Activists & Freedom Fighters

Freedom fighters of South Asia (and pre-partition India) are rarely mentioned in yoga teacher trainings - and I ask myself why? Is it because it counters the Orientalist view of Indians and South Asians as mystics and sages who are removed from political and socio-economic structures of power and oppression? Are Indian yogis and spiritualists sitting cross legged in a cave meditating on the ethereal rather than marching, dissenting and organising collective uprisings and rebellions? Are they not compliant, subservient or spiritual enough?

Meet some of my sheroes (in honour of Sheroes Cafe in Delhi)

Aruna Asaf Ali (1908 – 1996)

Aruna Asaf Ali was a fearless revolutionary and teacher from Punjab who participated in the Salt marches and was arrested as political prisoner.

She is best remembered for her courage in hoisting the Indian National flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan in Bombay on 9 August 1942, marking the commencement of the movement.

Despite the British police firing upon the assembly, she presided over the session, earning her the title of the 'Heroine of the 1942 movement'. When the British police led a search against her, she went into hiding and led the movement by starting an underground radio station, as well as seditious magazine called ‘Inquilab.’ She later became Delhi’s first mayor after Independence.

She was called the Grand Old Lady of the Independence movement.

Matangini Hazra (1870 – 1942)

Matangini Hazra, from Bengal, joined the Civil Disobedience movement in 1930 and was arrested for breaking the Salt Act. On her release, she immediately took part in Chowkidari Tax bandha and chanted slogans against the illegal constitution, only to be arrested again.

As a social worker, she worked with the Dalit community and worked directly with people infected by smallpox in an epidemic.

She was 73 when she led a procession of over 6,000 freedom fighters (majority women) to capture Tamluk police station on 29 September 1942.

Despite being shot repeatedly, she kept chanting "Vande Mataram” (hail to the Motherland) and died with the tricolour national flag held high in her hands.

She is also known as Gandhi buri ie old lady Gandhi.

Kanaklata Barua (1924 – 1942)

Kanaklata Barua, from Assam, was 17 when she joined the Mrityu Bahini, a death squad comprising of youth groups.

She led a procession of 5000 unarmed villagers, mostly women,  during the Quit India Movement carrying the national flag and intending to hoist at Gohpur Police Station. When stopped by the police, she said “You do your duty and I’ll do mine.” The British police opened fire, and she was shot dead.

She came to be known as Shaheed (martyr).

Tara Rani Srivastava

Tara Rani Srivastava, from Patna in Bihar, along with her husband Phulendu Babu (whom she married at 13) participated actively in the Quit India Movement.

When her husband was shot while they were raising the flag and slogans in front of the Siwan police station, she bandaged his wounds and then continued to march carrying the national flag. By the time she returned, her husband had died.

She was active in fighting proposals by the British that increased gender inequality and organised women to march.

Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi (1869 – 1944)

Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi, from Gujarat, was 14 when she married 13 year old Mohanda Gandhi.

She was independent, ofted spending time separately, as she and Gandhi undertook their politcal and social justice work. In 1917, she worked for women’s welfare and education in Bihar and joined the Sataygraha movement in 1922 – often being arrested and jailed for her partcipation in civil disobedience marches and campaigns.

At times, when Gandhi was imprisoned by the British, she would go on hunger strike. Her health was adversley affected by her own time in jail and when she imprisoned in a detention camp in Pune, she died there in 1944 aged 74. 

Sucheta Kripalani (1908 - 1974)

Sucheta Kripalani , from the Punjab, listened to the horrors of the Jallianwala Bagh when she was 10 years old and became an active freedom fighter.

She was professor of constitutional history and she founded of the All India Mahila Congress in 1940. She was arrested by the British for her active participation in the Independence movement and worked closely with Gandhi during Partition violence.

She was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India and worked on the Indian constitution. She later became India’s first chief minister and served as head of Uttar Pradesh from 1963 – 1967.

Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949)

Sarojini Naidu, from Hyderabad, was a feminist and poet, known as the “Nightingale of India.” She was a suffragist in Britain while she was at university at King’s College London and Cambridge. She then joined Gandhi’s swaraj (self-rule) movement.

In 1917, she supported the setting up the Women’s Indian association and on the behalf met the British Viceroy of India and the Secretary of State to ask for reforms. She introduced a resolution to enfranchise women in 1918. The motion was supported by all except the British committee.

She later became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and became the first Governor of United Provinces after independence in 1947.

In 1930, Gandhi initially did not want to permit women to join the Salt March, because it would be physically demanding with a high risk of arrest. Naidu and other female activists, including Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Khurshed Naoroji, persuaded him otherwise, and joined the march. When Gandhi was arrested on 6 April 1930, he appointed Naidu as the new leader of the campaign.

Naidu’s poetry 

Golden Threshold (1905) - Naidu’s first collection of poems, which brought her recognition as a talented poet. The Broken Wing (1917) - A collection of poems that reflect on themes of freedom and social justice.

Savitribai Phule (1831–1897)

Savitribai Phule, from Maharashtra, was a social reformer, feminist, educator and poet who, became known as the “Mother of modern Indian education”. With her husband Jyotirao Phule, she was pivotal in the education of girls and the upliftment of the caste and gender oppressed people. She was the first woman teacher of India and set up the first school for girls in India in 1848.

