48 Fun Facts About Freedom Fighters

In which present-day country is Banga, the Lyallpur village where Bhagat Singh was born in 1907?

Pakistan holds both ends of Bhagat Singh's life: Banga, his birth village in Lyallpur district, and Lahore, where he was hanged in 1931 aged 23.

On which island, then a Japanese colony, did the bomber carrying Subhas Chandra Bose crash in August 1945?

Taiwan's Taihoku airfield, now Taipei's Songshan Airport, is where the overloaded bomber crashed on 18 August 1945. Bose was reported dead of his burns that night, though many supporters refused for decades to believe it.

Which bank, registered in 1894, had Lala Lajpat Rai closely involved in running it in its early years?

Punjab National Bank opened for business in Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar in April 1895 and moved its head office to Delhi weeks before Partition in 1947.

Which 2022 blockbuster imagines rebels Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem as friends in 1920s Delhi?

RRR, from Baahubali director S. S. Rajamouli, is pure invention: the two men never met, Raju fighting the British in the Andhra hills and Bheem the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Which star returned from a four-year break to play sepoy Mangal Pandey in the 2005 film 'The Rising'?

Aamir Khan had not appeared on screen since Dil Chahta Hai in 2001; around The Rising's release, politicians from rival parties demanded a ban, saying it distorted Pandey's life.

In which German city did Bhikaji Cama unfurl an early Indian flag at an international workers' congress in 1907?

Stuttgart made Cama the first person to hoist an Indian flag abroad; the banner was smuggled home by Indulal Yagnik and now sits in a Pune library.

Which Hindu festival did Tilak make a mass public event in Pune in 1893, dodging British curbs on assembly?

Ganesh Chaturthi had shrunk to a household rite under the Raj; Tilak picked Ganesha as 'the god for everybody' to unite Brahmins and non-Brahmins against colonial rule.

Which city's Dum Dum airport was renamed after Subhas Chandra Bose in 1995, the year it gained a second terminal?

Kolkata elected Bose its mayor in 1930 while he sat in prison; he was born in Cuttack but built his political career in Bengal's capital.

Which service did Subhas Chandra Bose walk away from in 1921, a year after placing fourth in its entrance exam?

The Indian Civil Service was the Raj's elite cadre, and Bose's father had urged him to England to try for it; in April 1921 he asked Edwin Montagu to strike his name from its list of probationers.

In which Prayagraj garden, since renamed for him, did Chandra Shekhar Azad die in a 1931 shootout with police?

Alfred Park, laid out in 1870 for a royal visit, is where a tip-off brought police to Azad's meeting with a comrade; by most accounts he kept his vow never to be taken alive by turning his last bullet on himself.

Which 1925 train robbery near Lucknow, targeting government cash, led to the hanging of Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan?

Kakori's raiders took only the government cash bags from the guard's van, yet four men were hanged in December 1927 after appeals that reached the Privy Council.

India marks Martyrs' Day on 23 March for the 1931 hanging of Bhagat Singh alongside which two comrades?

Sukhdev and Rajguru went to the gallows with Bhagat Singh at 7:30 pm, eleven hours ahead of schedule; all three had been convicted of killing a Lahore police officer.

Which party did Subhas Chandra Bose set up in 1939 after being forced out of the Congress presidency?

The Forward Bloc was meant to gather the Congress left nationwide, but its real base was Bengal, where it still contests elections more than eight decades on.

Which prison, 'Kala Pani' to its inmates, held V. D. Savarkar from 1911 on a 50-year sentence?

Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, took its name from its rows of solitary cells; Savarkar petitioned for clemency within two months of arriving in July 1911 and was shifted to the mainland in 1921.

Which 1928 no-tax campaign in Gujarat, led by Vallabhbhai Patel, earned him the title 'Sardar' from its women?

The Bardoli Satyagraha ended in August 1928 with seized land returned and the tax hike shelved for an inquiry, a win that made Patel a nationalist leader known across India.

Which 2006 film by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, India's Oscar entry that year, casts students as Bhagat Singh and Azad?

Rang De Basanti took Mehra seven years to develop; its students end up shooting a defence minister and are gunned down inside a radio station they have seized.

What did the Centre name 23 January, Subhas Chandra Bose's birthday, when it first marked the day in 2021?

