NOTHING COMES WITHOUT SELF SACRIFICE... NEVER GIVE UP, EVEN IF WE FACE OUR OWN END...
~ Matangini Hazra
The year was 1869. For most of India, it is famous as the year when Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born to change the face of India's struggle for freedom. But in a corner of Undivided Bengal, the villagers of Hogla in Tamluk, the district capital of Medinipur, witnessed the birth of a girl child to Thakurdas Maity and his wife Bhagabati Devi. One can only imagine the birth of a girl child to a loan-ridden poor peasant in a village back then, perhaps meant no celebration. It meant the burden of having no heir, providing for this child and of course arranging for her dowry. She was named Matangini, literally meaning The Female Elephant, but a name attributed to the consort of Lord Shiva, Adi Shakti.
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| Birthplace of Matangini Hazra Courtesy: Midnapore.in |
The official records show her date of birth as the 17th of November 1869, whereas some attribute her birth to the 19th of October 1870. The poor family couldn't even provide their daughter with a basic education. Her father was unable to arrange for her dowry to find a suitable groom, and hence, around 12 years of age, Matangini was given away to Trilochan Hazra, a sixty-year-old widower from Alinan village of Medinipur, with children older than her, in marriage.
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| House of Trilochon Hazra Courtesy: midnapore.in |
In 1887, when Matangini was just eighteen, Trilochan passed away, leaving almost nothing to his widow. Childless women and widows were treated as a burden even among the aristocrats in those days. She being both, it is easy to guess how she must have been treated once he was gone. Soon, his son disowned the young Matangini, who found herself on the streets, with nowhere to go. She sought help from a lot of people, known and unknown to her in the little life she had led, and finally met Gunadhar Bhaumik, a village school teacher who quit his job to join Gandhi’s freedom movement. Gunadhar’s son, the world-renowned physicist and Padmasree awardee Mani Bhowmik, remembered his first encounter with this lady vividly. This, however, happened some years later, whereas it is unclear how she found her footing in the movement initially.
Around the year 1905, Matangini Hazra was attracted by the Gandhian ways so deeply that she decided to be an active participant in the Movement. By the time she was arrested first time in 1932, Matangini had become recognised as a leader and was referred to by her villagers as Gandhi Buri.
The next year was very significant. The Governor Lord William Bentick was residing in the Palace of the Governors in Sreerampore, and what he experienced from his balcony that day was a scene he perhaps never forgot. A crowd of protestors had gathered, unarmed with slogans and placards outside the gates and was being kept at bay by the Police forces of the Raj. This lady, in her trademark white saree, the anchal over her head, broke through the barricade shouting "Go Back Latt saheb" with banners in her hand. The taken-aback policemen took a moment to nab her down at the suddenness of her bravery. She was badly beaten and injured that day.
In the year 1942, the Quit India Movement started on the 8th of August, and there were demonstrations and protests that swept across the Raj. On the 29th of September 1942, Matangini Hazra led six thousand unarmed protesters with placards and flags to the Tamluk Police Station. The seventy-two-year-old moved ahead of the crowd, consisting mostly of women who followed her. On her left hand, she held a conch shell, the sound of which was auspicious to the Hindus to triumph over all evil, and on her right hand was the tricolour of the “Swaraj” that was soon to inspire the Indian National Flag.
She held this symbol of national pride high as she moved ahead, closing in on the line of men, outside the Police Station, waiting with loaded guns. The Police were perhaps intimidated by this braveheart as she closed in on them, shouting “Vande Mataram”.
One of them took a shot, and others followed. The crowd was scattered in different directions; some fell injured, others escaped, while Matangini Hazra stood firm. A bullet shot through her left hand as her bleeding arm let go of the conch shell that fell and broke to pieces. Blood spat across her white saree as she walked on, unnerved at the men shouting Vande Mataram.
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The Official Police Records say she was shot in both arms, yet her bleeding right hand didn’t let go of the flag that flew high over her head, as a symbol of freedom. Onlookers claimed she was shot in her right leg, too, which made her stumble to the ground on her knees, but her slogans refused to stop, as she prevented the flag from touching the soil as a sign of defeat. The last official shot ripped through her skull right in the middle of her forehead. She fell to the ground in a pool of blood as the Police surrounded their prized prey. Till her last breath, she didn’t let the flag fall.
They say we become our most fearless selves when we have nothing to lose. It makes me wonder, how many are brave enough to choose their causes over their own lives? I can’t help but wonder about the thousands of others like her, on whose blood we have gained freedom. A few like Pritilata Wadekar, Kanaklata Barua, Aruna Asaf Ali, Laxmi Sehgal, or Usha Mehta stand out today as pioneers and leaders, but what about the several unnamed men and women who lost their lives in the dream of freedom? We can only read, imagine and be inspired by these brave men and women who worked towards an India free from the hands of the British Colonisers.
