List of Some Unsung Heros

 

Aruna Asaf ali

At the age of 33, Ali gained prominence among Indian masses and infamy in the British Raj camp after she hoisted the Indian National Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay during Quit India Movement in 1942.

An arrest warrant was issued in her name but she went underground to evade arrest and started an underground movement. Her property was seized and sold. The British government announced then a reward of 5,000 rupees for her capture.

Following India's Independence, she remained active in politics and social work but never received recognition.

 

Peer Ali Khan

 The most famous hero of the 1857 mutiny was Mangal Pandey, however, only a handful have heard of Peer Ali Khan. He was one of the initial rebels of India and among the 14 people who were hanged for their role in the mutiny.

 

 Matangini Hazra

Hazra is another freedom fighter who never received her fair share of fame despite sacrificing her life for the country's freedom. She was part of the Quit India Movement and Non-Cooperation Movement.

During a procession against the British, she was shot thrice but that did not deter her from marching with the tricolour in her hands. She also kept shouting 'Vande Mataram' till she breathed her last.

 

 

  Lakshmi Sahgal

 Captain Lakshmi was an officer in the Indian Army who also served in World War II. She also served time as a prisoner in Burma, now Myanmar.

When Sahgal heard that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was building an army of women soldiers, she enlisted herself. She was directed by the high command to form a female regiment called 'Rani of Jhansi regiment, where she was appointed as a Captain.

 

Khudiram Bose

Some might have heard his name as he was one of the youngest revolutionaries of India and is often discussed in history books. His contribution to the freedom struggle is also a significant one as he was just 18 years old when the British hanged him for his activities against the Raj.

 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was the early founder of the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC). She was one of the greatest protagonists of Art in India. She was very much interested in popularizing traditional Indian handicrafts and was popularly known as the "Hastkala Maa" meaning Mother of Handicrafts. A fearless fighter for social equality, she was the first Indian woman to stand for open political election in the mid-twenties. She was the" supreme romantic heroine" of Gandhiji's salt Satyagraha movement, and was the first woman in Bombay Presidency to be arrested for breaking the salt laws.

Bhikaji Cama

People may have heard her name on roads and buildings, but very few know who she was and what she did for India.

Cama was not only a part of India's independence movement but also an iconoclast who stood for gender equality during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

She donated most of her personal belongings to an orphanage for girls. She also unfurled the Indian flag at the International Socialist Conference at Stuttgart in Germany, 1907.

 

       

 

 

 

 

Rajkumari Gupta

 She and her husband worked with Mahatma Gandhi and Chandrashekhar Azad and Gupta's role as described by newspapers was supplying guns and passing seceret letters to the fellow nationalists involved in Kakori Conspiracy. She served jail terms in 1930, 1932 and 1942. Revealing that she had close connections with Chandra Shekhar Azad’s group in Allahabad, she had once said: “Hum upar se Gandhivaadi the, Neeche se krantivaadi.”