She and her husband, fought against caste discrimination and championed the rights of then called Shudra (and now Dalit) caste. She was anti infanticide activist and set up women’s shelters where women could safely deliver babies, she campaigned against child marriage and advocated for widow re-marriage. Phule’s poetry

Bhikaji Rustom Cama (1861 – 1936)

Bhikaiji Rusto Cama, from Mumbai,  was unhappily married to Rustom Cama, a wealthy, pro-Britisher lawyer so Bhikhaiji spent most of her time in social work and activism. She is also known as  Madame Cama.

She set up ‘Free India Society’ in London and Paris rallying Indian youth and disributed revoltionary literature. She unfurled one of the earliest versions of the national flag of independent India on 22 August 1907 and she was the first person to hoist an Indian flag in a foreign nation, at the International Socialist Conference at Stuttgart where she also decribed the impact British induced famines. She appealed to the delegates to co-operate with the Indians so that they all could free themselves from British rule. There is speculation that Cama’s actions and her atatnedance at 1911 First Universal Races Congress inspired W.E.B Du Bois’s 1928 novel, Dark Princess.

Cama was in France in 1915 and she was interned for agitating Punhabi Regiment from India on thir arrival. She petitioned the French and British governments and was not allowed to retun to India untl 1935 when she was in very poor health.

She died within 9 months of returning to India and left most her possessions to Avabai Petit Orphanage for girls.

Cama called for gender equality - "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that moulds the character. That soft hand is the chief factor in the national life…” and “work for Indian's freedom and independence. When India is independent women will not only have the right to vote, but all other rights.”

Usha Mehta (1920 –2000)

Usha Mehta, from Gujarat, was 8 when she joined her first protest march and called out the slogan “Simon Go Back” against the Simon Commission in1928 - an all British commission to discuss the controversial constitutional Montagu - Chelmsford reforms from 1919 in India.

Mehta set up an underground radio station called Secret Congress Radio in 1942 during the Quit India movement and her first words were “This is the Congress radio calling on a wavelength of 42.34 meters from somewhere in India."The Police eventually caught the organisers, and Mehta was imprisoned between 1942- 1946 – she was interrogated for 6 months and remained silent. She was held in solitary confinement and became the first political prisoner to be the interim government in March 1946.

After independence she returned to university and secured a PhD and the was elected president of Gandhi Smarak Nidhi.

Moolmati Devi

Moolmati, from Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, raised one of India’s most prominent freedom fighters, Ram Prasad Bismil, who was hanged by the British for Mainpuri Conspiracy case and the Kakori Conspiracy in 1927.

Before his death, Moolmati visited her son, Bismil at the Gorakhpur jail, wher she told him she was proud to have a revoluntionary son like him – he credited her courage for raisnig him with fearlessness. After his hanging, she is said to have raised her other son's hand and offered him to the freedom movement.

Bhogeshwari Phukanani (1885- 1942)

Bhogeshwari Phukanani, from Assam, a mother of 8 became an activist in the Independence movement and came to be known as the "60-year-old martyr".

She helped set up Berhampur office of the Indian Natiional Congress which came to be under siege by the military and police in 1942. She was one of the freedom fighters to regain control of the office. It was a short lived victory as the British army sent a large military force to take back control.

As a group of villagers calling ‘Vande Mataram' and waving the national flag of indpendence were marching with Phukanani and her daughter Ratnamala at the lead. Captain Capt Finish of the British army, snatched the flag from Ratnamala's hand who fell –Capt Finish raised a gun towards the group when Phukanani struck him with a flag pole – he fired, shotting her fatally.

Parbati Giri (1926 – 1995)

Parbati Giri, from Odisha, was fighting for freedom at age 12 when she tried to persuade her father to allow her to campaign for the Indian National Congress. She spend time at Bari Ashram learning to spin and weave as well as the philosophy of ahimsa. She then travelled training vilagers. She was arrested and released many times as she was a minor. At 16, she was imprisoned with phyiscal labour for 2 years.

After independence, she opened an ashram for women and orphans called the Kasturba Gandhi Matruniketan and another home for the destitute called Dr. Santra Bal Niketan at Birasingh Gar.

She campaigned to improve prison conditions and to eradicate leprosy. She is often called the Mother Teresa of Western Odisha.

Lakshmi Sahgal (1914-2012)

Dr Lakshmi Sahgal, from Malabar District, Bombay, studied medicine and became a doctor in Chennai. After her marriage failed, she left for Singapore where she treated wounded prisoners of war after the defeat by the Japanese in 1942. Here she met Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army for independence called Azad Hind Fauj.

“At the second mass meeting, Netaji dropped a bombshell by saying that it was his intention to form a women's infantry regiment, named after the Rani of Jhansi who had fought so heroically against the British in 1857… I told him I was ready to join... The date was July 8, 1943”

She signed up to the all women brigade called Rani of Jhansi Regiment, and became Captain Lakshmi. She was the Minister in Charge of Women's Organization in the Provisional Government of Free India and was arrested by the British in May 1945 and put in a prison in Burma until March 1946. In 1947, she aided refugess after Partition.

In 1971, during the Bangladesh independence, she organised relief camps and medical aid in Calcutta for refugees who came to India. She was one of the founding members of All India Democratic Women's Association in 1981. She led a medical team to Bhopal after the gas tragedy in December 1984, worked towards restoring peace in Kanpur following the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and was arrested for her participation in a campaign against the Miss World competition in Bangalore in 1996. She wsa still working as a doctor aged 92!

With gratitude for your discerning perspectives and critical lens

Kallie