The Why and How of Historical Fiction

in the Chronicles of Courage and Songs of Freedom series

It is a matter of great regret that history is often taught in Indian schools through turgid textbooks that describe events that have changed lives and livelihoods for people in different parts of India as a bland sequence of causes–dates and events–effects without talking about what and how people felt about them, and why. 

No history book, by very definition, can ever claim to be complete. But there can be very credible efforts to be as inclusive as possible, based on the knowledge available at the time of publication. History textbooks, which condense centuries into paragraphs, can scarcely even aspire to that. But recently, matters have gotten much worse as now textbooks are curated in accordance with the commands and predilections of those in power. And the line between history and mythology—which was once fairly sharply drawn—is increasingly blurred.

Because textbooks are so condensed, it is impossible for them to capture the sights and sounds and emotions—which is something that helps us identify with people from across centuries and far-flung places. The idea behind the Songs of Freedom series and now the Chronicles of Courage series is to capture these sights and sounds and emotions, Songs from approximately 1900 to 1947, and Chronicles post-Independence. 

Textbooks tend to portray history in a very top-down manner. But it is antithetical in theory to the way we live now—in alleged democracies where power resides with individual citizens. These series portray national life as something that is shaped—in however infinitesimal a degree—by the choices and actions of regular people, including children. As citizens, we have agency. We can make choices. Thus, these books have protagonists who step up for what they believe, and in doing so, are a part of social change. This may be, as in A Chowpatty Cooking Club (Lubaina Bandukwala), when three kids unwittingly become part of the People’s Radio—the author chose to write from their point of view rather than the person who co-ran the radio, or in The Letter to Lahore (Tanu Shree Singh), where the young protagonists help to smuggle a seditious newspaper article, which would eventually get Sadanand Stokes arrested. In A Demon in Dandi (Lavanya Karthik), Dinu is a part of the Dandi March and we see this momentous event from an insider’s perspective.

It is not that all the protagonists in these two series play even a small role in the movement of history. But they are witnesses—and in the act of bearing witness, they become our eyes into a time of social change. In A Conspiracy in Calcutta (Lesley Denise Biswas), for example, the protagonist is passionate not only about the student protests against the British rulers but also anxious to save her friend who has been persuaded into child marriage. In The Battle for Baramulla (Mallika Ravikumar), the protagonist gets caught up in the invasion of Kashmir by the tribal forces backed by the Pakistan army and provides a child’s view of the harmony in which Muslims and Hindus coexisted in the valley. Jenny in Palakkad and Teesta in Mumbai fight to protect trees in their respective homes in A Revolution in the Valley (Bijal Vachharajani). Neither of them changes history, but they are a part of the struggle, and its beliefs and joys. Vinod in Darkness of Star Mills (Shabnam Minwalla) is a witness to the time when the mills are closing. And in the act of bearing witness, these characters from a time past show us, the readers, that the world may be different, but we the people are still the same.

We also read history to learn about people—and ideally, not to repeat mistakes. To gain empathy for the suffering of those in difficult situations. How does a child living in a safe space in urban Gurgaon identify with the pain experienced by a child in Palestine or in Manipur? How can a child, who feels attacked because of her identity, know she is not alone? How can children who have always lived in a gated colony understand the trauma of being a refugee? Yet, without empathy for pain, how can we be truly human? Several of these stories talk about pain (in a carefully nuanced way so as to be age-appropriate)—in Postcard from the Lushai Brigade (Hannah Lalhlanpuii), there is the loss of a sibling, who is in the British army, fighting the Japanese; in A Rebellion in Ranchi (Swati Sengupta), the loss of a homeland; in Caught in the Crossfire (Lesley Denise Biswas), the loss of a mother and the experience of becoming lesser because one is a refugee. In The Chowpatty Cooking Club, the devastation a child feels when she is told that because she is a Muslim, she should go to Pakistan.

In the oft-repeated and reduced-to-a cliché words of George Santayana in The Life of Reason (1905): ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ We do seem to be unable to remember, and while editing the Chronicles of Courage books, I was repeatedly struck by how the themes seem to reflect things that are occupying the pages of the newspapers these days. A Revolution in the Valley is about the destruction of natural resources in blind allegiance to the gods of development, in the Silent Valley but also on Mumbai’s mangroves—and as I worked on it, I read every morning of forests being destroyed—in Nicobar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, different states of the northeast, Mumbai’s mangroves and in so many other places in India. Darkness at Star Mills was edited while the strike in Noida was ongoing. As Caught in the Crossfire went to press, a spate of deaths brought about by dowry demands hit the newspapers. Land acquisitions dispossessing tribal people in A Rebellion in Ranchi, caste restrictions on access to temples in A Letter to Lahore—since before Independence, we seem to have been forgetting the past for a long time indeed.

