DURGA DEVI VOHRA : THE FORGOTTEN FREEDOM FIGHTER

 

DURGA DEVI VOHRA

THE FORGOTTEN FREEDOM FIGHTER

SARASIJ MAJUMDER

Seventy-eight years after we, the Indians, finally got our hard-won independence, the courage and contributions of many freedom fighters were kept in the dark by NEHRU, INC—and the Left-Muslim eco system which controlled the education ministry for long!

RESULT??  We don’t know most of the people, whose sacrifices are behind this ‘FREEDOM’ earned.

One such unacknowledged, unrecognized heroine is a woman few Indians know about, a woman who lived a life of intrigue and danger to help her nation fight colonial rule. The woman was Durga Devi Vohra alias Durga Bhabhi.

This unsung revolutionary appeared like a meteor on the anti-colonial nationalist sky and wielded tremendous influence on men such as Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Chandrashekhar Azad.

She was born on October 7, 1907 in Shehzadpur village of Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh.  The only child of a Gujarati couple settled in Allahabad, Durga Devi was brought up by her aunt after her mother passed away and her father took vows of Sanyas (renunciation).

His father's name was Pandit Banke Bihari. He was Nazir in Allahabad Collectorate.

At the young age of 11, she was married to Bhagwati Charan Vohra, the son of a wealthy Gujarati who lived in Lahore and worked for the railways.

Deeply impacted in her childhood by the brutal atrocities of the then Britain’s colonial rule kept inflicting on India, Bhagwati Charan joined the Satyagraha movements sweeping India in the 1920s. As a student at Lahore’s National College, he also joined Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Yashpal in starting a study circle that would scrutinize the revolutionary movements happening around the world.

Soon after, the group of friends founded the Nau jawan Bharat Sabha with the aim of encouraging youth to join the freedom struggle and ending the social evils of communalism and untouchability. As such, all these young revolutionaries became frequent visitors to Bhagwati Charan’s family home in Lahore.

This was how Durga Devi — working as a teacher at a girls’ college in Lahore — first came into contact with these legendary revolutionaries. Drawn by cause of national freedom, she and her husband joined Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), an organisation whose aim was setting India free from the shackles of British rule.

By the late 1920s, the members of HSRA had ramped up their revolutionary activities. Courting arrest was greeted with the distribution of sweets and the sight of a policeman with court summons was welcomed with joyous exclamations. And Durga Devi, a meticulous planner, was an integral part of the revolutionary machinations of the HSRA.

In 1928, three years after she gave birth to her son, Durga Devi was forced to go underground when the colonial authorities launched a brutally repressive drive against HSRA members.  As Bhagwati Charan had recently rented a room in Lahore to manufacture bombs, the couple was well aware that their radical political activities had brought them to the attention of the police.

Nevertheless, they continued with their revolutionary actives. In early December of 1928, Bhagwati Charan left for Kolkata to attend the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress.

A few days later, on December 19, 1928, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru assassinated Assistant Superintendent of Police John Saunders — the British police officer responsible for the brutal lathi charge that had led to the death of Lala Lajpat Rai.

Murdering of Lala Lajpat Rai was avenged.

In the resulting furore and spate of police raids, the trio came to their ‘Durga Bhabhi’ for assistance. To avoid recognition, they had cut their hair short and dressed in western attire.

Undaunted by the risk to her own safety, she agreed to help and handed over the sum of money her husband had left with her for emergencies. The daring woman also agreed to pose as Bhagat Singh’s wife in order to help him escape the British intelligence in Lahore.

What makes Durga Devi’s decision exceptionally courageous is the fact that the social conventions of that time strictly constrained contact between men and women who were not married. Despite knowing the risks, she chose to help the revolutionaries, knowing how important their leadership was for the nationalist struggle.

Taking her three-year-old son along, the indomitable woman helped Bhagat Singh (acting as her husband) and Rajguru (pretending to be the family’s servant) neatly evaded the massive police cordon and boarded a first class train carriage heading for Lucknow.

Travel by First Class was less risky.

Interestingly, Chandrashekhar Azad also escaped Lahore by travelling in the company of Sukhdev’s mother and sister, disguised as a sadhu escorting the women to a pilgrimage!

