CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 51 of 120

Correct — B, Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indian Struggle is Bose's own account of the national movement from the Non-Cooperation years onward, and it exists in two halves. He wrote the first part, covering 1920 to 1934, while in enforced exile in Europe, largely from memory and without access to papers; it was published in London in 1935 and promptly banned in British India, the Secretary of State telling Parliament that it encouraged direct action among the masses. The second part, taking the story from 1935 to 1942, was written during the war years with Emilie Schenkl's help, and an Italian edition appeared in 1942. The two halves were brought together as The Indian Struggle 1920–1942 and published in India only in 1948, after independence and after Bose's own death — which is why the title carries the wider span of years while the book most often catalogued is the 1920–1934 volume.

• (a)Vinayak Damodar Savarkar — Savarkar's best-known books are The Indian War of Independence, 1857 and Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? He wrote no history of the 1920–42 movement, and his political quarrel with the Congress leadership of those years was open.
• (c)Vallabhbhai Patel — Patel left speeches, correspondence and official papers, not a narrative history of the freedom struggle. He is a subject of such histories rather than an author of one.
• (d)Sarat Chandra Bose — The sharpest distractor, because he is the right family — Sarat was Subhas's elder brother and backed him politically. But The Indian Struggle is Subhas's book; Sarat's own writing survives mainly as speeches and letters.

Several leaders of the national movement wrote its history while making it, and examiners like pairing those books with their authors. The Indian Struggle belongs to Subhas Chandra Bose's European exile of the 1930s, when he was pushed out of India after repeated detentions and spent years in Vienna and elsewhere putting the Indian case before European audiences. The book is both narrative and argument: it explains the movement to outsiders and, in doing so, criticises what Bose saw as the Congress leadership's habit of calling off mass action too soon.

Two things make this an easy mark once you have them. First, the title is a clue in itself — a struggle recounted year by year from 1920 reads like an insider's chronicle, and the insider who wrote one in exile is Bose. Second, three of the four names can be cleared by what they are actually remembered for writing. The trap is the surname, since two Boses are on the list; the question is designed so that a hurried reader who recognises Bose picks whichever Bose comes first to hand.

• The Indian Struggle, 1920–1934 was written in exile in Europe and published in London in 1935.
• The colonial government banned the book in India.
• The continuation covering 1935 to 1942 was written during the Second World War; an Italian edition appeared in 1942.
• The combined volume covering 1920 to 1942 was published in India in 1948.
• Bose's other well-known writing is An Indian Pilgrim, the unfinished autobiography of his early years.

• Picking Sarat Chandra Bose because the surname matches.
• Assuming the 1920–1942 span means the book was written in 1942 — the first half was published in 1935 and the combined volume only in 1948.
• Confusing The Indian Struggle with Savarkar's The Indian War of Independence, 1857, which is about the revolt of 1857.

Almost always as a book-to-author pairing, either as a single-name question like this one or inside a four-row matching list.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Where was Subhas Chandra Bose living when he wrote the first part of The Indian Struggle?

  • (a)In prison in Mandalay
  • (b)In exile in Europe
  • (c)In Singapore
  • (d)In Tokyo

  Answer(b) In exile in Europe — he wrote it largely from memory during his enforced stay in Vienna and other European cities in the early 1930s.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The unfinished autobiography An Indian Pilgrim was written by which leader?

  • (a)Jawaharlal Nehru
  • (b)Lala Lajpat Rai
  • (c)Subhas Chandra Bose
  • (d)Bipin Chandra Pal

  Answer(c) Subhas Chandra Bose — it covers his early life and stops well before the events narrated in The Indian Struggle.