Union Minister of State for Culture Smt. Meenakashi Lekhi released a pictorial book on India’s Women Unsung Heroes of Freedom Struggle as part of Azadi ka Mahotsav , in New Delhi on January 27, 2022.
- The book has been released in partnership with Amar Chitra Katha which is a household name in India.
- The book celebrates the lives of some of the women who led the charge and lit the flame of protest and rebellion throughout the country.
- The book contains stories of women unsung heroes like Rani Abbakka who repulsed the Portuguese attacks for several decades. However, history has hardly been written with this perspective and now as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
- Rani Abakka, the Queen of Ullal, Karnataka fought and defeated the mighty Portuguese in the 16th century. Velu Nachiyar, the queen of Sivaganga was the first Indian queen to wage war against the British East India Company. Jhalkari Bai, was a woman soldier who grew to become one of the key advisors to the Rani of Jhansi and a prominent figure in the First War of Indian Independence, 1857.
- Matangini Hazra was a brave freedom fighter from Bengal, who laid down her life while agitating against the British.
- Gulab Kaur was a freedom fighter who abandoned her own hopes and dreams of a life abroad to fight for and mobilise the Indian people against the British Raj.
- Chakali Ilamma was a revolutionary woman who fought against the injustice of zamindars during the Telangana rebellion in the mid-1940s.
- Padmaja Naidu, the daughter of Sarojini Naidu and a freedom fighter in her own right, who would later become Governor of West Bengal and a humanitarian after Independence.
