India won freedom due to the blood and tears shed by hundreds of nameless revolutionaries and their families who braved British barbarity and faced death, deportation, imprisonment and forfeiture of property. The struggle for freedom was carried out not only in India, but also here in England.
In 1905, Shyamji Krishnavarma, a barrister, purchased a house on 65, Cromwell Avenue, London to be used as the students' hostel. He named it India House. This book highlights the ongoings at India House and the cat and mouse games played with the authorities. In 1907 there were some 700 Indian students in Great Britain, of whom 380 were in London alone. Sunday meetings were organised to discuss revolution and to get India free from the British.
Madan Lal Dhingra had come to London to pursue his studies in engineering. In one of the Sunday meetings at India House, Dhingra was angered by what he heard and took to the gun to gain India’s freedom.
On 01 July 1909, Dhingra went to a meeting at Imperial Institute where he shot Sir Curzon Wyllie with an automatic Colt revolver. This was the first time that an assassination was carried out with an automatic pistol.
The British legal system is explained from the investigation, Magistrates court, Inquest to the Central Criminal Court. Dhingra’s murder trial was the shortest in history and he was not legally represented. He was sentenced to be hanged.
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