Lakshmi Sehgal, a close associate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the
first head of the women's wing of the Azad Hind Fauj, died on July 23 at a private hospital in Kanpur. She was
97.
Captain Lakshmi Sahgal (1914 - 2012) - A life of struggle
“The fight will go on,” said Captain Lakshmi Sahgal one day in 2006,
sitting in her crowded Kanpur clinic where, at 92, she still saw
patients every morning. She was speaking on camera to Singeli Agnew, a
young filmmaker from the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, who
was making a documentary on her life.
Each stage of the life of this extraordinary Indian represented a new
stage of her political evolution – as a young medical student drawn to
the freedom struggle; as the leader of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi
regiment of the Indian National Army; as a doctor, immediately after
Independence, who restarted her medical practice in Kanpur amongst
refugees and the most marginalised sections of society; and finally, in
post-Independence India, her life as a member of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) and the All India Democratic Women’s Association
(AIDWA), years that saw her in campaigns for political, economic and
social justice.
“Freedom comes in three forms,” the diminutive doctor goes on to say on
camera in her unadorned and direct manner. “The first is political
emancipation from the conqueror, the second is economic [emancipation]
and the third is social… India has only achieved the first.”
With Captain Lakshmi’s passing, India has lost an indefatigable fighter for the emancipations of which she spoke.
First rebellion
Lakshmi Sahgal was born Lakshmi Swaminadhan on October 24, 1914 in
Madras to S. Swaminadhan, a talented lawyer, and A.V. Ammukutty, a
social worker and freedom fighter (and who would later be a member of
independent India’s Constituent Assembly).
Lakshmi would later recall her first rebellion as a child against the
demeaning institution of caste in Kerala. From her grandmother’s house,
she would often hear the calls and hollers from the surrounding jungles
and hills, of the people who in her grandmother’s words were those
“whose very shadows are polluting.” The young Lakshmi one day walked up
to a young tribal girl, held her hand and led her to play. Lakshmi and
her grandmother were furious with each other, but Lakshmi was the one
triumphant.
After high school in Madras, she studied at the Madras Medical College,
from where she took her MBBS in 1938. The intervening years saw Lakshmi
and her family drawn into the ongoing freedom struggle. She saw the
transformation of her mother from a Madras socialite to an ardent
Congress supporter, who one day walked into her daughter’s room and took
away all the child’s pretty dresses to burn in a bonfire of foreign
goods. Looking back years later, Lakshmi would observe how in the South,
the fight for political freedom was fought alongside the struggle for
social reform. Campaigns for political independence were waged together
with struggles for temple entry for Dalits and against child marriage
and dowry. Her first introduction to communism was through Suhasini
Nambiar, Sarojini Naidu’s sister, a radical who had spent many years in
Germany. Another early influence was the first book on the communist
movement she read, Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China.
Meeting Netaji
As a young doctor of 26, Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940. Three years
later she would meet Subhash Chandra Bose, a meeting that would change
the course of her life. “In Singapore,” Lakshmi remembered, “there were a
lot of nationalist Indians like K. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha, N.
Raghavan, and others, who formed a Council of Action. The Japanese,
however, would not give any firm commitment to the Indian National Army,
nor would they say how the movement was to be expanded, how they would
go into Burma, or how the fighting would take place. People naturally
got fed up.” Bose’s arrival broke this logjam.
Lakshmi, who had thus far been on the fringes of the INA, had heard that
Bose was keen to draft women into the organisation. She requested a
meeting with him when he arrived in Singapore, and emerged from a
five-hour interview with a mandate to set up a women’s regiment, which
was to be called the Rani of Jhansi regiment. There was a tremendous
response from women to join the all-women brigade. Dr. Lakshmi
Swaminadhan became Captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay
with her for life.
The march to Burma began in December 1944 and, by March 1945, the
decision to retreat was taken by the INA leadership, just before the
entry of their armies into Imphal. Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the
British army in May 1945. She remained under house arrest in the jungles
of Burma until March 1946, when she was sent to India – at a time when
the INA trials in Delhi were intensifying the popular hatred of colonial
rule.
Captain Lakshmi married Col. Prem Kumar Sahgal, a leading figure of the
INA, in March 1947. The couple moved from Lahore to Kanpur, where she
plunged into her medical practice, working among the flood of refugees
who had come from Pakistan, and earning the trust and gratitude of both
Hindus and Muslims.
CPI(M) activist
By the early 1970s, Lakshmi’s daughter Subhashini had joined the CPI(M).
She brought to her mother’s attention an appeal from Jyoti Basu for
doctors and medical supplies for Bangladeshi refugee camps. Captain
Lakshmi left for Calcutta, carrying clothes and medicines, to work for
the next five weeks in the border areas. After her return she applied
for membership in the CPI(M). For the 57-year old doctor, joining the
Communist Party was “like coming home.” “My way of thinking was already
communist, and I never wanted to earn a lot of money, or acquire a lot
of property or wealth,” she said.
Captain Lakshmi was one of the founding members of AIDWA, formed in
1981. She subsequently led many of its activities and campaigns. After
the Bhopal gas tragedy in December 1984, she led a medical team to the
city; years later she wrote a report on the long-term effects of the gas
on pregnant women. During the anti-Sikh riots that followed Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, she was out on the
streets in Kanpur, confronting anti-Sikh mobs and ensuring that no Sikh
or Sikh establishment in the crowded area near her clinic was attacked.
She was arrested for her participation in a campaign by AIDWA against
the Miss World competition held in Bangalore in 1996.
Presidential candidate
Captain Lakshmi was the presidential candidate for the Left in 2002, an
election that A. P. J. Abdul Kalam would win. She ran a whirlwind
campaign across the country, addressing packed public meetings. While
frankly admitting that she did not stand a chance of winning, she used
her platform to publicly scrutinise a political system that allowed
poverty and injustice to grow, and fed new irrational and divisive
ideologies.
Captain Lakshmi had the quality of awakening a sense of joy and
possibility in all who met her – her co-workers, activists of her
organisation, her patients, family and friends. Her life was an
inextricable part of 20th and early 21st century India -- of the
struggle against colonial rule, the attainment of freedom, and
nation-building over 65 tumultuous years. In this great historical
transition, Captain Lakshmi always positioned herself firmly on the side
of the poor and unempowered. Freedom fighter, dedicated medical
practitioner, and an outstanding leader of the women's movement in
India, Captain Lakshmi leaves the country and its people a fine and
enduring legacy.
Lakshmi Sahgal is survived by her daughters Subhashini Ali and Anisa
Puri; her grandchildren Shaad Ali, Neha and Nishant Puri; and by her
sister Mrinalini Sarabhai.
