The humble heroism of Bhabani Mahato passes

She was 104 when we met her, emerging from her room, impatiently shaking off any hands seeking to assist her. Other than leaning on her handstick, Bhabani Mahato neither sought nor accepted assistance from anybody. Even at that age, she walked, stood, and sat on her own steam. If anything, generations of her vast joint family in Chepua village of West Bengal’s Purulia district depended mostly on this farmer and homemaker who was central to their lives and future.

Freedom fighter Bhabani Mahato passed away peacefully in her sleep soon after midnight of August 29-30, 2024. She was 106 years old. With her passing, only four of the 16 freedom fighters in my book The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom (Penguin November 2022) now remain alive. In one sense, Bhabani was exceptional even among the many extraordinary freedom fighters whose interviews are lodged in PARI’s Freedom Fighters Gallery. She was the only one who, for hours in our conversation, strongly denied having had a role in that epic struggle. “What did I have to do with that, or anything like that?” she asked us in March 2022 when we first met her. Read:  When Bhabani Mahato fed the revolution

Well, she actually had plenty to do with it, even more than her illustrious husband – recognised freedom fighter Baidyanath Mahato, who had died 20 years before our visit to her home in Man Bazar block. My colleague Smita Khator and I were crestfallen when she strongly denied being a freedom fighter. And it took us hours to figure out why.

She was being honest to the understanding of ‘freedom fighter’ as defined in the Swatantra Sainik Samman Yojana scheme of 1980. A definition that largely excluded women and their actions in the anti-colonial struggle; that largely centred around jail time – thereby also excluding huge chunks of the revolutionary underground. Worse, by asking those in the underground ‘proof’ of their being proclaimed offenders – it was seeking certification of India’s freedom heroes from the British Raj!

When we came at it differently, discussed it differently, we were stunned by the sheer magnificence of Bhabani’s sacrifice. The risks she took in feeding fugitive revolutionaries hiding in Purulia’s jungles. Cooking for and feeding often 20 or more of them – apart from doing that at the same time for a family of over 25 persons. Also, managing to grow that food in 1942-43 at the height of the Bengal Famine. What an incredibly great and risky contribution to India’s struggle for Independence!

We will miss your magic Bhabani di.