Har Dayal, the gentleman revolutionary and the architect of the Ghadar Party who was recognized in 1912 in America as ‘the greatest man of India’ and the New York Times termed him the ‘brainiest man in the Indian revolutionary party’ in 1919 remains absent in the popular narratives of our nation’s history. Sadly, most Indians do not even know he even existed though Stanford where he taught in 1912 has preserved his letters, and Oxford where he outshined everyone maintains a record of his contributions to debates of the day as well as his admission card. No wonder the Hukumat-i-Britannia feared Har Dayal the most and exiled him from India for most of his life. After living in America, Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Algeria, Turkey, and Sweden for 30 years he died on 4 March 1939 in Philadelphia while on a lecture tour. He was 54. Hukumat-i-Britannia purposefully censored all the news and information relating to the immeasurably popular Har Dayal in the Indian media as it suited their imperialistic ambition. All this changed with WW2 when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose went on the air on the Azad Hind Radio from Berlin in 1942. Netaji was our only hope in those dark hours and the most beloved leader across India. At the end of WW2 during the INA trials in December 1945, the victorious Hukumat-i-Britannia that had defeated the Axis powers lost to one man – Subhas Chandra Bose.  Hukumat-i-Britannia finally decided to ‘Quit India’ having lost the support of the armed forces.

However, after independence, our recorders of history imposed the Hukumat-i-Britannia’s version of events and intentionally ignored the multilayered story of our freedom movement. They discounted the achievements of 1857, Ghadar Party, and the Indian National Army – the three events that unmistakably displayed India’s belief in gender parity and eternal philosophy of religious coexistence. The brave Indians who followed the ancient military doctrine of India to wage a war were rubbished as quickly as possible. Subsequently, their arduous struggles were simply painted out first from the newspapers and then our nation’s history books. Not only were their contributions erased, but extraordinary efforts were also made to distort their characters in the media with both editorial material and stupid cartoons. Today almost no one in the present generation has heard about the amazing triumphs of countless Indian revolutionaries such as Ajit Singh, Bhikaji Cama, Chidambaram Pillai, Gulab Kaur, Gurdit Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Har Dayal, M.N. Roy, Mahendra Pratap Singh, Maulvi Barkatullah, Pandurang Khankhoje, Rash Behari Bose, Shyamji Krishna Varma, S.R. Rana, or the revolutionary life of one of the most brilliant students of the British school and university system – Aurobindo Ghosh. Journalists and historians of that period wiped out thousands of such names as if they never existed. Not a single major street, college, university, public building, neighborhood, town, or city in India is named after Lala Har Dayal whose lifelong contribution to India as an intellectual, spiritual, and revolutionary leader is far greater than most prominent leaders of India. Similarly, the fact that the lifework of Subhas Bose has been deliberately removed from the school and college textbooks and erased from our history is well known. Both these men have been brushed aside to favor several others.

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of independence, we must accept that the real heroes of our nation’s struggle for freedom were those who fought in the first war of Indian independence (1857-1858), the second war of Indian independence- Ghadar Party (1912-1919) and the final and decisive third of war of Indian independence fought under the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army (1943-46) that crushed British imperialism and led us to a free nation. There should not be any doubt that these three wars along with the patriotic sacrifices of our nation’s revolutionaries who spent years in the torture chambers of the Cellular Jail and happily kissed the noose ended Hukumat-i-Britannia’s rule over India. All the national archives in Britain, America, Canada, Germany, and Sweden conclusively prove this fact.

At this juncture of human history, we must always be inspired by the fact that we the people of India destroyed Hukumat-i-Britannia, the greatest empire the world had ever known, and then built the largest democracy in history of human civilization. Marching forward as we master the fourth industrial revolution in the 21st century we must set our minds to emulate the ideals of our thought leaders Har Dayal and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and firmly imitate their belief in self-discipline, hard work, personal sacrifice, honesty, merit and love for India.

Dr. Bhuvan Lall, based between Los Angeles and India is the author of The Great Indian Genius Har Dayal and The Man India Missed the Most Subhas Chandra Bose.

(The author is a writer, director and producer. He is Executive Chairman at Lall Brothers Media & Entertainment)