Parakram Diwas, 'Day of Valour', was announced on 19 January 2021 over objections from Bose's family, who had asked for Deshprem Divas, 'Day of Patriotism', and West Bengal, which wanted Deshnayak Divas.

Which 'Frontier Gandhi', founder of the Khudai Khidmatgar 'Red Shirts', received the Bharat Ratna in 1987?

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan felt betrayed when Congress accepted Partition without consulting his Pashtun movement, telling its leaders 'you have thrown us to the wolves'.

In which country did Indian Legion soldiers, recruited from prisoners of war, first hail Bose as 'Netaji' in 1942?

Germany's Special Bureau for India in Berlin used the title too; Bose had reached Europe via Kabul and Moscow after slipping British surveillance at home in January 1941.

At which Delhi landmark were three INA officers court-martialled in late 1945, with Nehru joining their defence team?

The Red Fort trials backfired on the British: all three officers, a Hindu, a Muslim and a Sikh, were sentenced to transportation for life, and the outcry forced the army chief to set them free.

Which US city held the Yugantar Ashram on Hill Street, the Ghadar Party's headquarters and press from 1913?

San Francisco's Ghadar press preached armed revolt to Punjabi immigrants along the Pacific coast; the party's German-backed plots ended in a sensational 1917 trial in the same city.

Which tribal rebel, dead in jail at 24 in 1900, is honoured every 15 November as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas?

Birsa Munda's 'Ulgulan', or Great Tumult, swept the Chota Nagpur plateau in 1899–1900; eight years after his death the British passed a tenancy law barring the transfer of tribal land to outsiders.

Which theosophist launched a Home Rule League of her own in 1916 and presided over Congress a year later?

Annie Besant was the first woman to head Congress, taking the chair in December 1917 months after the British interned her at a hill station, where she defiantly flew a red-and-green flag.

Which Marathi weekly did Tilak found in January 1881, alongside its English-language sister paper Mahratta?

Kesari, 'The Lion', twice cost Tilak his freedom: articles in it brought sedition convictions in 1897 and 1908, the second sending him to Mandalay for six years.

Which observance falls on 13 February in India, the birthday of poet-politician Sarojini Naidu?

National Women's Day honours Naidu, who in 1917 spoke for the women's deputation that asked Edwin Montagu for the vote and in 1925 became the first Indian woman to preside over Congress.

Which revolutionary died in Lahore's Borstal Jail in 1929 after a 63-day hunger strike for political-prisoner status?

Jatin Das's body was carried by train from Lahore to Calcutta, and hundreds of thousands turned out along his last journey.

Which probationary police officer did Bhagat Singh's group kill in Lahore in 1928, mistaking him for James Scott?

John Saunders was felled by a single shot from across the street; the group had wanted Scott, the superintendent blamed for the lathi charge that preceded Lala Lajpat Rai's death.

Which adopted son of the last Peshwa, denied his father's pension by the Company, led the rebels at Kanpur in 1857?

Nana Saheb was so trusted by Kanpur's British that their general let the Nana's own men guard the treasury; after the rebels' defeat he fled towards Nepal and his fate was never confirmed.

Which rebel general, beaten at the Betwa while trying to relieve Jhansi in 1858, was executed at Sipri in April 1859?

Tatya Tope, born Ramachandra Panduranga, fought on as a guerrilla in the jungle for ten months after Gwalior fell, until he was betrayed to the British in April 1859.

Which Awadh queen ruled for her young son during the 1857 fight for Lucknow, then died in Kathmandu exile in 1879?

Begum Hazrat Mahal answered Queen Victoria's 1858 proclamation with a counter-proclamation in her son's name mocking British promises; her tomb stands beside Kathmandu's Jama Masjid.

In which Bihar town did teenage Khudiram Bose bomb the wrong carriage in 1908, missing magistrate Kingsford?

Muzaffarpur's jail, where Khudiram was hanged on 11 August 1908 aged 18, now bears his name; the bomb killed two British women, and his accomplice Prafulla Chaki shot himself.

Which Indian student shot Sir William Curzon Wyllie dead in London in 1909 and was hanged at Pentonville?

Madan Lal Dhingra fired five shots into Curzon Wyllie's face and two more into a Parsi doctor who tried to intervene; his own father publicly disowned him.

Off which island did Subhas Chandra Bose transfer between two submarines in mid-ocean in April 1943?

Madagascar's southeast waters were where Bose crossed to the Japanese I-29 after rounding the Cape of Good Hope; he landed at Sabang, off Sumatra, on 6 May 1943 and flew on to Tokyo.

