Itsuka

18th Century
Kanhoji Angre
Abbe Faria
Tipu Sultan - Mysore
Pazhassi Raja
Veerapandiya Kattabomman - Panchalankurichi, Tirunelveli Tamil Nadu
Puli Devar - Nerlkaattum Seval , Tirunelveli Tamil Nadu
Maruthu Pandiyar - Kalaiyar kovil, Tamil Nadu
Polygar War - West and South Tamil Nadu

Pre-1857
Maruthu Pandiyar (Periya Maruthu, Chinna Maruthu brothers)
Kitturu Chennamma (the first woman independence activist of India)
Sangoli Rayanna- son of Karnataka

Freedom Fighters of 1857
Bakhat Nasar
Mangal Pandey
Tatya Tope
Rani of Jhansi
Bahadur Shah Zafar
Azimullah Khan
Rae Ahmed Nawaz Khan Kharal

Indian Renaissance
Sri Aurobindo
Allama Iqbal
Syed Ahmed Khan
Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna Mission
Raja Ram Mohan Roy
Brahmo Samaj
Prarthana Samaj
Sir Ganesh Dutt
Dayananda Saraswati
Swami Sahajanand Saraswati
Swami Vivekananda

Political organizations
All India Kisan Sabha
All India Muslim League
Khudai Khidmatgar
Khaksar Tehrik
Gadar Party
Swaraj Party
Anushilan Samiti
Jugantar
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
Bengal Volunteers
Shiromani Akali Dal
Unionist Muslim League
Hindu Mahasabha
Communist Party of India
All India Forward Bloc
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Indian Liberal Party

Leaders from Bengal and Northeastern India
Subhas Chandra Bose
Bipin Chandra Pal
Chittaranjan Das
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
Rabindranath Tagore
Surya Sen
Pritilata Waddedar
Gopinath Bardoloi
Gomdhar Konwar an Unsung Hero
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
Benoy Basu
Badal Gupta
Dinesh Gupta
Khudiram Bose
Prafulla Chaki
Bagha Jatin
Barin Ghosh
Rash Behari Bose
Aurobindo Ghosh
Hemchandra Das
Surendranath Banerjee
Upendranath Bannerjee
Sarat Chandra Bose
Pramatha Nath Mitra
Bhupendra Nath Datta
Pulin Bihari Das
Taraknath Das
Atulkrishna Ghosh
Ullaskar Dutta

Leaders from North, United Provinces, Bihar and Central India
Swami Sahajanand Saraswati
Baikuntha Shukla
Pandit Karyanand Sharma
Sir Ganesh Dutt
Sri Krishna Sinha
Basawon Singh (Sinha)
Pandit Yamuna Karjee
Yogendra Shukla
Sheel Bhadra Yajee
Pandit Yadunandan (Jadunandan) Sharma
Ramavriksha Benipuri
Ganga Sharan Singh (Sinha)
Mulana Mazharul Haque
Ali Jawad Zaidi
Ashfaqullah
Chandrasekhar Azad
Dr. Abhay Chandra Pandey
Ram Nihor Mishra
Sudama Pandey
Bi Amman
Maulana Mohammad Ali
Maulana Shaukat Ali
Motilal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
Maulana Hasrat Mohani
Kamla Nehru
Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari
Rafi Ahmad Kidwai
Dr Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi
Hafiz Mohammed Ibrahim
Govind Ballabh Pant
Acharya Narendra Deva
Ram Lagan Singh
T A K Sherwani
Zakir Hussain
Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma
Balkrishan Sharma Navin
Ganesh Shanker Vidyarthy
Mahavir Tyagi
K D Malaviya
Ajit Prasad Jain
Ram Manohar Lohia
Mohan Lal Gautam
Jagan Prasad Rawat
Vijayalaksmi Pandit
Ramchandra Moreshwar Karkare (Vaqil)
Purushottam Das Tandon
Seth Govind Das
Goverdhan Lal Arya

