‘The Imitation Englishman’: The novel shows how different ideologies shaped India’s freedom movement

As a story about a young Indian man set mostly in Europe and London in the early 20th century, Devki Pande’s debut novel The Imitation Englishman offers a refreshing perspective on the lesser-known strands of India’s freedom struggle.

It is 1916 and the protagonist, 20-year-old Madhusudan, is headed for Heidelberg University in Germany to study law while his older brother, a sepoy, is being deployed at the British Empire’s front in North Africa in the First World War. From Almora in Uttarakhand, both young men travel into a world carved up by powerful empires, their lives shaped by precarious fault lines.

On his way to Europe by sea, Madhusudan encounters Amir Farooqui, a striking, mysterious man from Rawalpindi who is involved in the Hindu-German conspiracy to fund and support armed revolts across the British Empire in India and oust the coloniser. The agents and revolutionaries in the Conspiracy are wary of approaching one colonial power to help overthrow another, but have postponed that worry for later.

Rumblings of the freedom struggle

Through his tense friendship with Amir, Madhusudan learns about the conspiracy, but much more about the rumblings of the freedom struggle in his homeland. Madhusudan’s focus though are his studies and becoming a lawyer, one of the few career...

Read more