The independence struggle saw many freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives to see their mother land free. When the brave stories of most of the freedom fighters are known to everyone there are few of them who went un noticed in spite of their relentless efforts towards the movement. Let us take a look at few of the martyrs
Alluri Sitarama Raju
Also known as Aluri Rampa Rama Raju he led the "Rampa Rebellion" of 1922–24. During this period he along with a band of tribal leaders and other sympathizers fought against the British Raj. The locals referred to him as the "Manyam Veerudu" which means "Hero of the Jungles". He was one of the fiercest opponents of British rule in Andhra Pradesh. Though he was born into a prosperous Kshatriya family he renounced everything for the freedom struggle. He took up the cause of the tribal’s who were being harassed by British officials under the Forest Act, and led an armed rebellion. Uniting the various tribes in the region, he boarded on an armed revolt against the British, raiding police stations, capturing weapons, indulging in guerrilla attacks.
Khudiram Bose
He was a Bengali revolutionary who was one of the youngest revolutionaries early in the Indian independence movement. At the time of his hanging, he was 18 years, 7 months 11 days old. It was this hero who threw the first bomb on the Bristish who were crushing India. At the age of sixteen he defied the police. Khudiram was among the teenage student community of the town which was fired up with a burning inspiration of revolution. It was from then that Khudiram took his first steps towards choosing the path that would make him a boy-martyr. Khudiram as a student, dared to request a teacher, Hemchandra Kanungo for a revolver. Though an appeal was made to the Governor General to overrule a death sentence for Khudiram it was dismissed as the British was not going to let an Indian like that get way. On the contrary, the order came to carry out the death sentence latest by 11 August 1908. Kolkata erupted in intense protest from the entire student community. The streets of Kolkata started to be choked up with processions all at the same time, for several days and finally he was handed to death.
Ashfaqulla Khan
He was a freedom fighter who had given away his life along with Ram Prasad Bismil. Bismil and Ashfaq, both were good friends and Urdu poets. Ashfaqulla Khan was the first Muslim who was hanged in a Conspiracy against British Raj from India. In 1922, when Non-cooperation movement started and Bismil organised meetings in Shahjahanpur to tell the public about the movement, Ashfaq ullah met him in a public meeting and introduced himself as a younger brother of his class mate. The revolutionaries felt that soft words of non violence could not win India its Independence and therefore they wanted to make use of bombs, revolvers and other weapons to instill fear in the hearts of the Britishers living in India. decided to loot the government money and utilise it against the same government who had been continuously looting India for more than 300 years. Ashfaqulla Khan and eight other revolutionaries looted the train under the leadership of Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil. The actions of Ashfaq Ullah Khan and his compatriots have recently been depicted in an Amir Khan starrer hit Bollywood movie Rang De Basanti, where his character role was played by the film actor Kunal Kapoor.
Madame Cama
She was born in a well to do Parsi family. She was a fiery patriot who first unfurled India's flag at an international assembly. She turned away from a life of luxury and lived an exile to serve her country and at one time the mighty British Government grew afraid of her. Cama wrote, published (in the Netherlands and Switzerland) and distributed revolutionary literature for the movement, including Bande Mataram in response to the Crown ban on the poem Vande Mataram and later Madan's Talwar in response to the execution of Madan Lal Dhingra
Raj Kumari Gupta
Born about a century ago in the little-known Banda zilla of Kanpur, she and her husband worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi and Chandrashekhar Azad. Her crucial contribution to the Kakori dacoity case barely figures in the narratives of freedom. Raj Kumari was given the charge of supplying revolvers to those involved in the Kakori operation apparently hid the firearms in her undergarment and set out in khadi clothes to deliver them, with her three-year-old son in tow. On being arrested, she was disowned by her husband’s family and thrown out of her marital home.
Taji Mideren
He was resident of Elopain village in the Ithun Valley, Lohit District, North-East Frontier Agency in Arunachal Pradesh. He was a farmer and trader. He took part in the activities against British rule and killed three British officers near the Dikran river in 1905. He organized his Mishmi fellow tribals and got them to come together to resist the expansion of British authority. He established a Mishmi Confederacy under Pangon and other Mishmi leaders. A British expedition was sent to his village in 1913 to arrest him for the murder of the three British officers. The British burnt down the houses in the village but failed to arrest him and others. He was finally captured by the British police at Sadiya in December 1917, and was deported to Tezpur in Assam. There he was tried and sentenced to death. He died on the gallows in the Tezpur Jail on January 29, 1918.
Padmavathibai Burli
She was the wife of the renowned freedom fighter Bindacharya Burli. Though she was a silent she was a very pious woman. Circumstances so conspired against the family that they had to struggle for two square meals a day. Bindacharya breathed patriotism and lived patriotism. The cause and call of Mother India was always above his domestic obligations. Padmavatibai not only stood by her husband but led a silent agitation herself by feeding the tired and hungry freedom fighters. She used to tell her own children to eat a little less so that the sons of the nation, committed to free Mother India, could be fed. She used to take food to the freedom fighters who were in hiding. Once she was found serving food to Shakuntala Dabade and Shantabai Karamarkar, who were on satyagraha. Padmavatibai was arrested along with Shakuntala Dabade and Shantabai Karamarkar and all the three of them were sentenced to three months imprisonment. All these women and many others, who lived in huts and hamlets, rose above their ordinary selves and fought for the freedom of our country. It is the duty of every Indian to make India worthy of their noble sacrifice.
The Indian freedom was a long struggle which claimed thousands of lives and countless sacrifices. Each and everyone who was involved in the freedom struggle was equally responsible and credit has to be given to everyone for making India a free country cutting it from the clutches of British Rule who ruled India for more than 300 years, If it was not them then may for how much more time India would have been a slave to the British powers. Many of these sacrifices went unnoticed as there were numerous people who happily staked their lives but there was no one to tell their tale of bravery to the rest of the world.
