GREATEST INDIA FREEDOM FIGHTERS

‘Free India’ was a dream of all Indians under the British rule. Everyone during that rule fought in some way or the other with a common aim of ending British and other colonial authorities in India. After a century of revolutions, struggle, blood shedding, battles and sacrifices, India finally achieved independence on August 15, 1947.

India was free in 1947 from the British Empire but the country lost many men and women who were filled with undaunted courage and spirit of patriotism. Today, they are known as freedom fighters because they sacrificed their lives for their motherland. Indian freedom fighters with their true spirit and undaunted courage had faced various tortures, exploitations and hardships to earn us freedom. 

 1.Mangal Pandey ( 19 July 1827 - 8 April 1857)

Mangal Pandey was born on 19 July 1827 in the village Nagwa, of Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh of India to a saryuparin Brahmin family.He joined the East India Company's forces in 1849 at the age of 22. Pandey was part of the 6th Company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry and is primarily known for his involvement in an attack on several of the regiment's officers. This incident marked an opening stage in what came to be known as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence. It is said that Pandey was a devout Hindu who practiced his religion diligently.

2.Ramachandra Pandurang Tope ( 1814 - 18 April 1859)

Ramachandra Pandurang Tope also known as Tatya Tope (pronounced Tohpey), was an Indian leader in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and one of its finest generals. He was a personal adherent of Nana Sahib of Kanpur. He progressed with the Gwalior contingent after the British reoccupation of Kanpur and forced General Windham to retreat from Kanpur. Later on, he came to the rescue of Rani Laxmi Bai. However he was defeated by General Napier's British Indian troops after the betrayal of his trusted friend Man Singh. He was executed by the British Government at Shivpuri on 18 April 1859.

3.Queen of Jhansi Rani Lakshmi Bai (19 Nov 1835 - 17 June 1858)

  

Originally named Manikarnika and nicknamed Manu, she was born on 19 November 1835 at Kashi (Varanasi) to Karhade Brahmin family, the daughter of Moropant Tambe and Bhagirathibai Tambe. She lost her mother at the age of four, and was educated at home. Her father, Moropant Tambe, worked at the court of Peshwa at Bithur, who brought her up like his own daughter, and called her "Chhabili" for her light-heartedness.Because of her father's influence at court, Rani Lakshmi Bai had more independence than most women, who were normally restricted to the zenana. She studied self defence, horsemanship, archery, and even formed her own army out of her female friends at court. Tatya Tope who was considered as a nightmare by the British during the 'Great Revolt of 1857' was Lakshmi Bai's tutor. She was married to Raja Gangadhar Rao Newalkar, the Maharaja of Jhansi in 1842, and became the queen of Jhansi. After their marriage, she was given the name Lakshmi Bai.The Raja was very affectionate to her. She gave birth to a son Damodar Rao in 1851. However, the child died when he was about four months old. After the death of their son, the Raja and Rani of Jhansi adopted Anand Rao. Anand Rao was the son of Gangadhar Rao's cousin.He was later renamed as Damodar Rao. However, it is said that the Raja of Jhansi never recovered from his son's death, and he died on 21 November 1853.Because Anand Rao was adopted, the East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie, had an excuse to apply the Doctrine of Lapse, rejecting Rao's claim to the throne. Dalhousie then annexed Jhansi, saying that the throne had "lapsed" and claimed the right to put Jhansi under his protection. In March 1854, she was given a pension of 60,000 rupees and ordered to leave the palace and the Jhansi fort.

4.Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 Oct 1869 - 30 Jan 1948)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement. A pioneer of satyagraha, or resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience — a philosophy firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence — Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is often referred to as Mahatma  ahātmā or "Great Soul," an honorific first applied to him by Rabindranath Tagore).In India, he is also called Bapu  and officially honoured as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Non-Violence.Gandhi first employed non-violent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, and urban labourers in protesting excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, increasing economic self-reliance, but above all for achieving Swaraj — the independence of India from foreign domination. Gandhi famously led Indians in protesting the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.Gandhi strove to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn he had hand spun on a charkha. He ate simple vegetarian food, and also undertook long fasts as means of both self-purification and social protest.

 5.Annie Besant(1 Oct 1847 - 20 Sept 1933)

  

Annie Besant  was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society (NCS) and writer and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. The scandal made them famous and Bradlaugh was elected Member of Parliament for Northampton in 1880.She became involved with Union organisers including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and the London matchgirls strike of 1888 and was a leading speaker for the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). She was elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky and over the next few years her interest in Theosophy grew while her interest in secular matters waned. She became a member of the Society and a highly successful lecturer in Theosophy. As part of her Theosophy-related work, she travelled to India where in 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu College, and in 1902 she formed the International Order of Co-Freemasonry in England. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became President of the Theosophical Society.She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914 she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India and dominion status within the Empire. This lead to her election as president of the India National Congress in late 1917. After the war she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of Theosophy until her death in 1933.

