Why In The News?

• Remembering ‘Matangini Hazra’ on her 81st Anniversary of Martyrdom.

About Matangini Hazra:

=> Early life: – She was born on 19 October 1870, in the small village of Hogla, near Tamluk in Bengal, she was the daughter of a poor peasant and did not receive a formal education.

Role during the freedom struggle:

=> She was a revolutionary and actively participated in the Indian Independence Movement.

=> She was affectionately known as Gandhi Buri (Bengali for Old Lady Gandhi).

=> In 1905, she became actively interested in the Indian independence movement as a Gandhian. She took part in the Non-Cooperation Movement and protested for the abolition of salt tax as a part of the civil disobedience movement.

=> It was during this time that she became an active member of the Indian National Congress, and started spinning her own khadi in Gandhi’s footsteps.

=> She led a procession of 6000 protestors, mostly women as a part of the Quit India Movement.

=> She kept chanting Vande Mataram  (Hail to the Motherland) during her last moments.

Post Independence:

=> Numerous schools, colonies, and streets were named after Hazra.

=> The first statue of a woman put up in Kolkata, in independent India, was Hazra’s in 1977.

=> In 2002, as part of a series of postage stamps commemorating sixty years of the Quit India Movement the Department of Posts of India issued a five rupee postage stamp with Matangini Hazra’s image.