Special on the 14th October Death Anniversary: Durga Bhabi, a woman who dedicated her entire life to the freedom movement. Durga Bhabi, a woman who dedicated her entire life to the freedom movement.

Hasrat Ali
Durga Bhabhi was born on 7 October 1902 in Shahzadpur village (now in Kaushambi district) to Pandit Banke Bihari. His father was Nazir in Allahabad Collectorate and his grandfather Mahesh Prasad Bhatt was posted as Thanedar in Jalaun district. Her grandfather Pandit Shivshankar was a landlord in Shahzadpur, who used to fulfill all the needs and wishes of Durga Bhabhi since childhood.

At the young age of ten, he got married to Bhagwati Charan Bohra of Lahore. His father-in-law Shivcharan ji was posted on a high post in Railways. The British government had given him the title of 'Rai Saheb'. Despite being the son of Bhagwati Charan Bohra 'Rai Saheb', he wanted to liberate the country from the slavery of the British. He was the publicity secretary of the revolutionary organization. After his father's demise in the year 1920, Bhagwati Charan Bohra openly entered the field of revolution and his wife Durga Bhabhi also fully supported him. In 1923, Bhagwati Charan Bohra passed the BA examination from National College and Durga Bhabhi obtained the degree of 'Prabhakar'.


Both Durga Bhabhi's maternal and in-laws' houses were prosperous. Father-in-law Shivcharan ji had given 40 thousand rupees to Durga Bhabhi and father Banke Bihari had given five thousand rupees for the days of crisis, but the couple used all this money to liberate the country by working with the revolutionaries. In March 1926, Bhagwati Charan Bohra and Bhagat Singh jointly prepared the draft of 'Naujawan Bharat Sabha' and laid its foundation along with Ramchandra Kapoor. Hundreds of youth took an oath to offer their lives (to climb the sacrificial altar) to liberate the country. All the members including Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan Bohra signed the pledge with their blood. On 28 May 1930, Bohra ji was martyred while making a bomb with his colleagues and testing it on the banks of river Ravi. Despite her martyrdom, Durga Bhabhi remained fully active with her fellow revolutionaries.
On October 9, 1930, Durga Bhabhi fired at Governor Hailey, in which Governor Hailey survived but military officer Taylor was injured. Mumbai Police Commissioner was also targeted by Durga Bhabhi, as a result of which the English police went after them. Durga Bhabhi and her partner Yashpal were arrested from a flat in Mumbai. Durga Bhabhi's important work was to bring pistols to and from Rajasthan for fellow revolutionaries. Durga Bhabhi had brought and given the pistol with which Chandrashekhar Azad shot himself while fighting the British. Even at that time Durga Bhabhi was with him. He took training in pistol handling in Lahore and Kanpur.


When Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt went to throw bombs in the Central Assembly, Durga Bhabhi and Sushila Mohan bid them farewell by cutting their arms and applying tilak on both of them with their blood. After throwing bombs in the assembly, all of them were arrested and hanged.


After the martyrdom of her fellow revolutionaries, Durga Bhabhi became completely alone. She gathered courage and went to Delhi to arrange the education of her five-year-old son Shachindra, where the police continued to harass her. After this Durga Bhabhi went from Delhi to Lahore, where the police arrested her and kept her under house arrest for three years. This series of absconding, arrest and release continued from 1931 to 1935.


Ultimately, after being transferred from Lahore to District Magistrate, in 1935, she started working as a teacher in Pyarelal Kanya Vidyalaya, Ghaziabad and after some time, she again returned to Delhi and started working with the Congress. Due to not liking the atmosphere of Congress, he left it in 1937. In 1939, she went to Madras and took training in Montessori method from Maria Montessori and in 1940 opened a Montessori school with just five children in a private house on Cantt Road (Nazirabad), Lucknow. Even today this school is famous by the name of 'Montessori Inter College' in Lucknow. Bidding goodbye to the world on 14 October 1999 in Ghaziabad, he broke his ties with this world forever.

Source-This article has been written by collecting information from different magazines and newspapers.
Hasrat Ali
Sherpur District Muzaffarnagar Uttar Pradesh
phone number 8580533689