 6.Lala Lajpat Rai(28 Jan 1865 - 17 Nov 1928)

Lajpat Rai was born in an Agarwal family in Dhudike (now in Moga district, Punjab) on 28 January, in 1865. His grandfather was a Svetambara Jain while his father had great respect for Islam, and he even fasted and prayed like muslims, but did not embrace Islam largely due to his family's attachment to the Hindu faith.Lala Lajpat Rai had his initial education in Govt. Higher Secondary School, Rewari(now in Haryana, was earlier in Punjab), in the last 1870s and early 1880s where his father Radha Krishan was an Urdu teacher. Lala Lajpat Rai was influenced by Hinduism and Manusmriti and created a career of reforming Indian policy through politics and writing. (When studying law in Lahore, he continued to practice Hinduism. He became a large believer in the idea that Hinduism, above nationality, was the pivotal point upon which an Indian lifestyle must be based.) Hinduism, he believed, led to practices of peace to humanity, and the idea that when nationalist ideas were added to this peaceful belief system, a non-secular nation could be formed. His involvement with Hindu Mahasabhaite leaders gathered criticism from the Bharat Sabha as the Mahasabhas were anti-secularism, which did not conform with the system laid out by the Indian National Congress.This focus on Hindu practices in the subcontinent would ultimately lead him to the continuation of peaceful movements to create successful demonstrations for Indian independence.

 7.Bala Gangadhar Tilak (23 July 1856 - 1 Aug 1920)

 Lokmanya Tilak  Born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer and independence fighter who was the first popular leader of the Indian Independence Movement. The British colonial authorities derogatorily called the great leader as "Father of the Indian unrest". He was also conferred with the honorary title of Lokmanya, which literally means "Accepted by the people (as their leader)". Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of "Swaraj" (self-rule) in Indian consciousness. His famous quote, "swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!" is well-remembered in India even today.

 8.Dadabhai Naoroji ( 4 Sept 1825 - 30 June 1917)

Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons between 1892 and 1895, and the first Asian to be a British MP.^[1] He is also credited with the founding of the Indian National Congress, along with A.O. Hume and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha.

9.Subash Chandra Bose ( 23 Jan 1897 - unconfirmed )

Subhas Chandra Bose known by name Netaji (Hindi: "Respected Leader") was an Indian revolutionary who led an Indian national political and military force against Britain and the Western powers during World War II. Bose was one of the most prominent leaders in the Indian independence movement and is a legendary figure in India today. Bose was born on 23 January 1897 in Cuttack, Orissa to Janakinath Bose and Prabhabati Debi.He is presumed to have died 18 August 1945. However, no actual evidence of his death on that day has been authenticated and many committees were set up by the government of India to investigate his death.

10.Sarojini Naidu ( 13 Feb 1879 - 2 March 1949 )

Sarojini Naidu  (née Chattopadhyaya)  also known by the sobriquet The Nightingale of India, was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet. Naidu was the first Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman to become the Governor of Uttar Pradesh state.She was active in the Indian Independence Movement, joining Mahatma Gandhi in the Salt March to Dandi, and then leading the Dharasana Satyagraha after the arrests of Gandhi, Abbas Tyabji, and Kasturba Gandhi.

11.Chandra Shekhar Azad  ( 23 July 1906 - 27 Feb 1931 )

Chandra Shekhar Azad (23 July 1906-27 February 1931) (popularly known as Azad, literally "The liberated") was one of the most important Indian revolutionaries who reorganised the Hindustan Republican Association under the new name of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) after the death of its founder Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil and three other prominent party leaders, Thakur Roshan Singh, Rajendra Nath Lahiri and Ashfaqulla Khan. He is considered to be the mentor of Bhagat Singh and chief strategist of the HSRA.

12.Gopal Krishna Gokhale ( 9 May 1866 - 19 Feb 1915 )

Gopal Krishna Gokhale,was one of the founding social and political leaders during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale promoted not only primarily independence from the British Empire but also social reform. To achieve his goals, Gokhale followed two overarching principles: inviolence and reform within existing government institutions.

13.Bhagat Singh ( 28 Sept 1907 - 23 March 1931)

Bhagat Singh was an Indian freedom fighter, considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement. He is often referred to as Shaheed Bhagat Singh (the word shaheed meaning "martyr").