Leaders from Punjab and Northwest India
Allama Mashriqi
Allama Iqbal
Allama Inaitullah Almashriqi
Lala Lajpat Rai
Sardul Singh Caveeshar
Sheikh Abdullah
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Baba Gurdit Singh
Baba Gurmukh Singh
Baba Hari Singh Usman
Baba Jawala Singh
Baba Kharak Singh
Baba Sher Singh
Bal Raj Bhalla
Baldev Singh
Balwant Singh
Banta Singh
Bhagat Singh
Bhagwan Singh Longowalia
Bhagwati Charan
Bhai Bal Mukand
Bhai Parmanand
Bhai Ram Singh
Jinen Shah
Kartar Singh Sarabha
Kartar Singh Jhabbar
Kedar Nath Saigal
Krishna Gopal Dutt
Kishan Singh Gargaj
Lala Pindi Das
Mahavarat Vidyalankar
Tej Bahadur Sapru
Sardul Singh Caveeshar
Seth Sant Ram
Seth Sudarshan
Sewa Singh Thikriwala
Shivaram Rajguru
Sir Sikander Hyat Khan
Somprakash Shaida
Sohan Lal Pathak
Sohan Singh Bhakna
Sohan Singh Josh
Sukhdev
Pahari Gandhi Baba Kanshi Ram
Udham Singh
Sarvothaman

Leaders from Gujarat and Maharashtra
Manvendra Nath Azad Als.Kaku Bhai Bhatia.
Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Chapekar Bandhu
Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve
Dadabhai Naoroji
Mohandas Gandhi
Kasturba Gandhi
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
Ravi Shankar Vyas
Narhari Parikh
Jivatram Kripalani
Mahadev Desai
Manilal Pandya
Mohanlal Pandya
Abbas Tyabji
Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Narahar Vishnu Gadgil
Vithalbhai Patel
Vinoba Bhave
Ganesh Vasudev Mavlankar
Mridula Sarabhai
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Mohammad Ali Jinnah
Morarji Desai
Bhikaiji Cama
Joseph Baptista
U.N.DHEBAR
Pujya Mota
Pandit Shyamji Krishna Varma
Swami Dayanand Sarswati
Mahadev Govind Ranade
Tatya Tope
Rani Laxmibai
Narhar Vishnu Gadgil
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
Mahatma Jyotiba Phule
Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj
Jhansi Ki Rani
Kaku Bhai Bhatia Als.Gopaldas Mavji Purecha

Leaders from South India
Alluri Sita Rama Raju
Amarajeevi Potti Sreeramulu
Chakravarti Rajgopalachari
Sardar Vedaratnam
Kayyara Kinyanna Rai
Krishna Menon
Mathai Manjooran
P. J. Sebastian
Pattabhi Sitarammiaya
Kandukuri Veeresalingam
Sarojini Naidu
Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan
S. Srinivasa Iyengar
S. K. Amin
Kalvakuntla Chandrasena Gupta
Pinnamaneni Sreeramachandra Rao
Pulapa Posayya
Geda Raghunayakulu
Krovvidi Lingaraju
Thiruppur Kumaran
K. Kunhambu
Tanguturi Prakasham Panthulu
Puli Thevar, Polygar chieftain who fought the British East India Company in the 1750s and 1760s. First general of Tamil origin to fight against the British.
Kattabomman (1760-1799), Polygar chief of Panchalakurichi who fought the British in the First Polygar War. He was captured by the British at the end of the war and hanged.
The Maruthu Pandiyar brothers Periya Marudhu and Chinna Marudhu who fought the British in the First and Second Polygar Wars.
Dheeran Chinnamalai (1756-1805), Polygar chieftain and feudatory of Tipu Sultan who fought the British in the Second Polygar War.
Sir S. Subramania Iyer (1842-1925), lawyer, jurist and theosophist who co-founded the Home Rule Movement along with Annie Besant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He is affectionately called Grand Old Man of South India.
G. Subramania Iyer (1855-1916), Freedom fighter and founder of "The Hindu" English newspaper.
V.O. Chidambaram Pillai (1872–1936), independence fighter, who launched the first Indian ship on Indian waters under British Rule.
V. V. S Iyer (1881-1925) Tamil scholar and freedom fighter.
Subramanya Bharathy (1882-1921), Indian freedom fighter, Tamil poet and social reformer. Often regarded as the national poet of Tamil Nadu.
Sathyamurthy (1887-1943), Indian freedom fighter and leader of the Congress party in the erstwhile Madras presidency.
Vanchinathan (1886-1911), Patriot who killed General Ash and committed suicide at Maniyachi.
Kalki Sadasivam (1902-1997), Freedom fighter and husband of famous singer M.S. Subbulakshmi.
Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar (1908–1964), independence fighter and All India Forward Bloc Leader.
Quaaid-E-Milath Mohamed Ismail, independence fighter, Member of Parliament and was the President of Indian Muslim League.
Lakshmi Sehgal (1914-), Head of Rani Jhansi Brigade, women's wing of the INA and a close associate of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. Presidential candidate in 2002 President's election.
A. Vaidyanatha Iyer
Thyagaraja Sivam
Chidambara Bharathi
Subramanya Siva
N. Somayajulu
Krishna Kundu
Munagala Pattabhiramaiah
Mattapparai Venkatrama Iyer
Dr. Rukmini Lakshmipathy
K.S. Subramaniam
N.S. Varadachari
K. Santhanam
Mannargudi K. Bhashyam
George Gheverghese Joseph
IDF Sundararaja Iyengar
Salem C. Vijayaraghavachariar
Sangu Subramaniam
'Va.Ra.' V. Ramaswami
Valangaiman S. Srinivasa Sastri
N.M.R. Subburaman
Krishnaswami Bharathi
'Vastaad' Sundaram Pillai
Dr. Pichamuthu Ammaal
Bharathamuthu Thevar
Maulana Sahib
Srinivasavaradhan
Dindigul T.R. Mahadeva Iyer
Nityananda Adigal
Dr. Varadarajulu Naidu
G.A. Natesan
Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy
Pandit Muthaiya Das
Thootukudi Masilamani Pillai
Yagneswara Sarma

