Unsung & Unheard: India’s Lost Freedom Legacies

The story of India’s freedom is not complete without the stories of those who inherited nothing from it except pain and neglect. They are not just footnotes in history, but voices in our collective conscience

India is a country of many languages, cultures, and beliefs. But beyond these diversities lies a shared legacy, one of resistance, sacrifice, and liberation. Generations have grown up listening to stories of valiant freedom fighters who gave up their lives so we could live ours in liberty. Yet, somewhere along the line, those sacrifices have faded into the backdrop of modernity. When the words “freedom-fighter” are uttered, only a handful of names emerge from our collective memory. The rest remain buried beneath dust-laden books and forgotten family trees.

For most, the past is something we read about. But for journalist and author Shivnath Jha, it became a calling. While the country moved on, building skyscrapers over battlefields and erecting shopping malls where martyrs once bled, Jha went in the opposite direction, tracing the legacy of those who sacrificed everything and honouring the neglected heirs of India’s freedom.

It all began not with a freedom fighter, but with a maestro.

In the early 2000s, Jha and his wife visited Varanasi on a spiritual journey. They didn’t expect to encounter Ustad Bismillah Khan, the legendary shehnai player, in such a broken state. Bound to a wheelchair, struggling financially, and almost forgotten by the country he had once serenaded into independence, the Ustad’s condition moved Jha deeply. He decided to act.

Jha launched a campaign called Andolan Ek Pustak Se: a revolution through a book. The idea was simple: raise funds and awareness by publishing books, the proceeds of which would go towards helping artists and descendants of freedom fighters in need. To kick off the campaign, he wrote to actor Farooq Sheikh, requesting support for a monograph on Bismillah Khan. Sheikh responded not with words but with action. He rallied his actor friends, staged a play, and donated the earnings towards Khan and the monograph’s publication.

On his 91st birthday, March 21, 2006, Ustad Bismillah Khan released the book. Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the Sulabh Sanitation Movement, presented Khan with a three-kilogram silver shehnai and Rs 1.5 lakh in cash. At Jha’s request, the Ministry of Home Affairs arranged for Khan to perform at India Gate as a tribute to the countless unsung martyrs of India’s freedom movement. But fate had other plans. Khan was hospitalised and passed away on August 21. In his obituary, a national newspaper wrote seventy words solely about Shivnath Jha, a testament to the impact one man can have on another’s legacy.

That unfulfilled wish to pay homage to the nameless and faceless martyrs became Jha’s purpose. Each year since, he has published a book and used the proceeds to support at least one family of a forgotten freedom fighter. Through this work, Jha is not just chronicling history, he is restoring dignity.

Today India has a population that is largely post-independence. Only about 12 per cent are aged 78 or older, those who can claim to have witnessed both colonial and free India. The rest have only stories, and often, even those are politicised or diluted through the lens of social media. Likes and retweets have replaced remembrance. According to Jha, the legacy of our freedom fighters is reduced to hashtags and hollow tributes. Their real descendants continue to live in obscurity and often, in poverty.

Take Batukeshwar Dutt, for example. A revolutionary who, alongside Bhagat Singh, hurled bombs into the Central Legislative Assembly to awaken a sleeping nation. While Singh was immortalised, Dutt faded into the shadows. He was shifted to a different prison and lost contact with his comrades. In a letter, Bhagat Singh once wrote to Dutt’s sister, expressing anguish about his missing friend and telling her not to come to Lahore as it would be in vain.

Dutt survived and lived to see independence. But he died in 1965, unsung and largely unnoticed. His daughter, Bharti Bagchi, shared her memories with Jha in a radio series on freedom fighters. “My father was proud of his country. Bhagat Singh’s mother used to say, ‘Though I lost one son, Battu will live and show that revolutionaries can build too.’” Bagchi, now a professor in Patna, lamented how little is taught in schools about these heroes and how many of their stories are left untold.

Jha’s pursuit of the forgotten often led him through small towns, narrow lanes, and neglected villages. In Punjab, he went looking for the family of Udham Singh, the man who avenged the Jallianwala Bagh massacre by assassinating Michael O’Dwyer in London. Singh was hanged in 1940. Today, his name echoes in movie theatres thanks to Shoojit Sircar’s film starring Vicky Kaushal. But for years, his descendants lived in complete anonymity.

Jha eventually found Jeet Singh, Singh’s great-grand-nephew, working as a daily wage labourer in Sunam, Singh’s birthplace. Singh’s family had once owned land, but over time, it was sold piece by piece for survival. Jeet earned Rs 120 a day, mixing cement at construction sites. His brother painted homes. They lived in a one-room tenement, drowning in debt.

“All leaders, officers, ministers, they all lie. There is political business happening in the name of martyrs, and it will continue,” Jeet Singh told Jha. “People only hear with their ears; they don’t actually see. The condition of martyrs’ families in this country today is beyond words.

From former President Giani Zail Singh to hundreds of leaders from Punjab and Delhi, many have come to Sonam. They have sold Udham Singh’s legacy in the political market, but no one asks about us. Years ago, thanks to the efforts of Shivnath ji and Neena ji, Vijay Darda provided financial help of Rs 11.5 lakh through his book. Our family was drowning in debt. I’ve been asking the Government for years; just give one of my sons a peon’s job. But who listens?”

Each family has its own haunting story. Ram Prasad Bismil, one of the masterminds of the Kakori conspiracy and a celebrated revolutionary poet, had a great-grandson named Bijendra Singh. After independence, the Madhya Pradesh Government granted the family land on the recommendation of President Dr Rajendra Prasad. But in the lawlessness of rural India, that land was slowly taken over.

