A gripping account of how a few good men, without any inherited authority or military clout, laboured to reshape the political destiny of India under trying circumstances with a newfound art viz. oratory or public speaking. Coeval with print journalism, but more directly concerned with politics, public speaking emerged as a limb of mass communication in India in the nineteenth century. No national leader was able to ignore the power of speech. A crop of quality speeches emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century period. This book is the first attempt to reckon with that genesis and development of oratory in India. It promises to reconnect us with the foundational legacy of modern India, which transformed us from subjects into citizens.