Prominent European activists
Allan Octavian Hume
A.G. Horniman
Annie Besant
Madeleine Slade
C. F. Andrews

So much blood. I look at this list and think- these people were fighting for a better world, more justice, equality, and freedom from occupation. I think, too, that they fought for equality on a different plane: the right not to be indiscriminately slaughtered simply because someone was Indian and bright. On that note, I feel like the struggle for freedom from imperial oppression is something that has not yet had its day.

Here is my definition of freedom: the ability for bright people to be knowledgeable enough to prevent wanton death and torture, and to be treated as others are regardless of colour, creed or religion.

I regard incarceration in mental institutions as a form of structural violence; it is a systemic racism that is being perpetrated BY the institution, on poor, disenfranchised people and people of colour. There are many other examples of structural violence; structural violence in western societies is at its heart institutionalized. It is a form of class based violence that stigmatizes people. For this reason, I am opposed to, and will always be opposed to, all political parties that seek to radically expand or boost funding for mental health services. The level of suffering that people experience in these settings is beyond evil. It is torture, pure and simple. I believe in a woman's right to her own body, and that includes having a say in what substances are put into one's body. Women are given electroshock therapy at four times the rate of men- for depression, for addictions, and for more serious plaints like schizophrenia and manic depression.

The fact that torture, on a world scale, is so often visited on people of colour is accepted fact. The English system of mental institutions is conflated with torture in sites like Bagram, where doubtless people are having all sorts of drugs applied to them as well. What people cannot accomplish through the sword, they accomplish through poison and drugging.

I must admit that I find it highly ironic that after so many freedom fighters fought for and won their freedom, that in deeply parochial cities at the edge of the Canadian Dominion, a horde of Indians is being inducted into their mental institutions and being drugged against their will. What would these freedom fighters have said if they knew? Would they have approved?

The Chinese have mental institutions as well, it is true. First person accounts of Chinese institutions indicate that they do not use western psychiatric drugs, because they deem to be too harsh. That fact alone tells me more about life in China than anything else ever has, and sometimes makes me want to strike for it. But the Chinese have a system of education which, because it is not a democracy, serves to educate their citizenry about what can happen to one in western mental institutions and psychiatric institutions- it is an inbuilt part of their domestic propoganda, just as western governments warned people of the dangers of being a dissident in the Soviet Union. Similarly, the prescriptive requirements, and indeed, the hiddenness placed on Islamic women serve to protect them from getting into difficulties and misunderstandings with men of the dominant society, even once they move into western societies. As a result, they, too have a measure of protection from being engaged in deeply unequal relationships and struggles, and their attendant consequences, outside of the domestic sphere. They are encouraged to be much less visible, sometimes to the point where you cannot even see them.

