I think, as a white person with a grounding in anarchism in North America and Europe, this book is absurdly necessary precisely because of its title. It's so easy to find information about the white men who discussed and organised under the anarchist banners, but everyone else seems to be strangely missing (from this ideology that, in many ways, is based on culturally stolen concepts that go unacknowledged).

This book highlights the ways in which anarchism (and similar ideologies) were at play in South Asia (specifically the places we know today as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) both before partition and before independence. It's incredibly interesting as an introduction and has definitely prompted me to look into many of the people discussed (and to revisit the few I did happen to know).

It's also brilliant in that it shows the ways in which anarchism is truly a global movement and that we should be practicing on more international lines. Many of the Indian anarchists and leftists mentioned in this book read and interacted with more 'famous' anarchists and visited them in the US and throughout Europe. Why is it that the names of, in this instance, Indian radicals are not as well known as those of their European contemporaries? (This is rhetorical; it's obvious.)