As Bharat commemorates its 78th Independence Day on August 15, 2026, the nation’s gaze turns once again to the countless unsung heroes whose sacrifices secured our freedom. Among the most overlooked yet profoundly inspiring chapters of this struggle are the stories of janjatiya women — veeranganas — who rose from forests, hills, and remote villages across the subcontinent to challenge British imperialism. This report brings to light twelve such heroines from diverse janjatiya communities across Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Jharkhand, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Their contributions transcended armed rebellion; they led the Swadeshi movement, championed education and social reform, organized women’s collectives, and in many cases, made the ultimate sacrifice for the motherland.
Rani Gaidinliu, often hailed as the “Rani Lakshmibai of Nagaland,” emerged from the Zeliangrong Naga community in Tamenglong, Manipur. At the astonishing age of thirteen in 1930, she joined the Heraka movement alongside her cousin Haipou Jadonang, a spiritual and political movement aimed at reestablishing Naga sovereignty and expelling the British from their ancestral lands. Her leadership was so formidable that the British arrested her in 1932, sentencing her to life imprisonment; she spent fourteen years in various prisons before being released after Independence. The Government of Bharat honored her with the Padma Bhushan in 1982, a commemorative stamp in 1996, and a commemorative coin in 2015. She passed away on February 17, 1993, leaving behind a legacy of spiritual resistance and nationalist fervor that continues to inspire the Naga people.
From the misty Khasi Hills of Meghalaya emerged Ka Phan Nonglait (1799–1850), the first woman freedom fighter of the Khasi hills, whose cunning and courage became the stuff of legend. Fighting alongside the Khasi chieftain U Tirot Sing Syiem during the Anglo-Khasi War (1829–1833), she once served British soldiers refreshments at a waterfall, lulling them into complacency before seizing their weapons and hurling them into the rocky gorge—an act that allegedly led to the death of thirty-two British soldiers and turned the tide of battle. The waterfall bears her name today as “Ka Phan Nonglait Falls,” a living monument to a janjatiya woman who weaponized hospitality against an empire.
In the eastern Himalayas, Helen Lepcha (1902–1982) of Sangmoo village, Sikkim, charted a different path of resistance—one woven through the charkha, social service, and labor organizing. Embracing the Swadeshi movement, she traveled across villages spinning khadi and igniting patriotic fervor. During the devastating 1920 Bihar floods, she rushed to Muzaffarpur to serve victims, earning Mahatma Gandhi’s admiration and a new name: Savitri Devi. She attended the 1921 Ahmedabad Congress session alongside Sarojini Naidu, led a procession of over ten thousand coal miners in Jharia protesting janjatiya labor exploitation, and later received the Tamra Patra and freedom fighter’s pension from the Government of Bharat in 1972, besides being honored as a janjatiya chief by the Bengal government in 1958.
From the Ho janjatiya community of West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, Sushila Samad (1906–1960) broke barriers as Bharat’s first janjatiya woman to earn a B.A. Honours (“Vidushi”) degree. A Hindi poet, journalist, editor, and publisher educated at Prayag Mahila Vidyapith, she dedicated her life to organizing janjatiya women for social and political awakening. When Gandhi launched the Dandi March in 1930, Sushila mobilized janjatiya women across the Jharkhand region to join the Salt Satyagraha, bridging literary activism with mass mobilization. Her dual legacy—as aa pioneering janjatiya intellectual and a foot-soldier of the freedom movement—remains a beacon for janjatiya women’s empowerment.
Assam contributed two child martyrs to the Quit India Movement of 1942. Tileshwari Barua (1930–1942) of Dhekiajuli, barely twelve, joined the “Mrityu Bahini” (Death Squad), a suicide squad of women pledged to hoist the tricolor atop police stations at the cost of their lives. On September 20, 1942, she fell to police bullets, becoming one of Bharat’s youngest martyrs. Assam observes September 20 as Shaheed Divas in her memory, and the Prime Minister paid tribute at Dhekiajuli during the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign, where she was honored as a “Veer Balika.” Her contemporary, Kanaklata Barua (1924–1942), known as “Birbala” and the “Rani Lakshmibai of Assam,” led the Mrityu Bahini procession toward the Tezpur police station at seventeen. Undeterred by the officer’s warning, she advanced with the tricolor; a volley of bullets cut her down on the same day, September 20, 1942. Her sacrifice remains the defining image of Assam’s contribution to the Quit India Movement.