One of the motivating factors for commissioning the Songs of Freedom series was also because there are still people around who were then witnesses to the struggle for independence and the kind of idealism that its values aroused. No history books can have the power of actual memories, and several of the books have a wealth of detail supplied by those who were children themselves at that point—family members, family friends or people who were interviewed for the tiniest of irrelevant facts, which are so vital in painting a vivid picture. The challenge was less in Chronicles of Courage since the authors had some memories of the times if not the events. But these also involved extensive research—Bijal Vachharajani records how there are people in Silent Valley who still remember a strange woman who questioned them relentlessly about the smallest details of growing up there in the late 1970s–early 1980s. 

When I was born in 1971, Independence had happened a scant twenty-four years earlier. The innate sense of pride in a common struggle, the values that the Constitution stood for were deeply ingrained in our consciousness. My grandmother and aunts told me stories of Calcutta during those days—of World War II and Japanese bombing and protests on the street and of going to see Gandhi. Yet within one generation, these stories are disappearing; one of the major differences between me and my son—yes, the worlds we grew up in were very different—is that I felt a sense of personal connection to the independence movement from the stories, and my son does not. The Songs of Freedom series is an attempt to bring back that sense of connection.

The other difference in my growing up and that of my son was that the ‘unity and integrity of India’ was not just a phrase to be ritually uttered. Paradoxically, it coexisted with a more culturally secluded lifestyle—I grew up in Bengal and Bengali was my first language. My son has grown up far more deracinated—with parents from two different far-flung states, English was the only common language and the neighbours and friends he grew up with similarly had parents from all over the country. Yet the culture that he has grown up experiencing is a kind of north India meets Bollywood and choreographed dances at weddings that has become a kind of national default. As the minutiae of local lifestyles and cultures get swept away, it seemed important to record them in books for kids to read—which is why, the novels of both the series have very specific regional settings and are strongly rooted in the local. How kitchens are set up in Himachal and Karnataka and Mizoram, what foods people eat in rural Gujarat and Jharkhand, how kids go to school, how local architecture varied before the advent of the ubiquitous multistoried apartments—these small everyday details help in building a strong sense of the local and familiarize the unfamiliar within our own country. A Melody in Mysore (Shruthi Rao) uses the songs and the technology of disseminating music to show how, at a time of censored and localized newspapers, music could be used as a medium to spread information far and wide.

I found it fascinating when I was editing the Songs of Freedom series was how pan-India movements are depicted in different books. For example: The Chowpatty Cooking Club, The Train to Tanjore (Devika Rangachari), Postcard from the Lushai Brigade and An Awakening in Awadh (Vibha Batra, forthcoming August 2026) are all set in 1942 and describe the different responses to the Quit India Movement in different parts of the country. That Year at Manikoil (Aditi Krishnakumar) and Postcard from the Lushai Brigade describe the creeping fear of World War II.

And somewhere, these books are also a celebration of the small, the individual effort, the quiet courage to do something that may not seem very significant in the grand sweep of history. In a world that today celebrates influencers and public performance, it is important to celebrate the small. Achievements do not have to be broadcast to the world—they are equally valuable if no one knows about them.

I have learnt a disproportionate amount of the history I know from historical fiction. There is something about characters living through experiences which imprints them more firmly on one’s mind. The portrayal of daily practices and societal mores gives context to political beliefs. So I do not agree at all with the naysayers who assert that historical fiction distorts history, as if textbooks are the pinnacle of accuracy and lack of bias. (However, since these two series are intended for young readers, each book contains a historical note which clearly outlines which part of the book is fact and what is fiction to remove any potential ambiguity or doubt.) Historical fiction brings the past to life because it is stories told in the voices of people like you and me. And in doing so, it sparks interest in reading more and understanding history, which is very important for all kids (and adults) in the time of fake news and distortions of historical narratives in the media.

A Chowpatty Cooking Club, The Letter to Lahore, A Demon in Dandi, A Conspiracy in Calcutta, The Battle for Baramulla, Postcard from the Lushai Brigade, A Rebellion in Ranchi,  A Melody in Mysore, The Train to Tanjore, An Awakening in Awadh, and The Year at Manikoil are part of the Songs of Freedom series 

A Revolution in the Valley, Darkness of Star Mills, and Caught in the Crossfire are part of the Chronicles of Courage series