On reaching Lucknow, Bhagat Singh immediately sent a telegram to Bhagwati Charan, informing him that he was coming to Calcutta with ‘Durga Bhabhi’ while Rajguru was going to Benares. When the two of them finally arrived at Calcutta, they were received by a very surprised Bhagwati Charan who was delighted to learn his wife’s role in helping Bhagat Singh’s and Rajguru’s escape.

In the days that followed, Bhagwati Charan, Durga Devi and an incognito Bhagat Singh attended the Calcutta session of INC (where they glimpsed Gandhi, Nehru and SC Bose) and met several Bengali revolutionaries. Bhagat Singh’s iconic photograph in a felt hat was also taken in Calcutta.

In fact, according to Jogesh Chandra Chatterji (freedom fighter and member of Anushilan Samiti), the plan to throw bombs in Delhi’s Central Assembly was also made in Calcutta. This plan came to fruition on April 8, 1929, when Bhagat Singh and fellow revolutionary Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs and leaflets inside the Assembly before offering themselves up for arrest.

These charges were clubbed together by the British Raj in the Lahore conspiracy case that led to the arrest of the young leaders of HSRA. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were awarded the death sentence.

Police and CID began to close in on other revolutionaries as well.

In Lahore, Bhagwati Charan’s bomb factory got discovered, forcing him into hiding. While this was happening, his wife DURGA DEVI continued to play the risky role of an undercover ‘Mail Box’, receiving mail from absconding revolutionaries and despatching them to their families.

Recognising that a power vacuum had been created in the HSRA due to the arrest of many leaders, Durga Devi began taking up revolutionary activities herself. One of these included the daring assassination attempt on Lord Hailey, an ex-Governor of Punjab and a staunch enemy of revolutionaries. Although the Governor escaped, his aides were injured.

However, a tragedy was hovering on the horizon. Bhagvati Charan had been planning to free Bhagat Singh and his group by blasting the wall of the jail they were kept by using Bombs. But a premature explosion while testing the bomb on the banks of the river Ravi led to his untimely death.

A heartbroken Durga Devi dealt with the grief of her husband’s death by plunging into revolutionary work. In July 1929, she led a procession in Lahore, holding a placard with Bhagat Singh’s photograph and demanding his release. A few weeks later, she led the funeral procession of Jatindra Nath Das from Lahore to Calcutta after his death in the 63-day jail hunger strike.

The same year, October 8, she shot at a British policeman and his wife standing on the Lamington Road in South Bombay, in an incident that would later be described as “the first instance in which a woman figured prominently in a terrorist outrage”. For this, she was arrested and awarded three years imprisonment.

Yet all this is not Durga Devi’s only contributions to her country. In 1939, she visited Madras to receive training from Maria Montessori (the pioneering educator from Italy). A year later, she opened her own school in Lucknow — the first Montessori School in North India — with five students from underprivileged families.

In the years after Independence, Durga Devi lived a quiet life of anonymity in Lucknow before breathing her last on October 15, 1999 at the age of 92.

This was not adequately covered in any leading Newspaper.

Interestingly, most fans of the blockbuster movie Rang De Basanti don’t know  even that the role played by Soha Ali Khan was based on a real life revolutionary legend-- Durga Devi!

It has often been observed that history, somehow, tends to forget its women. Many heroines, who walked shoulder to shoulder with the men during trying times, still remained in the shadows, their faces forgotten and their bravery unsung. Durga Devi Vohra is one such heroine, a woman whose exceptional bravery and intelligence deserves to be recognised and respected by her, nay, our country.

Jai Hind!

 

Source: I read all listed below. Came to know about her from my GRAND UNCLE—himself was a revolutionary, belonging to ‘ANUSHILON SAMITI’.

1.0  Amar Ujjala.

2.0  Information Scattered in Public Domain.

3.0  Book by Kuldeep Nayer on Bhagat Singh.

4.0  क्रांतिकारी  दुर्गाभावी -- सत्य नारायण शर्मा 

5.0  Image: Cover page of the Book listed at Sl.4.