Matangini Hazra and Kanaklata Barua

TOPICS COVERED: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Context:

During her address to the nation on the eve of Independence Day, President of India paid tributes to women freedom fighters.

Matangini Hazra:

  • She was born in a village named Hogla, near Tamluk, West Bengal in 1869.
  • Matangini was the daughter of a poor farmer who could not afford to provide her a formal education.
  • With no means to raise a decent dowry, she found herself married at 12 and was widowed at 18.
  • Matangani’s love for Gandhi was so great that she became known in our village as Gandhiburi, the old Gandhian woman.
  • At the age of 61, she was arrested for taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930 and the Salt March led by Gandhi.
  • She became an active member of the Indian National Congress and started spinning her own khadi in Gandhi’s footsteps.
  • Her involvement with the freedom struggle intensified during the Quit India Movement launched by Gandhi in August 1942.
  • In September that year, a 73-year-old Hazra led a large procession of around 6,000 protesters, mostly women.
  • The procession marched with the aim to take over the Tamluk police station from British authorities.
  • British police personnel shot at her thrice.
  • She collapsed and died, chanting ‘Vande Mataram’.
  • In 1977, the first statue in the Kolkata Maidan dedicated to a woman revolutionary was that of Matangini Hazra.

Kanaklata Barua

  • One of the youngest martyrs of the Quit India Movement, Kanaklata Barua has an iconic status in Assam.
  • Barua led the Mrityu Bahini, a procession of freedom fighters, to unfurl the Tricolour at Gohpur police station on September 20, 1942.
  • When police did not let them move forward, an altercation led to firing, killing Barua at the head of the procession.
  • The squad strictly admitted members aged 18 and above but Kanaklata was an exception.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB

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