is known for creating characters that have lived largely in the world of contemporary India. With The Revolutionaries, he has stepped into a very different world — that of India’s anti-colonial struggle and one of its most elusive figures, Rash Behari Bose.
In an exclusive conversation, Bam said he deliberately stepped away from the public eye while preparing for the part. Take a look at some excerpts from the interview:
Q] Rash Behari Bose survived by becoming invisible in exile. As someone with a very public life, how did you connect with a man who had to hide to survive?
“What was instrumental was that I kept a very low profile for two years. I knew I wanted to understand the character as best as possible. Getting into the mindset, training physically, changing was all part of the efforts that went to its making.”
Q) The book this show is based on argues that India’s freedom was won by armed radical networks, directly challenging the mainstream narrative of non-violence. Did making this show change your own personal definition of what a “hero” is, or how you have perceived history?
“We have to understand that there are two sides of a coin. Our ‘Revolutionaries’ were young people. I believe they thought they knew best as per their circumstances. Maybe if there was or were any figures that showed them a different approach, the annals of our history would have been different.
Personally, I would not go for violence. I believe in non violence like many individuals. At that time, the circumstances were different and I also think their approach ignited a series of revolutionaries.”
Q) If your characters were alive today and scrolled through social media for just five minutes, who do you think they would want to cancel first, and why?
“The creators. Because how fake it is. Like anything related to AI usually means low effort content and short-cuts to get popular. But they put in the work, the real hard work to bring change. So I think they would cancel these creators.”
Directed and created by , The Revolutionaries is a historical drama based on Sanjeev Sanyal’s book Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won Its Freedom.
The eight-episode series follows four young revolutionaries – Rash Behari Bose, Sachindranath Sanyal, Bagha Jatin and Pratibha Lahiri – as they organise an armed resistance against British rule.
Bhuvan plays Bose, with , Gurfateh Pirzada and Pratibha Ranta playing Sanyal, Bagha Jatin and Lahiri respectively.
The series explores events and networks that have often received less attention in popular accounts of the freedom movement, including the 1912 Delhi Conspiracy and the wider revolutionary movement.
Sanyal’s book specifically focuses on the armed resistance networks that operated alongside the better-known non-violent movement, arguing that these groups formed a larger and more organised movement than is often acknowledged.
For Bam, portraying Bose required more than simply adopting the appearance of a historical figure. Bose spent years operating clandestinely before eventually leaving India, making invisibility and secrecy central to his life.
The Revolutionaries can be streamed on Prime Video.
