Top 5 Biographies of Indian Freedom Fighters To Read Before This Independence Day 2025

So, this book it’s not what I thought it’d be. I mean, you hear “Gandhi” and you think big speeches, polished wisdom, all that. But here he’s just talking. Sometimes about small, almost silly things. Sometimes about mistakes he made, stuff that didn’t work out. And you can see, bit by bit, where that whole nonviolence thing came from. It’s not neat, not perfect. Feels like he’s figuring things out while writing. I kind of liked that. Makes him seem less like a statue in a park and more like an actual person you could have tea with. Anyway, yeah it stays with you. this Indepdence day lets know more through this book.

I’ve read a lot about Bhagat Singh in school, but this book… it felt different. Kuldip Nayar doesn’t just list what happened he gets into Bhagat Singh’s head, or at least as close as you can. You see what he believed, why he made certain choices, even the moments where he probably felt alone. There’s also stuff I didn’t know like why Hans Raj Vohra turned approver, or the doubts around Sukhdev’s loyalty. It doesn’t paint him as perfect, but that’s why it hits harder. You understand his anger, his patience running out, and why he picked the path he did, even when others called it wrong.

This one caught me off guard. It’s about seven foreigners who left their own countries to fight for India’s freedom. Four men, three women British, American, Irish people who could’ve just stayed home but didn’t. Guha doesn’t make them into flawless heroes; you see their disagreements, even with Gandhi, and the moments they must’ve wondered if they’d made the right choice. Some worked in education, some in social reform, some fought for women’s rights. Many were jailed, a few deported, and some stayed here till the end of their lives. Reading it, you realize freedom wasn’t just India’s fight it pulled in people from far away, who gave up everything for a country that wasn’t even theirs.

So, Ramanujan I don’t even know how to explain him. He wasn’t just good at maths he sort of saw it, like it was alive. Grew up in Madras, barely had proper schooling in the subject, but still kept filling notebooks with formulas no one else could dream up. One day, he writes this long letter to G.H. Hardy in England completely out of the blue and Hardy realises, “Okay, this guy’s a genius.” Brings him over to Cambridge. They work together, but it’s not all smooth; two totally different ways of thinking. And, yeah, it’s sad he gets sick, dies at 32. But the crazy part? People are still studying his ideas today.

This isn’t your usual polished history textbook. It’s Azad, in his own voice, walking you through the last stretch before 1947. From the Government of India Act to the chaos of Partition, he was right in the middle of it all. For years, only a censored version was out there, but when the complete one came in ’88, people finally got the full picture. You can almost hear the heated Congress debates, the tense talks with the British, the compromises that left scars. Azad doesn’t sugarcoat anything he names names, admits mistakes, and shows just how messy freedom really was. It’s honest, a bit painful, and unforgettable.