A story of India’s daughters and the men who stood by them

Zahid Ahmed Tapadar

(zahidtapadar@gmail.com)

The picture of a country told, for centuries, that its women are weak. That they should stay behind closed doors and that their voices don’t matter. Now picture those same women—from the scorched plains of Tamil Nadu to the mist-covered hills of Nagaland, from the lanes of Pune to the parlors of Calcutta—rising. One by one. Then in thousands. This is their story.

The first fire

The story begins in Tamil Nadu, where a queen named Rani Velu Nachiyar decided she had had enough. Around 1780, after the British killed her husband and seized her land, she trained an army, forged alliances, built a women’s battalion, and struck back—and won. She is the first Indian queen ever to lead an armed resistance against the British, nearly 80 years before 1857. Her commander Kuyili walked into a British ammunition depot and set herself ablaze to destroy it. History barely whispers their names. But they lit the fire first.

Closer to home in Malwa, Rani Ahalyabai Holkar (1725–1795) governed alone—building roads, temples, and justice for three decades at a time when women weren’t supposed to rule at all.

1857: The year women went to war

Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi (1828–1858) strapped her infant son to her back and rode into battle rather than surrender her kingdom. She fell at Gwalior with a sword in her hand. In her shadow stood Jhalkari Bai, a Dalit soldier who dressed as Laxmi Bai and held the British at the gates so her queen could escape, giving her life for the fight. In Lucknow, Uda Devi, another Dalit woman, climbed a pipal tree with a musket and picked off British soldiers before being shot down herself.

In Awadh, Begum Hazrat Mahal rallied soldiers and civilians, recaptured Lucknow from the British on July 5, 1857, and fought until defeat was inevitable. She walked into exile in Nepal rather than sign a treaty. She never surrendered.

Fighting with books and bandages

Not all battles needed swords. In 1848, Savitribai Phule (1831–1897) walked to Pune’s first girls’ school every day while people pelted her with mud and stones. She carried a spare sari, changed when she arrived, and began teaching—India’s first woman teacher. She was joined by Fatima Sheikh, a Muslim woman who opened her home as the school’s classroom when upper-caste society refused them any space. Two women. Two communities. One fight.

Kadambini Ganguly (1861–1923) became the first Indian woman to earn a western medical degree in 1886 and the first practicing doctor in India. Conservative newspapers called her a fallen woman. Kadambini went to Edinburgh, earned three more qualifications, came home, and performed a surgery on the very morning she died.

Flags, Fire, and Fury: 1900 to 1947

In 1907, Bhikhaji Cama, a Parsi woman from Bombay in European exile, unfurled the first version of India’s national flag at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, demanding independence before the world.

On August 9, 1942, when the British arrested most Congress leaders overnight, Aruna Asaf Ali walked onto the stage at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, planted the national flag before thousands, and vanished underground for a year, evading a British manhunt.

Usha Mehta ran a secret radio station broadcasting news of the resistance—night after night—until she was caught and arrested. She smiled in the police photographs.

Pritilata Waddedar (1911–1932) of Bengal led fifteen revolutionaries to attack the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong—a club whose gates read “Dogs and Indians not allowed.” Shot during the raid, she swallowed cyanide rather than be captured. She was 21.

Matangini Hazra, the 73-year-old widow from Bengal, kept marching with the national flag after being shot in the hand and then the arm and fell on the third shot, still holding it. “Vande Mataram” were her last words.

In Assam, on a September morning in 1942, seventeen-year-old Shahid Kanaklata Barua led thousands to hoist the national flag at the Gohpur Police Station during the Quit India Movement. When police opened fire, she held the tricolor aloft until the last moment, refusing to let it touch the ground. She was shot dead at point-blank range. The flag was hoisted. Assam calls her immortal.

In the hills of Nagaland, Rani Gaidinliu joined the Heraka resistance at thirteen and was leading an armed uprising against British rule by sixteen. Jawaharlal Nehru gave her the title “Rani” after imprisoning her for fourteen years—through her entire youth.

The men who chose differently

Not all men built the cage. Some helped break it.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy campaigned relentlessly against Sati, leading to its formal abolition in 1829. Through petitions and public debate, he argued that no scripture could justify cruelty and that society could not progress while its women suffered. Branded by many as a disruptor of tradition, he insisted that reform was not rebellion against faith but a return to humanity.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was instrumental in the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act of 1856 and built girls’ schools across Bengal from his own pocket. He wrote persuasive tracts and faced fierce opposition, convinced that education was the foundation of dignity and reform. Despite intense opposition and social backlash, he stood unwavering in his conviction that compassion must triumph over custom.

Jyotirao Phule walked beside Savitribai each morning as she went to teach, shielding her from hostility. Together they opened schools for girls and marginalized communities, linking women’s rights with the larger fight against caste injustice.

Dwarkanath Ganguly championed his wife Kadambini’s medical education and professional career at a time when society ridiculed the very idea of a woman doctor. He even took legal action against her defamers, affirming that equality must exist both at home and in public life.

B. R. Ambedkar enshrined equality before the law in the Constitution of India, ensuring gender would not be a ground for discrimination. They did not do women any favors. They chose justice and stood firmly on the right side of history.

The century we live in

Kiran Bedi became the first woman IPS officer in 1972. Tessy Thomas led India’s Agni missile programme - the “Missile Woman of India.” Kalpana Chawla from Haryana became India’s first woman in space. Mary Kom became world boxing champion six times. Hima Das, a farmer’s daughter from Assam, became the first Indian woman to win gold at a global track event. Arunima Sinha lost her leg and then climbed Everest. Nirmala Sitharaman became India’s first full-time woman finance minister.

Every right Indian women have today—to study, to vote, to work, to lead—was won, not given. It was fought for by women who bled for it, died holding flags, and walked into classrooms while stones were thrown at them.

They were told they were too small. They were, in every sense, enormous.