History, presented well can be far more interesting than fiction. We are not makers of history, we are made by history. This is what turned a doctor to take up the pen and write on the history of India. Dr Rajinder Kaur Lotay, a qualified medical doctor by profession, working in UK in different areas of specialisations has produced three interesting pieces of literature called Three Great Indian Stalwarts – Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Vinayak Damodar Veer Savakar; Indian Heroes and Heroines of World War II and a biography of a historian, who provided her the materials for the books, A Truely Decolonised Historian – Dr Vidya Sagar Anand.
Dr Rajinder started caring for Dr Vidya Sagar in 1984, developing a close friendship about the political, cultural, social, literary activities and these books were written as a tribute to the great historian and his extensive work in the field of India's independence movement after he passed away in 2013.
Published at the Modern Publishing House in New Delhi, the books are editorially strong with several illustrations, historical facts many of which has been sourced from the seminars and talks by Dr Vidya Sagar at different platforms.
The book Indian Heroes and Heroines of World War II contain well-researched testimonials that have put together key historic elements like a letter written by Gandhi to Hitler, to stop the war for the sake of humanity, during the World War. It also documents the Indian and key British soldiers who received the highest order for valour – the Victoria Cross. The inspiring story of Noor Inayat Khan, her heroic eploits earning her a number of posthumous British and French decorations: is a descendant of Tipu Sultan, also known as 'The Tiger of Mysore' was the first British woman to be taken and executed at Dachau, the site of the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
The book Three Great Indian Stalwarts covers the courageous life biographies of Raja Ram Mohun Roy, the father of the Indian renaissance, a scholar, philosopher and reformer who abolished the 'sati'. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was an Islamic scholar, educationist and a prolific writer, whose publications were aimed at encouraging the youth for fighting for the independence of India, secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity. He was a strong supporter of Gandhi's ideas of non-violence. Vinayak Damodar Veer Savarkar, an Indian patriot, scholar and philosopher was the first Indian revolutionary to introduce his country's struggles to the western world. and their remarkable saga of India's struggle for independence.
The third book is about the decolonised historian A Truely Decolonised Historian Vidya Sagar Anand, is an interpretation of colonialism, that gave birth to slavery, exploitation and 'divide and rule'. It is a good starting point for readers and new historians to take a closer look at national liberation movements and how countries like Asia and Africa eventually became free from the clutches of colonizers.
