History project

Top 5 Women Freedom Fighters Of India

1. Rani Lakshmi Bai.

2. Kasturba Gandhi.
3. Sarojini Naidu. ...
4. Kamala Nehru. ...
5. Indira Gandhi.

1. Rani Lakshmi Bai

Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi (19 November 1828 – 17/18 June 1858) was an
Indian queen and warrior. She was one of the leaders of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
and became for Indian nationalists a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British
East India Company in India. Manikarnika was born into a Maratha family at
Varanasi.

Manikarnika was one of the great freedom fighter in India. She was married to Raja
Gangadhar Rao, the Maharaja of Jhansi in 1842 and became the Rani of Jhansi.
After her marriage Manikarnika became Lakshmibai, so named in honour of the
goddess Lakshmi.

In 1851, Rani Lakshmibai had a son, Damodar Rao. He died at the age of about four
months. On the day before the raja’s death in November 1853, he adopted a son.
After the death of her husband the head of the British government of India, Lord
Dalhousie, refused to allow her adopted son to become raja and Jhansi was then
ruled by the British. She was fighting against British for Jhansi.

She always use or carry her weapons with her. According to tradition with Damodar
Rao on her back she jumped on her horse Badal from the fort. They survived but the
horse died. In the battle of Kotah ki Serai in which the British forces commanded by
Sir Hugh Rose conquered Gwalior, fought on 17 and 18 June 1858, she died.
Wikipedia /Public Domain | Rani Of Jhansi

2. Kasturba Gandhi
Kasturba Mohandas Gandhi (11 April 1869 – 22 February 1944) was the wife of
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. In association with her husband, Kasturba Gandhi
was a political activist fighting for civil rights and Indian independence from the
British. She was born to Gokuladas and Vrajkunwerba Kapadia of Porbandar.
Kasturba was married to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in an arranged marriage in
1883. Working closely with her husband, Kasturba Gandhi became a political activist
fighting for civil rights and Indian independence from the British.

After Gandhi moved to South Africa to practice law, she travelled to South Africa in
1897 to be with her husband. From 1904 to 1914, she was active in the Phoenix
Settlement near Durban. During the 1913 protest against working conditions for
Indians in South Africa, Kasturba was arrested and sentenced to three months in a
hard labour prison. Later, in India, she sometimes took her husband’s place when he
was under arrest. In 1915, when Gandhi returned to India to support indigo planters,
Kasturba accompanied him. She taught hygiene, discipline, health, reading and
writing.
Wikipedia /Public Domain | Mahatma Gandhi And Kasturba Gandhi Seated

3. Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu (13 February 1879 – 2 March 1949) also known by the sobriquet as
The Nightingale of India. Sarojini Naidu was born in Hyderabad. She was an Indian
independence activist and poet. Naidu served as the first governor of the United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949. She was the first woman to become
the governor of an Indian state. She was the second woman to become the
president of the Indian National Congress in 1925. Naidu joined the Indian national
movement in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. She came into contact with
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant,
C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

During 1915–1918, she travelled to different regions in India delivering lectures on

social welfare, women’s empowerment and nationalism. She also helped to establish
the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) in 1917. She was sent to London along with
Annie Besant, President of WIA, to present the case for the women’s vote to the
Joint Select Committee. She played a leading role during the Civil Disobedience
Movement and was jailed along with Gandhi and other leaders. In 1942, she was
arrested during the “Quit India” movement. Sarojini Naidu died of a heart attack while
working in her office in Lucknow on 2 March, 1949.

♪Karthik♫ / | Sarojini Naidu In Bombay 1946

4. Kamala Nehru
Kamala Kaul Nehru (1 August 1899 – 28 February 1936) was a freedom fighter, wife
of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and the mother of Indira
Gandhi. She was known to be deeply sincere, highly patriotic, serious minded and
sensitive. Kamala Nehru was born on 1 August 1899 and brought up in a traditional
Kashmiri Brahmin middle-class family of old Delhi. Kamala married Jawaharlal Nehru
at the age of 17.

Kamala was involved with the Nehrus in the national movement, that she emerged
into the forefront. In the Non Cooperation movement of 1921, she organized groups
of women in Allahabad and picketed shops selling foreign cloth and liquor. When her
husband was arrested to prevent him delivering a “seditious” public speech, she
went in his place to read it out. The British soon realized the threat that Kamala
Nehru posed to them and how popular she had become with women’s groups all
over India. She was thus arrested on two occasions for involvement in Independence
struggle activities. Kamala died from tuberculosis in Lausanne, Switzerland on 28
February 1936.

Wikipedia /Public Domain | Kamala Nehru

5. Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was the fourth
Prime Minister of India, the first woman Prime Minister of India and central figure of
the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi, who served from 1966 to 1977 and then
again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984, is the second-longest-serving Prime
Minister of India and the only woman to hold the office. Indira Gandhi was the only
child of the first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. As the Prime Minister of
India, Gandhi was known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented
centralisation of power.
 She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of
independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation
of Bangladesh. Gandhi also presided over a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977
during which she ruled by decree and made lasting changes to the constitution of
India. She was killed in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards a few months after she ordered
the storming of the Sikh holy Temple in Amritsar to counter Punjab insurgency. She
was also named “Woman of the Millennium” in a poll organised by the BBC in 1999.

10 forgotten Women Freedom Fighters of India

 Matangini Hazra. Source: www.haribhoomi.com. ...
 Kanaklata Barua. Kanaklata Barua is also known as Birbala. ...
 Aruna Asaf Ali. She is popularly known as 'The Grand Old Lady' of the
Independence Movement. ...
 Bhikaiji Cama. Source: www.kamat.com. ...
 Many people belong to different regions, timelines but their dreams
were same- India’s Independence from the colonial rule or British Raj
and amongst these people, millions was women, some were known
and some were not.

 1. Matangini Hazra

 Source: www.haribhoomi.com
 Matangini Hazra was known as Gandhi Buri. She was a part of the
Quit India Movement and Non-Cooperation Movement. During one
procession, she continued to lead with the Indian flag even after
being shot thrice. She kept shouting "Vande Mataram”. The first
statue of a woman put up in Kolkata, in Independent India, was
Hazra’s in 1977. It stands at the spot where she was killed in
Tamluk. Even Hazra Road in Kolkata is also named after her.
 2. Kanaklata Barua


 Kanaklata Barua is also known as Birbala. She was an Indian
freedom fighter from Assam. She took a leading part in the Quit
India Movement in 1942 at Barangabari and stood at the head of
the women volunteers’ line with the National Flag in her hand. Their
aim was to hoist the flag at the British dominated Gohpur Police
Station by shouting the slogans “British imperialists should go back”
etc. but was prohibited by the Britishers. Though she tried
convincing that her intentions were noble, British police shot her
with several other picketers and at the age of 18 she sacrificed her
life for the country.
 3. Aruna Asaf Ali

 She is popularly known as ‘The Grand Old Lady’ of the
Independence Movement. She was an Indian Independence activist
and a freedom fighter who is best known for hoisting Indian
National Congress flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan in Bombay
during the Quit India Movement. She also took part in the Salt
Satyagraha movement as well as other protest marches and was
imprisoned for her so- called impertinence and instead of mourning
over the incarceration and awaiting release; she organized political
prisoners and protested against the ill treatment being meted out to
them by launching hunger strike.