The Long Siege (Paperback)

The Long Siege: 500 Years of India’s Struggle for Technopolitical Freedom offers a strategic evaluation of the technopolitical deficiencies that Bharat faced from 1500 CE onward. It explores how, by the 1850s, the Bharatiya intelligentsia had begun to recognise the complex colonial entanglements into which the subcontinent had been drawn—and how their sustained struggle over the following century gradually turned the tide. The book examines the systematic suppression of Bharatiya initiatives in land and maritime exploration, the strategic inability to counter the colonial powers’ weaponisation of science and technology, and the convergence of European financial and naval superiority in their global campaigns. While this incapacity is largely attributed to Bharat’s declining socioeconomic prosperity at the time, the incoming colonisers capitalised on these conditions, using them to justify their scientific racism and to stifle the subcontinent’s scientific and technological development in every conceivable way. Through stories of both known and forgotten ideologues of the swadeshi and revolutionary freedom movements, the book highlights how these figures waged a long, often overlooked, battle for India’s independence on technopolitical frontiers over five centuries. Beginning with the Battle of Diu in 1509, the narrative traces key milestones and heroic figures from Bharat’s resilient and often battle-hardened history—many of whose global contributions remain under-recognised. It culminates in the formation of India’s atomic program in 1945, yet also reminds readers that the struggle for true technopolitical sovereignty is far from over.