indh had a seminal role in the movement for Pakistan and before that in the anticolonial struggles going back to the War of Independence in 1857; as Dr Jetho Lalwani, author of Azadi Ka Parwana: Shaheed Hemu Kalani also reminds us in the opening chapter of his book, translated into English from Sindhi by Mohan Gehani to coincide with the 75^th anniversary of freedom from colonial rule. From Hoshu Sheedi and Rooplo Kolhi in the 19^th Century to Tejoomal of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj; Ali Ahmed Brohi, an organiser of the 1946 Royal Indian Navy mutiny; Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi and GM Syed who moved the only resolution in favour of Pakistan’s creation in the 20^th Century, Sindhis have been prominent in the anticolonial history of the Indian subcontinent. The book under review is about Hemu Kalani, a Sindhi Hindu freedom fighter who was younger than Bhagat Singh when he laid down his life for the cause of India’s freedom in 1943. For young Pakistani readers in particular let me briefly relate the life of Hemu Kalani.

Hemu Kalani was born in Sukkur on March 23, 1923. He belonged to a middle-class family of modest means that was staunchly pro-British. Hemu’s father was a contractor for building jails that housed anticolonial freedom fighters. According to the book, Hemu was a good student but an even better sportsman, excelling at wrestling and cricket. Inspired by one of his uncles, Hemu became the leader of the Swaraj Sena, a youth organisation mobilising students against the British. After organising many raids upon jails, trains and police stations, Hemu Kalani was arrested on the night of October 22, 1942, while unfastening the bolts from the fishplates of a railway track in Sukkur upon which a train was to travel to Quetta loaded with arms and ammunition. Hemu was accompanied by four comrades, namely Lachhmandas Keswani, Hashoo Santani, Hari Lilani and Tikam Bhatia, the latter managed their escape while he surrendered to the police. Despite the pleas of his lawyers and his family, the nineteen-year-old revolutionary claimed sole responsibility for the plan, neither naming any accomplices nor showing remorse over his actions.

Eventually, a martial law administrator changed Hemu’s life sentence to a death sentence. Young Hemu was executed on January 21, 1943, in Sukkur. Hemu was apprehended at a time of rising communal tensions between the Hindus and Muslims of Sindh. However, his death sentence galvanised the Sindhi elite across religious and political divides.

Subtitled ‘A creative reconstruction of the life and times of the great martyr Hemu Kalani’, the book is not a straightforward historical account of the legendary martyr. Neither the writer nor the translator – both born before partition in areas comprising Pakistan now – is a trained historian. In many places, artistic license has been taken to reimagine particular incidents of Hemu Kalani’s life. For example, it is unclear whether the wrestling incident described in Chapter Four, where Hemu defeats a white wrestler, ever occurred. The details of the trial and scenes from Hemu’s sentencing in Chapter Eleven also seem to be inspired by the much-publicized trial of the Punjabi revolutionary Bhagat Singh and his comrades Sukhdev and Rajguru, who were executed in Lahore a decade earlier.

This book is a useful effort to remember a forgotten but important anti-colonial hero. It should be translated into major Pakistani languages, including Urdu, Punjabi, Seraiki, Pashto and Balochi.

A note of dissenting is called for here. In a couple of places in the book, the translator implies that the four aforementioned comrades of Hemu Kalani, who identified themselves many years after his execution, claimed to be part of an anti-British resistance with him – were falsifying the facts. But other than the disclaimer that ‘there is no independent evidence to support such a claim’, the translator does not offer any evidence to support his assertion. The lack of a bibliography or list of sources in the book is a major lacuna. The evidence this scribe could see during a recent visit to the British Library in London and subsequent research from Sindhi sources do not support Gehlani’s claims about Hemu Kalani’s comrades not being part of his revolutionary coterie.

As far as mainstream public messages through the media and teaching history through curricula are concerned, the establishment in India is fast trying to reinvent its past. There is a desire apparently to create an amalgam of mythology and history that suits the current dispensation in power: Hindutva. It was alarming to hear a man say on some Indian television channel that the Jamia Masjid in Delhi was, in fact, Yamuna Mandir. That is taking the Taj Mahal-being-a-temple argument to the next level.

In Pakistan, on the other hand, a statue can be raised to honour Ghazi Ertugrul in Lahore, but it is hard to restore the name of a public park in Sukkur, earlier named after an illustrious citizen - Hemu Kalani. It is a shame that the ancestral house of Kalani, located on Mirki Street in Old Sukkur, where Hemu was born (some photographs are available on the internet) is in a dilapidated state and has not been declared a national monument. Such actions can help erase the mistrust and ill-will many Hindu citizens feel. How many know today about Hemu Kalani’s visit to Lahore as a part of his cricketing exploits? Only a few lily remember that among those appealing for a pardon for Hemu Kalani was Abdul Sattar Pirzada.

Even if Hemu Kalani’s family migrated to India after Partition, what stops us from honouring the martyrs in Babrra massacre near Charsadda, the Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre in Peshawar and the resistance put up by Hoshu Sheedi and Rooplo Kolhi in Sindh?

There was no befitting national commemoration to mark 150 years of the 1857 War of Independence and only a few events marked the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 2019. The birth centenary of Hemu Kalani too has been met with a deafening silence by both the state and the civil society. Sindhi friends across the border inform me that birth centenary celebrations of Hemu Kalani began in India in March 2022 with plays, performances and seminars.

Aimed primarily at young Sindhis and people with Sindhi heritage, the book is a useful effort to keep alive the memory of an important anti-colonial hero. It should be translated into major Pakistani languages: Urdu, Punjabi, Seraiki, Pashto and Balochi. There is also potential for a drama or film. Like Bhagat Singh and Che Guevara, Hemu Kalani’s life and eventful death have all the ingredients of a blockbuster.

Azadi Ka Parwana Shaheed Hemu Kalani

Author: Jetho Lalwani (Translated from the Sindhi by Mohan Gehani)

Publisher: Sindhi Academy, Delhi, India, 2022

Pages: 144

The reviewer is a Lahore-based, award-winning translator and researcher. He was recently in the United Kingdom to access British archives pertaining to the case (against), trial and execution of Hemu Kalani. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com and tweets at @raza_naeem1979