India's view of struggle

INDIA's ten best-known historians have embarked on a government-funded project to rebut the view that independence from Britain came through a smooth and voluntary transfer of power.

The historians, who include Dr S. Gopal, the biographer of Jawaharlal Nehru, are to document the official Indian position - that India fought for its freedom and forced the British to leave - in ten volumes, collectively entitled Towards Freedom, which will concentrate on the final crucial decade of the freedom movement from 1937-47. The first 3,600-page volume was published this month and material for four more volumes is ready.

The Oxford University Press, which is handling the project for the Indian Council for Historical Research, says it could take more than five years to complete.