Which INA captain, who led its women's regiment, was the left's candidate for President of India in 2002?

Lakshmi Sahgal was a doctor in Singapore when Bose asked her to raise his women's regiment in 1943; in 2002 the left parties put her up as a symbolic challenger to Kalam, who won easily.

Whom did Subhas Chandra Bose defeat for the Congress presidency at Tripuri in 1939, the candidate Gandhi had backed?

Pattabhi Sitaramayya, an Andhra Congressman, was Gandhi's pick; after the loss most of the Working Committee resigned in protest and Bose was out of the presidency within months.

Which Gujarat salt works saw police club Sarojini Naidu's marchers in May 1930 as reporter Webb Miller looked on?

Dharasana's beatings, 320 injured by Miller's count, reached 1,350 newspapers once he got his cable past the censors; Gandhi, arrested after announcing the raid, was already in jail.

At which Gujarat city's 1907 session did Congress split into Moderates and Tilak's Extremists, reuniting only in 1916?

Surat's session dissolved in pandemonium after a shoe flung at the dais struck Moderate leaders; the radicals had wanted the gathering held in Nagpur instead.

Which body did Gokhale found in Pune in June 1905 to harness educated youth for full-time patriotic work?

The Servants of India Society still exists and in 1930 set up Pune's Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics; Gandhi, who called Gokhale his political guru, sought to join it on returning from South Africa in 1915.

Which Bengali formed the nationalist trio with Lajpat Rai and Tilak that led the boycott of British goods after 1905?

Bipin Chandra Pal gave the trio the last syllable of 'Lal, Bal, Pal'; a journalist who spread swadeshi through newspapers and speaking tours, he later turned against Gandhi's leadership and withdrew from national politics.

Which word did Bhagat Singh's group add to the Hindustan Republican Association's name at a 1928 Delhi meeting?

'Socialist' arrived with the Russian Revolution's influence on Bhagat Singh; where the HRA's manifesto had demanded universal suffrage, the renamed HSRA's spoke of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

Which Sutlej village near Ferozepur, where Bhagat Singh was cremated, is also the cremation site of Batukeshwar Dutt?

Hussainiwala ended up across the border at Partition and was swapped back to India in 1961 for twelve villages; the spot now hosts a border flag ceremony and a martyrs' memorial built in 1968.

In which Maharashtra prison did Nehru write 'The Discovery of India' during his 1942–45 internment?

Ahmednagar Fort held Nehru and eleven other Congress leaders after the Quit India arrests of August 1942, and his preface thanks those fellow prisoners for the talks and suggestions that helped shape the book.

Which organisation did C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru form to enter the councils in 1923 and obstruct them from within?

The Swaraj Party was born of anger at Gandhi's halting of mass resistance after Chauri Chaura; its members never won enough seats to block British legislation, and it faded after Das died in 1925.

Which Japanese steamer, chartered by Gurdit Singh, brought 376 Indians to Vancouver in 1914 only to be turned away?

The Komagata Maru sat in Burrard Inlet for two months while officials cut off food and water; the ship's return to Calcutta ended in a deadly clash with police at Budge Budge.

Which 22-year-old ran the Secret Congress Radio from Bombay for three months during the 1942 Quit India movement?

Usha Mehta opened every broadcast by announcing the Congress Radio calling 'from somewhere in India'; police traced the transmitter on 12 November 1942 and she was jailed for four years.

Which essay did Bhagat Singh write in Lahore jail after a fellow prisoner accused him of vanity?

Why I Am an Atheist answered Baba Randhir Singh, a Ghadar veteran who had tried to revive his faith in God and blamed his unbelief on fame; it ran in Lala Lajpat Rai's weekly The People six months after the hanging.

Aged 15, Chandra Shekhar told a magistrate his name was 'Azad' and his home 'Jail'; what did he call his father?

'Swatantrata', meaning independence, earned the boy 15 lashes; he had been picked up during the Non-cooperation agitation in Benares and kept the name Azad for the rest of his life.

In which Manipur town did INA Colonel Shaukat Malik first raise the tricolour on the Indian mainland, on 14 April 1944?

Moirang was the first place on the mainland where the INA raised the flag; Bose himself had hoisted it at Port Blair in the Andamans months earlier, and the town now houses an INA museum.