It was on this day 71 years ago that Gandhi's passionate call to 'do or die' fired countless Indians across gender, class and age to fight till independence was won.
The famous ‘Quit India’ movement was launched from a large meeting ground in Bombay, named later as August KrantiMaidan after the historic incident. Dehradun too played an active role in the struggle with its women being at the forefront of non-violent resistance. And a vibrant chapter of this was of young girls from Doon's Mahadevi Kanya Pathshala.
The role of women of Dehradun in this movement has been brought into focus in a project on ideological progression of women in colonial India by the Doon library Research Centre headed by researcher ManojPanjani.
MKP was the second institution in North India to start high school classes for girls at that time. Women leaders of freedom struggle in Dehradun included Vimla Sharma, Saraswati Soni and Shakuntla Bhargava. Under their direction, young girls studying in MKP College took out vociferous processions decrying the British Raj. "In the ground opposite JhandaChowk, the tricolor used to be hoisted. Since 1931, January 26 came to be celebrated as Independence Day by Indian nationalists.
On January 26, 1943 hundreds of women from MKP College overwhelmed with a determination to throw the colonists out of their motherland tore down the Union Jack and hoisted the tricolor. Battle cries of a free India reverberated in the ground as the air became charged with fierce nationalism.
These women were fearless, resolute and loyal," Panjani told The Pioneer sharing memoirs of some very old alumni of MKP College. Accounts of the civil disobedience movement as penned by these women in a special commemorative book also recreate the day when Kasturba Gandhi passed away. Kasturba, the wife of Mahatma Gandhi, was one of the foremost supporters of the Gandhi's programs.
One of the first women to be imprisoned in Transvaal, she took part in the Quit India Movement of 1942 and was arrested. She died while imprisoned in Poona. Fuming and sad, the girls decided not to attend classes and they all assembled at the college gate. Chandravati lakhanpal was the principal of the college during those days of Civil Disobedience. The institute founded in September, 1902 by Mahadevi Bhatnagar and her husband Jyoti Swaroop Bhatnagar was the second college in North India to have high school classes for girls. Though lakhanpal admired their nationalist sentiments, she was scared that since it was a government -aided college, grants to MKP would stop due to this defiance by the girls.
Thus, she decided to talk the girls out of the protest and persuade them to resume classes. But such was the crowd and feverish nationalism of the girls that she could not muster steel to confront them, turned back and went away quietly. The students continued their boycott even after the Government withdrew its financial assistance to the institution.
On the solemn occasion of August Kranti anniversary it is befitting to pay homage to every single person who joined hands in the struggle for freedom.