Coffee table book on freedom fighters' descendants launched

A pictorial coffee table book depicting the misery and poverty of descendants as well as families of India's freedom fighters was launched here today.
Written by journalist Shivnath Jha, the book '1857-1947: Forgotten Heroes and Martyrs of India's Freedom Movement', is the fifth in the series of 'Andolan Ek Pustak Se'.
It was launched by former Bombay High Court chief justice C S Dharmadhikari and his wife Neena.
"The book is a crusade to bring to light the miserable conditions of descendants and families of freedom fighters as well as an attempt to bring about a change," Jha said.
The book talks about families as well as descendants of martyrs like Rajguru, Sukhdev, Uddham Singh and Tatya Tope.

On the reason behind writing a book on the topic, Jha said, "Before writing the book, I surveyed 3,000 school students and asked them about Bhagat Singh and Mangal Pandey but they knew Bhagat Singh as Sunny Deol and Mangal Pandey as Aamir Khan."

In 2007, Jha found Vinayak Rao Tope (54), a third generation descendant of Tatya Tope, martyr of the 1857 uprising. Vinayak, his wife and three children were living in penury in Uttar Pradesh's Bithoor village. Vinayak ran a small grocery shop.
In January 2009, Jha discovered the sad plight of Sultana Begum, the great grand daughter-in-law of emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Sultana lived in a Howrah slum and ran a tea stall to make ends meet.

In April 2011, Jha met Jeet Singh, the grandson of Udham Singh, the freedom fighter who shot dead Michael O'Dwyer, the British Lieutenant Governor of colonial Punjab. O'Dwyer had endorsed General Reginald Dyer's Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Jeet Singh works as a labourer at a construction site in Punjab.