“Ram Prasad Bismil’s father, Murli Dhar, moved from this ancestral house to Uttar Pradesh. But his father, my ancestor, lived here in Amba village, Chambal, Madhya Pradesh. This is our original home,” Bijendra Singh explained.

 “After independence, our family was allotted around 20 acres of land in this village. But over time, people gradually encroached on all of it. Even the place where Bismil’s statue was installed was taken over by the local administration. Who do we complain to? Who will listen? I am grateful to Neena Jha and Shivnath Jha who, through Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, arranged financial assistance and helped us marry off my daughter Priyanka. Even after 78 years of independence, the families of martyrs have not received the rights they deserve. I don’t even know who the Government gives pensions to.”

In 2013, Jha published Forgotten Heroes and Martyrs of India’s Freedom Movement, the fifth in the Andolan Ek Pustak Se series, and used the proceeds to help fund Priyanka’s wedding. Once again, Dr. Pathak stepped in, contributing Rs 2 lakh for the ceremony.

Then there’s Vinayak Rao Tope, great-grandson of Tatya Tope, the fierce general who fought alongside Rani Lakshmibai during the 1857 rebellion. Jha found the family living in Bithur, near Kanpur, in a modest grocery shop barely six feet wide. Vinayak also performed religious rituals to make ends meet.

“Even Prime Minister Chandrashekhar had come to this house. Since then, hundreds of politicians have come and done politics in the name of Tatya, for their own interests. But no one has actually done anything,” Vinayak told Jha.  “Everyone exploits the names of revolutionaries and martyrs for political gain. The truth is, the descendants of those who sacrificed their lives and families for the motherland are forgotten today.

Had Neena Jha and Shivnath Jha not come years ago and taken us to their home, had they not helped my daughters find jobs, and had Vijay Darda not helped us financially, we would still be running a small grocery shop by the Ganga. I am old now. I have one son; he is educated, if only the Government would give him a job.”

And then, in one of his most startling discoveries, Jha found royalty in rags.

In a slum in Howrah, near Kolkata, he discovered Sultana Begum, the great-granddaughter-in-law of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor. In 1857, Zafar had become a symbolic leader of the First War of Independence. After the revolt was crushed, he was exiled to Rangoon, where he died in obscurity. His descendants, like India’s revolutionary heirs, also slipped through the cracks of history.

Sultana Begum ran a tea stall to survive. Her daily struggles stood in stark contrast to the royal blood that ran in her veins. Jha’s intervention helped raise funds through yet another book, Prime Ministers of India: Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, a coffee-table tribute to Indian prime ministers. With the proceeds, he offered her much-needed financial support and brought national attention to her plight.

In the course of his work, Jha not only exposed the neglect faced by these families but also challenged the way history is preserved in India. For him, publishing a book was not just about putting ink on paper. It was about putting food on the table, bringing justice to stolen land, providing jobs to forgotten bloodlines, and restoring dignity to people long erased from the narrative of nation-building.

Today, the Government of India provides pensions to freedom fighters and their families. As per the Ministry of Home Affairs, the pension stands at Rs 44,400 for ex-Andaman prisoners, Rs 41,400 for those imprisoned outside British India, and Rs 38,480 for other categories. Dependents receive half of those amounts. But the stark truth remains, many who deserve it never receive it. Bureaucratic hurdles, lack of documentation, and indifference keep these families in poverty.

“It’s been over 75 years since independence,” Jha says, “and yet, many who are drawing freedom fighter pensions are only in their seventies. How is that even possible?”

It’s a valid question. It’s not just a matter of paperwork; it’s a question of memory, of justice, of truth. Who gets remembered? Who gets forgotten? And why?

Shivnath Jha’s work doesn’t offer all the answers. But it asks the right questions. In doing so, it holds up a mirror to a nation that loves to celebrate independence but is often blind to the costs paid for it.

Through his relentless journey, armed not with weapons but with words, Shivnath Jha has become the bridge between the forgotten and the remembered, between sacrifice and recognition, between a nation and its unsung heroes.

He doesn’t just write books. He rewrites justice.

But perhaps more importantly, he redefines remembrance.

In a country where history often becomes political rhetoric and patriotic symbols are wielded more for votes than for values, Jha reminds us that remembrance is a moral act. It’s not about grand speeches on national holidays or hollow tributes on social media. It’s about reaching into the past to pull someone back into the light, to remind them, and ourselves, that they mattered.

His work poses a profound challenge to how India remembers its martyrs. We have statues for a few, films for fewer, and textbooks that gloss over most. What Jha does is strip away the ceremonial pomp and go into the homes, hearts, and broken lives of the people left behind. His books aren’t bestsellers, but they are life-changers. They don’t win literary prizes, but they win something rarer: redemption, dignity, and visibility for those who had lost it all.

In tracing the forgotten legacies of freedom fighters, Jha has also exposed a silent injustice. That we, as a nation, have moved forward without properly looking back. That the cost of our freedom wasn’t just the blood that was spilt in the struggle, but also the lives that withered in its aftermath.

The story of India’s freedom is not complete without the stories of those who inherited nothing from it except pain and neglect. Jha’s mission ensures that they are no longer just footnotes in history, but voices in our collective conscience. And if one man, with a pen in his hand and conviction in his heart, can do this much, then imagine what a nation could achieve if it truly chose to remember.

In a world increasingly focused on fleeting digital legacies and instant fame, Shivnath Jha’s work is a quiet, powerful reminder that true legacy is built not on attention but on intention.  And through every book, every rupee raised, and every forgotten name reclaimed, Jha is doing what this country desperately needs: not just celebrating freedom but honouring those who made it possible.