2 freedom fighters from Punjab in book on unsung freedom fighters

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, January 27

Durgawati Devi and Gulab Kaur are among 20 freedom fighters whose lives have been chronicled in a pictorial book titled “India’s Women Unsung Heroes: The Brave Women of our Freedom Struggle”.

The book, brought out by the ministry of Culture in partnership with the Amar Chitra Katha Comics as part of the “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” celebrations, was released by Union Minister of State for Culture Meenakshi Lekhi here on Thursday. “Durgawati Devi had accompanied Bhagat Singh as his wife during his escape to Kolkata from Lahore after he shot John Saunders. For the escape Bhagat Singh had dressed up in western attire while Durgawati (known as “Durga bhavi” in revolutionary circles) wore a very expensive sari and goggles to play her part as the wife of a fashionably dressed husband. Her child ‘Sachi’, who was then an infant, was with her”, Chaman Lal, retired JNU professor and a well-known authority on the revolutionary freedom struggle.

In Kolkata, Bhagat Singh and his associates were received at the railway station by Durgawati Devi’s real life husband Bhagwati Charan Vohra, who later died in Lahore while experimenting with a bomb that they wanted to use to rescue Bhagat Singh from prison.

Gulab Kaur was a Ghadarite. She and her husband Mann Singh sailed to India from Philippines to mobilise the masses against the British rule. “When her husband developed cold feet, she abandoned him”, Chaman Lal said.

Chaman Lal added that during the recent agitation by the farmers against the controversial farm laws, a hall was named after Gulab Kaur by the farmers at their protest site at Tikri border.