Common People, Workers and Unsung Heroes in Solapur's Freedom Movement: An Alternative Historiographical Study

The current research paper examines the freedom movement of Solapur through the prism of ordinary people, laborers and unsung heroes. Traditional historical accounts of Solapur have tended to concentrate on the independence of 1930, which lasted three days, on Martial Law and the four martyrs. Although these events and figures are the focus of the public memory in Solapur, the rest of the social involvement in the movement has not been given equal focus. Textile workers, peasants, traders, women, youth, students, journalists, volunteers, rural members and ordinary citizens kept the freedom movement alive in Solapur. The paper follows a different historiographical bottom-up approach to study the involvement of common people in meetings, processions, hartals, flag activities, swadeshi, khadi, shelter networks and local resistance. It states that the freedom movement of Solapur was not just a leader-based but society-based. Workers of textile factories provided the movement with a mass and working-class character, women helped in direct and indirect ways, young people and students gave it bravery and communication channels and rural population helped to spread nationalism nationwide. The article also addresses the necessity to acknowledge those unrecognised figures like Shankar Shivdare and the anonymous fighters whose contributions were not remembered by mainstream. It concludes that the reconstruction of the freedom movement in Solapur needs the archival records, oral history, the family records, the local newspapers, photographs and the personal collections. This approach contributes to the democratization of history, its inclusiveness and loyalty to the field experience of the local society.