Book: Spies, Lies and Allies: The Extraordinary Lives of Chatto and Roy

Author: Kavitha Rao

Published by: Westland

Price: Rs. 499

In the process of narrating the history of a nation that fought against colonial powers,
it is almost inevitable that a few voices will be left out either by design or wilful omission. Kavitha Rao has attempted to resurrect two such revolutionaries, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya (Chatto) and Manabendra Nath Roy, in her book.

Chatto and M.N. Roy shared many similarities. The most prominent among these was that they both were communists. Yet, while the latter is considered to be one of the founders of the Communist Party of India, the former is somewhat absent even within Left circles and has been reduced to being Sarojini Naidu’s brother. Virendranath and Manabendranath were staunchly anti-colonial in their sensibilities. But at
the same time, they had a wider, internationalist approach. This is probably the reason why they have been invisibilised in our narratives of nation-building. One would have expected the two to leave their country, trying to bring the revolution back home. But they never formed an alliance and weren’t friends either: it would’ve been interesting if they had turned out to be so. That could have resulted in Chatto, like Roy, leaving the Soviet Union before Joseph Stalin initiated the Great Purge, letting him live a little longer and do something more concrete with Roy.

Growing up in colonial India, the nationalism of Chatto and Roy was rooted in the realities of the country. But unlike many others who had the single agenda of driving the British out, these two revolutionaries understood that the issues that engulfed the majority of the Indian population wouldn’t simply evaporate with the exit of the colonial rulers. Kavitha Rao carefully stitches the lives of both these revolutionaries into the backdrop of their timelines and rightfully presents the good, the bad, and the bitter in their lives, be it their lasting impact on internationalism and humanism that dismantles the narrow and the superficial structures of nationalism charged with religious bigotry which, currently, affects a large part of the world, including India, or their treatment of the women in their lives. Rao has presented them as human beings with flaws just like us but with a keen and futuristic understanding of the needs of Indian society.

Spies, Lies and Allies traces the journeys of these two men across several countries and political climates and their continuous struggle against all odds. It forces us to take a look at the lives of such personalities and reach the conclusion that while they might’ve been forgotten in the grand narrative of the making of our country, we owe it to them to remember their message and build a more equal society.