Rural Indians were both the foot soldiers of freedom and the leaders of some of the greatest anti-colonial uprisings ever seen. Countless thousands of them sacrificed their lives to rid India of British rule. And many who lived through great suffering to see a free India were mostly forgotten soon after. From the 1990s, I recorded the lives of several of the last living freedom fighters. Here you’ll find the stories of five of them:
T
Nuapada, Odisha
|FRI, AUG 14, 2015
Ten tales of freedom
Retelling forgotten stories of courage and sacrifice that got India its Independence
Author
10. When ‘Salihan’ took on the Raj
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 1: Demathi Dei Sabar and her friends took on gun-toting British officers with lathis in Nuapada, Odisha
9. Panimara's foot soldiers of freedom - 1
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 2: When poor Odiya villagers took over and tried to run the Sambalpur court
8. Panimara's foot soldiers of freedom - 2
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 3: The little settlement in Odisha that earned the name ‘Freedom Village’
7. The last battle of Laxmi Panda
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 9: The impoverished INA freedom fighter whose only demand of her nation was recognition. And so the ageing soldier's fight continued even six decades after Independence
6. Nine decades of non-violence
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 10: Baji Mohammed, the man whose non-violent struggles continued 60 years after Independence
Together with these is a set of five stories first published in the Times of India and reproduced here with far more photographs. That ‘Forgotten Freedoms’ series was woven around the villages that were the cradles of great revolts. Indian Independence was not about a bunch of urban elites. Rural Indians fought in far greater numbers and for more than one kind of freedom. The many battles of 1857, for instance, unfolded in the villages at the same time the elites of Mumbai and Kolkata were holding meetings to pray for the success of the British. In 1997, 50 years into freedom, I returned to some of those villages for these stories:
5. Sherpur: big sacrifice, short memory
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 4: The Uttar Pradesh village that raised the flag in 1942 and paid the price for it
4. Godavari: and the police still await an attack
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 5: From Rampa in Andhra, Alluri Sitaramaraju led one of the greatest anti-colonial revolts
3. Sonakhan: when Veer Narayan died twice
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 6: In Chhattisgarh, Veer Narayan Singh sought no charity, but gave his life fighting for justice
2. Kalliasseri: in search of Sumukan
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 7: The village that battled on all fronts, fighting the British, local landlords, and caste
1. Kalliasseri: still fighting at 50
TEN TALES OF FREEDOM – 8: When the God of the Hunters sheltered the communists in Kerala from the Raj
PARI continues to trace and document the lives of the very last freedom fighters, now in their 90s.
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