But for South Asians, there is no such understanding. Because they have loyally followed the British after colonization, and therefore wholeheartedly accepted western liberal democracy and relative secularism (Sikh and Hindu women that wore the burqa took it off with the advent of western influence) there is far less in place to protect them from a) engaging rather boldly with dominant western society and powerful actors in it and b) from not having enough foreknowledge to protect themselves should misunderstandings ensue, or how to best work with the powers that be. If you don't know what material concerns exist, how can you be expected to work with and accommodate them?

If they do not have a system that is native to them speaking in their best interest, they are really vulnerable. While western liberal feminism is a wonderful thing, and I absolutely endorse many of its tenets and precepts, it fails to consider the fact that minority women can actually fatally compromise themselves in situations with powerful men of the dominant culture, because speaking out or expressing angst about these types of encounters tragically endangers them. Similarly, being particularly effective in the workforce or as lobbyists, writers or creative people working as part of a diverse society means that there is no guarantee of protection from incarceration in these institutions. Chinese women, by contrast, while often being bold leaders, are much better informed as to the fallout of this type of activism, simply due to the indoctrination that communist Chinese media offers up to all of their citizens, since birth, about the west. You would be hard put to find a citizen born in China that does not know that western mental institutions are sometimes a place where you find western dissidents, poisoned into illness, and that there are real consequences for attempting to follow the oft given advice in the west: "speak truth to power". For children of South Asian immigrants, this advice is all they have.

The title of this piece is "Itsuka". Itsuka means "someday" in Japanese. I've always loved the word, "Itsu"- it means when. "Ka" is the part of the word that means its a question. Yet the Japanese have made this word, "itsuka" the answer, by the meaning- yes, one day.

Someday, and it won't be long in coming, the parts of the world that are so imperiled now will be safe. Someday soon, women and girls from the wrong background won't be put into mental institutions just because they are writers. Someday soon, people will stand up to the value systems that say that the only way is to incarcerate people that are bright. Someday people will learn to trust that just because we are smart like them, doesn't mean that we should be tortured.

For generations upon generations, Indian writers, poets, artists, and freethinkers were slaughtered in a bloodbath by the British. Now the colonization is continuing, all over the world. The new outposts of colonization are mental institutions, structural violence- violence enacted by virtue of seemingly benign institutional facades that seek to root out and destroy people of colour, particularly girls and women. There are many forces at large that endorse this colonization- some voices in support of it have strengthened. But Michel Foucault once famously said: "where there is power, there you will find resistance". As long as this system continues, there will be people that will stand opposed to its evil and its tyranny.

If all of the writers in a society are gone, what happens then? People are dependant on the dominant culture for all of their narratives. All their blood and treasure is gone, all of the sexiness has disappeared, looted away by people who can only see a snake, an enemy, something to own and conquer, to possess sexually or not at all.

The cultures of the east have existed with the cultures of the west for thousands upon thousands of years. Since time immemorial, the two have had position side by side. Sometimes one ruled, at other times, another. Many times in history eastern cultures ruled in one area and western cultures ruled in another. People have transacted back and forth the invisible boundaries of colour for an age. Remember Cleopatra, who loved Caesar, and who loved Antony. She had children by both. She was the Queen of all Egypt, and a more shrewd and able Queen there hardly ever was. In those days, Egypt was allied with Rome, the most powerful centre in the world. Egyptians were heralded as equals by Romans, who fought with them side by side at times and celebrated with them a long peace. Caesar and Cleopatra were one of the greatest love stories of all time.

For all these years, east and west have survived next to one another, a part of each other's histories, meeting here, meeting there, independent and coequal at times. To write off a three thousand year old saga in the name of a hyperaggressive foreign policy is to show that all the fears that we have had about humanity are true. They are true, and if we follow such a benighted, selfish path, we will end ourselves. There will be no more ability to live with each other after this- more and more destructive weapons will ultimately be used on everyone holds most dear, as the western nations fight among themselves. And they will. Unless we work out how to coexist now- and coexist for the better, humanity is ultimately headed for the scrap heap.