Born to a Jat Sikh family which had earlier been involved in revolutionary activities against the British Raj, Singh, as a teenager, became an atheist and had studied European revolutionary movements. He also became attracted to anarchism and marxist ideologies. He became involved in numerous revolutionary organizations. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) and became one of its leaders, and was influencial in changing its name to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), which emphasises his socialist outlook. Singh gained support when he underwent a 41-day^[ fast in jail, demanding equal rights for Indian and British political prisoners. He was hanged for shooting a police officer in response to a police lathi charge leading to the demise of veteran freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai. His legacy prompted youths in India to begin fighting for Indian independence and contributed to the rise of socialism in India.

14.Bipin Chandra Pal  ( 7 Nov 1858 - 20 May 1932 )

 Bipin Chandra Pal was a teacher, journalist, orator, writer and librarian, he was famous as one of the triumvirate of three militant patriots of the Congresses - the "Pal" of Lal Bal Pal. The trio was responsible for initiating the first popular upsurge against British colonial policy in the 1905 partition of Bengal, before the advent of Gandhi into Indian politics. Pal was also the founder of the journal Bande Mataram.

Even though he understood the positive aspects of Empire as a `great idea', the `Federal-idea is greater'. In both public and private life he was radical. He married a widow (he had to sever ties to his family for this). At the time of B. G. Tilak's ("Bal") arrest and government repression in 1907, he left for England, where he was briefly associated with the radical India House and founded the Swaraj journal. However, political repercussions in the wake of Curson Wyllie's assassination in 1909 by Madanlal Dhingra lead to the collapse of this publication, driving Pal to penury and mental collapse in London. In the aftermath, he totally moved away from his 'extremist' phase and even nationalism, as he contemplated an association of free nations as the great federal-idea. His plea for a transcendence to a broader entity than nation derived from the notion of the sociability of human beings, which he thought would create a common bond between nations. He was among the first to criticize Gandhi or the 'Gandhi cult' since it `sought to replace the present government by no government or by the priestly autocracy of the Mahatma.' His criticism of Gandhi was persistent beginning with Gandhi's arrival in India and open in 1921 session of the Indian National Congress he delivered in his presidential speech a severe criticism of Gandhi's ideas as based on magic rather than logic, addressing Gandhi: 'You wanted magic. I tried to give you logic. But logic is in bad odour when the popular mind is excited. You wanted mantaram, I am not a Rishi and cannot give Mantaram...I have never spoken a half-truth when I know the truth...I have never tried to lead people in faith blind-folded', for his 'priestly, pontifical tendencies', his alliance with pan-Islamism during the Khilafat movement, which led to Pal's eclipse from political life from 1922 till his death in 1932 under conditions of abject poverty. Comparing Gandhi with Leo Tolstoy during the year he died, Pal noted that Tolstoy 'was an honest philosophical anarchist' while Gandhi remained in his eyes as 'a papal autocrat' Firm and ethically grounded, not only did he perceive the 'Congress Babel' in terms of its shortsightedness in late 1920s or, Congress as an instance of repudiating debt's folly, composed of a generation 'that knows no Joseph', Pal's critical comments should be located in context, since nobody can jump out of his skin of time. An estimation of Bipin Chandra Pal's entire corpus and the depth of his published writing cannot produce a fair idea or provide due justice if that is produced with the benefit of post-independence hindsight. Though there are many articles and books written about him from India and Europe, most of which is not hagiographical, his 'pen played not an inconsiderable part in the political and social ferments that have stirred the aters of Indian life', as the Earl of Ronaldshay wrote in 1925, what Nehru said in a speech during Pal's birth centenary in 1958 surmises 'a great man who functioned on a high level on both religious and political planes'opens a gate for enquiring this high-minded yet anomalous persona.

The trio had advocated radical means to get their message across to the British, like boycotting British manufactured goods, burning Western clothes made in the mills of Manchester or Swadeshi and strikes and lockouts of British owned businesses and industrial concerns.

He came under the influence of eminent Bengali leaders,not as a hero-worshipper or somebody looking for a guru for guidance, of his time such as Keshab Chandra Sen and Sibnath Sastri, as his family were in Brahmo Samaj. He was imprisoned for six months on the grounds of his refusal to give evidence against Sri Aurobindo in the Vande Mataram sedition case.

He died on May 20, 1932.

15.Sucheta Kriplani ( 25 June 1908 - 1 Dec 1974 )

Sucheta Kriplani was an Indian freedom fighter and politician in Uttar Pradesh, India. She became the first woman to be elected Chief Minister of any Indian state.She was born in Ambala, Haryana to a Bengali family. Her father, S.N. Majumdar though a government doctor was a nationalist. Educated at Indraprastha College and St.Stephen's College, Delhi she became a lecturer at the Banaras Hindu University. In 1936, she married socialist, Acharya Kriplani and became involved with the Indian National Congress. Like her contemporaries Aruna Asaf Ali and Usha Mehta, she came to the forefront during the Quit India Movement. She later worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi during the Partition riots. She accompanied him to Noakhali in 1946. She was one of the few women who were elected to the Constituent Assembly and was part of the subcommittee that drafted the Indian Constitution. She became a part of the subcommittee that was handed over the task of laying down the charter for the constitution of India. On 15 August 1947 she sang Vande Mataram in the Independence Session of the Constituent Assembly.