From western Odisha’s Sambalpur district rose Parbati Giri (1926–1995), revered as the “Mother Teresa of Western Odisha.” At eleven, she quit school to join the Quit India Movement; at sixteen, she openly defied British authority and was imprisoned, only to be released due to her minority. Post-release, she crisscrossed Odisha mobilizing support for the movement. After Independence, she channeled her revolutionary zeal into social service—founding homes for orphans, advancing education and healthcare, and completing her formal education at Prayag Mahila Vidyapith, Allahabad, in 1950. The Odisha government named a mega lift irrigation project after her in 2016, and Sambalpur University conferred an honorary doctorate in 1998.
Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region gave Bharat Kuntala Kumari Sabat (1901–1938), Odisha’s first woman doctor and a poet celebrated as the “Nightingale of Odisha” and “Bulbul of Utkal.” Educated at Ravenshaw Girls’ School and Cuttack Medical School, she wielded her stethoscope and pen with equal fervor. Her stirring poem “Anjali” ignited patriotic consciousness, and she actively participated in the Nav Vidhan and Brahmo Samaj reform movements. The title “Utkal Bharati” conferred upon her by a leading women’s cultural organization cemented her status as a symbol of Odia women’s renaissance.
In the janjatiya heartland of Dungarpur, Rajasthan, Kalibai Bhil (1936–1947), barely twelve, became the “Goddess of Education.” When British soldiers and the Dungarpur state dragged her teacher, Nana Bhai Khant, tied to a jeep, on June 19, 1947—mere weeks before Independence—Kalibai severed the rope with her sickle to save her guru. British bullets silenced her instantly. Her martyrdom ignited the flame of education in the janjatiya belt; schools, colleges, crossroads, and a panorama museum now bear her name, turning her sacrifice into a living campaign for literacy.
From the Lushai Hills of Mizoram, Rani Ropuiliani (1828–1895) assumed leadership after her husband’s death and rallied the Mizo people against the British annexation of 1890. Her declaration—”Mizoram’s soil is my mother”—encapsulated a nationalism rooted in the land itself. She led the armed resistance with strategic acumen, becoming a symbol of Mizo sovereignty and maternal patriotism long before the term “freedom fighter” entered common parlance.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands witnessed perhaps the most poignant sacrifice in Lepha of the Great Andamanese janjati (d. May 17, 1859). During the Battle of Aberdeen, when British forces clashed with Great Andamanese warriors, Lepha—pregnant at the time—fought alongside her people. Her husband, the Bharatiya sepoy Dudhnath Tiwari, had defected to the British, contributing to the janjatiya defeat. Lepha chose death over surrender, perishing with her unborn child in a final act of maternal and patriotic defiance that the Survival International records as a unique testament to indigenous resistance.
Finally, from the Santhal heartland of Sahibganj, Jharkhand, the twin sisters Phulo Murmu and Jhano Murmu (1832–1856), siblings of the Santhal Rebellion leaders Sidhu and Kanhu, organized women into combat units, training them in swords, spears, and archery during the 1855–56 Hul (rebellion). In a fierce engagement at Barhait in 1856, both sisters attained martyrdom. The Jharkhand government has immortalized them through the Phulo-Jhano Dairy Technology College, Phulo-Jhano Medical College, and the Phulo-Jhano Aashirwad Yojana—transforming their martial legacy into instruments of contemporary janjatiya welfare.
These twelve women—spanning geographies from the Andaman Sea to the Himalayas, the Thar Desert to the Brahmaputra Valley, and eras from the 1855 Santhal Hul to the 1942 Quit India Movement—embody a freedom struggle that was simultaneously armed and intellectual, martial and maternal, local and national. They were queens and children, doctors and poets, teachers and guerrillas, mothers who chose the motherland over motherhood. Their stories, long confined to regional folklore and janjatiya memory, demand a central place in the national narrative. As Bharat celebrates another Independence Day, remembering these twelve veeranganas is not merely an act of historical correction—it is a reminder that the idea of Bharat was forged not only in legislative assemblies and battlefields, but also in the forests of Dungarpur, the hills of Khasi-Jaintia, the tea gardens of Assam, and the coalfields of Jharia, by women whose names deserve to be spoken alongside the most celebrated founders of the republic.
Source: 12 जनजातीय वीरांगनाएँ: स्वतंत्रता संग्राम में महिलाओं के अद्वितीय योगदान की प्रेरक गाथाएँ
