Down Swaraj Road is a female gaze on freedom

Kozhikode: Here is another remarkable book on India’s independence struggle starting with the Great Rebellion of 1857   throwing light into nearly 90 years of the country’s history.  Titled ‘Down Swaraj Road,’   it is also a tribute paid to a grandmother by a grandson, who had received the manuscripts of her writings about the  tumultuous  days of the freedom struggle.

Kozhikode native Sreedevi Kurup  was an English lecturer at Banaras Hindu University at that time.  She was a keen observer  of the political happenings  and used to jot down her  impressions.  Before her demise in 1990, she handed over the manuscripts to her grandson Srinath Girish, himself an author, who has penned three books. He has compiled her writings and published it as  a book  containing  less than 200 pages.

“During our childhood,  the grandmother  sent  us a number  of letters and notes  which contain a lot of information. She was a well-read woman who closely followed the independence movement,” said Srinath Girish. After studying English at Malabar Christian College and Stella Maris College, Chennai, Sreedevi Kurup joined  Banaras Hindu University as an English lecturer. Prominent freedom fighter and wife of Acharya Kriplani, Sucheta Kriplani was her colleague at BHU.  “Probably that connection drew her close  to the freedom movement,” opined Srinath. 

Sucheta Kriplani later became India's first woman chief minister heading  the Uttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967. After her stint with the BHU,  Sreedevi Kurup  moved to Kozhikode and taught  at Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College. “After the demise of my father, she came  to our ancestral home at Vellat at Valancherry.  She had instilled  in me and my sister  a love of reading and books,” added Srinath,  The book  has nine parts dividing the freedom movement into multiple phases.  It   also analyses the changes after  independence.