16.Chakravarthi Rajagoplachari ( 10 Dec 1878 - 25 Dec 1972 )

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari informally called Rajaji or C.R., was an Indian lawyer, independence activist, politician, writer and statesman. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India. He also served as leader of the Indian National Congress, Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, Minister for Home Affairs of the Indian Union and Chief Minister of Madras state. Rajaji founded the Swatantra Party and was one of the first recipients of India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. He vehemently opposed the use of nuclear weapons and was a proponent of world peace and disarmament. During his lifetime, he also acquired the nickname Mango of Salem. Rajaji was born in Thorapalli in the then Salem district of Tamil Nadu and educated at Central College, Bangalore and Presidency College, Madras. In 1900 he started a legal practice that in time became prosperous. On entering politics, he became a member and later President of the Salem municipality. He joined the Indian National Congress and participated in the agitations against the Rowlatt Act, the Non-Cooperation movement, the Vaikom Satyagraha and the Civil Disobedience movement. In 1930, Rajaji risked imprisonment when he led the Vedaranyam Salt Satyagraha in response to the Dandi March. In 1937, Rajaji was elected Premier of the Madras Presidency and served until 1940, when he resigned due to Britain's declaration of war on Germany. He later advocated cooperation over Britain's war effort and opposed the Quit India Movement. He favoured talks with both Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League and proposed what later came to be known as the C. R. Formula. In 1946, Rajaji was appointed Minister of Industry, Supply, Education and Finance in the Interim Government of India, and then as the Governor of West Bengal from 1947 to 1948, Governor-General of India from 1948 to 1950, Union Home Minister from 1951 to 1952 and as Chief Minister of Madras state from 1952 to 1954. In 1959, he resigned from the Indian National Congress and founded the Swatantra Party, which stood against the Congress in the 1962, 1967 and 1972 elections. Rajaji was instrumental in setting up a united Anti-Congress front in Madras state under C. N. Annadurai, which swept the 1967 elections.Rajaji was an accomplished writer who made lasting contributions to Indian English literature and is also credited with composition of the song Kurai Onrum Illai set to Carnatic music. He pioneered temperance and temple entry movements in India and advocated Dalit upliftment. He has been criticized for introducing the compulsory study of Hindi and the controversial Madras Scheme of Elementary Education in Madras State. Critics have often attributed his pre-eminence in politics to his standing as a favorite of both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Rajaji was described by Gandhi as the "keeper of my conscience".

 17.Sukhdev Thaper ( 15 May 1907 - 23 March 1931 )

Sukhdev Thapar  was involved with Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru in the killing of a British police officer J.P. Saunders in 1928 in order to take revenge for the death of veteran leader Lala Lajpat Rai due to excessive police beating.

All three were hanged in Lahore Central Jail on March 23, 1931 in the evening at 7.33 pm . The dead bodies were secretly taken away by breaking the back walls of the jail and were seceretly burnt on the banks of River Satluj at Hussainiwala about 50 miles away from Lahore. The bodies were cut into pieces to make the burial quick.

Sukhdev was an active member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, being one of its most senior leaders. He is known to have started study circles at National College, (Lahore) in order to delve into India's past as well as to scrutinize the finer aspects of world revolutionary literature and the Russian Revolution. Along with Bhagat Singh, Comrade Ram Chandra and Bhagwati Charan Vohra, he started Naujawan Bharat Sabha at Lahore. The main aims of this organisation were to activate youth for freedom struggle, inculcate a rational scientific attitude, fight communalism and end the practice of untouchability.

Sukhdev was deeply impressed by Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil, and Chandrashekhar Azad.

Sukhdev also participated in the 1929 Prison hunger strike to protest against the inhuman treatment of inmates.

His letter to Mahatma Gandhi written just prior to his hanging, protesting against the latter's disapproval of revolutionary tactics, throws light on the disparities between the two major schools of thought among Indian freedom fighers.

Nevertheless, this relatively baseless contention does not detract from the tremendous courage, patriotism and self-sacrifice that Sukhdev Thapar embodifies, as is evident in the naming of College of Business Studies,Delhi University (Ranked 2nd in Asia for Undergraduate Management Studies) & a school after him, in his native Ludhiana (city in Punjab)