An engineer will create an archive on their lives.
“The biggest mistake I’ve made is by not accepting a green card in the US,” says a freedom fighter in Mumbai, the last remaining vestiges of India’s glorious freedom struggle. He was only echoing the opinion of other freedom fighters, who have ended up cynical over the way the government has treated them.
Only a few decades ago, scores of Indians had given up their aspirations of a comfortable life in exchange for protracted imprisonment, beatings, civil disobedience marches and even death.
In an endeavour to chronicle the lives of freedom fighters — the hidden faces behind the freedom movement, Deepak Parekh will capture their lives, record their views and prepare an archive that will be run on a website.
“The freedom fighters were a significant part of India’s history. Before we lose all our oral history, we need to preserve these freedom fighters’ lives on a website for future generations. We will package the message and present it differently for the next generation,” Parekh said.
Parekh, 45, a former Ford Motors employee, who worked as an engineering supervisor in the US, opted for voluntary retirement. He then came to Mumbai in October 2009 and started an NGO Arise Free India. The NGO is also run in the US.
“The interviews will be recorded in India, even US and Canada, as some have settled abroad. In England, the NGO will capture the perspective of Englishmen who were part of the Raj,” Parekh said.
When queried about whether the NGO would undergo a filtering process for freedom fighters, he said, “Although I’ve procured a list from the government for Mumbai, government employees themselves have asked me to help them track those who are dead. We have a target of covering 20,000,” Parekh said. Parekh has picked up on the same criteria as the government did.
“The government wanted to know if they went to jail or had bullet wounds. One can make that up. But we’ve procured an authentic list,” he said. Parekh says there’s a lot of cynicism among the freedom fighters he has interviewed so far.
“They take time to open up and have withdrawn into a shell. Some say they should have accepted green cards abroad. That’s what our country has done to our freedom fighters,” he said.
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