughts and texts, persecution and arrest of activists, house arrest, deportation, long prison sentences and death sentences. Concessions were made where it seemed opportune. But it was all to no avail: on 15 August 1947, the British were forced to hand over power, leaving behind a divided subcontinent that threatened to sink into violence for months.

This book contains a selection of texts that were banned or censored during this period and bear witness to the authors’ criticism of and opposition to colonial rule. After a brief introduction to the aims and approach of the publication, the texts are organised in five parts, each covering ten years. In order to explain the context of the texts, there are preliminary remarks on the parts of varying length, whereby parts 1 and 2 as well as parts 4 and 5 are summarised. Each individual text is also preceded by a comment, which can range from three lines to several pages. Photos, book titles and original text extracts are printed in between. A four-page list with recommendations for further reading concludes the volume.

Among the authors of the texts are such well-known personalities as B.G. Tilak, V.D. Savarkar, S. Krishnavarma, Aurobindo, Har Dayal, M.K. Gandhi, Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, B.C. Vohra, S.C. Bose, J.P. Narayan; as well as lesser-known authors and anonymous writings. The text types are varied: newspaper articles, book excerpts, pamphlets, handbills/flyers, poems, circulars, songs, letters, posters, brochures, a postcard and a statement, sometimes complete, sometimes in excerpts. The most curious ban concerns a piece of clothing (dhoti) on which a poem was printed that was considered seditious. Most of the texts were written in English, the others were translated into English from a variety of Indian languages: Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Oriya. These translations from the national languages were – as the editor writes in her introduction – almost all carried out by native speakers on behalf of state authorities, who were required to determine the respective trend in public opinion. Although the accuracy of these translations can be doubted – and was also questioned by defendants in court cases – they were the basis on which the colonial authorities based their repressive measures at the time. They are therefore used in this volume to illustrate the reasons for censorship and prohibition.

At the same time, the selection of these texts is intended to provide an insight into the diversity of anti-colonial voices. Devika Sethi compares them to a jazz ensemble that improvises and acts spontaneously (p. 19). Leaders of the Indian National Congress and Gandhi, who favoured negotiation and non-violence to achieve their goal of political independence, have their say. Others, such as those of the Jugantar and Ghadar movements, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), the Congress Socialist Party and the Indian Communist Party, took a broader view and sought social change beyond political independence. Some of them were prepared to use violence in the anti-colonial struggle. However, this should not be seen as two strictly separate camps, as Jawaharlal Nehru’s comments on the courage and willingness to sacrifice of HSRA members, for example, make clear (p. 226). The editor has succeeded in reflecting the diversity of voices with her selection. It is striking that Gandhi appears to be just one actor among many and that in the selected texts, the criticism of his politics is greater than the admiration for his person. On the other hand, reference is often made to revolutionaries and patriots who were executed by the colonial government for their sometimes violent activities, such as Khudiram Bose, Kanailal Dutt, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Surya Sen. The texts show that acts of violence by the colonial states are firmly inscribed in the collective memory, such as the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, which is repeatedly referred to in order to call for resistance against tyranny. There are numerous texts in which comparisons are drawn with Russia/Soviet Union, initially the British colonial power with the despotism of the Russian Tsarist Empire, later the Russian revolution becomes a role model, as do developments in China and Japan.

Especially in this phase of British India’s history, one cannot avoid the topic of violence. There was state and revolutionary violence. However, the country’s struggle for independence has been unilaterally inscribed in the almost global memory as non-violent. Yet, it is evident from the texts that the issue of violence has been discussed throughout the years, from 1908 by B.G. Tilak to 1946 by S.C. Bose. Remarkable, and still applicable today to various current conflicts in the world, is the simple truth that Tilak formulated in 1908. With regard to the assassination of a British colonial official, which Tilak rejects and regrets, he goes on to write: “But if the causes which gave rise to it remain permanent in future exactly as they are at present, then in our opinion it is not possible that such terrible occurrences will stop altogether” (p. 72).

There are interesting insights, such as reports on the assassination of the Viceroy Lord Hardinge in Delhi in 1912, which provide a different view of such events, namely that of contemporary witnesses or contemporaries, than the one which is immortalised in colonial records and history books. Nevertheless, the question arises as to the purpose of such anthologies. The editor herself gives hardly any direct indications according to which the texts are selected except that these were censored or banned. Therefore, the purpose depends, on the one hand, not only on the selection of texts, but in this case also on the respective excerpts from the texts. This does not always seem successful to me. For example, in my view it would have been more relevant to choose one section from the HSRA’s manifesto “The Philosophy of the bomb” about its aims and ideals rather than two about its methods. On the other hand, it is up to the reader to decide whether they are satisfied with the snippets of information and take away a greatly reduced amount of knowledge, or whether they are inspired to go on to more detailed and comprehensive materials. In order to achieve the latter, the preliminary remarks to the respective sections as well as those preceding the individual texts should have been written more informatively and precisely. Due to the self-imposed brevity, the author’s statements in her preliminary remarks remain rather generalised and ignore existing points of friction, contradictions and unanswered questions. For example, she assumes a strong desire for “communal amity, racial and class equality” (p. 242) among Indians, which still needs to be proven. But all in all the reader gets a first impression of the broad and multifaceted anti-colonial movement in British-India.