Birthday Special: Captian Lakshmi Sehgal, the revolutionary freedom fighter

New Delhi: October 24 marks the birthday of the revolutionary freedom fighter Captain Lakshmi Sehgal who was the leader of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army.Born as Lakshmi Swaminadhan on October 24, 1914, her father S. Swaminadhan was a lawyer while her mother A.V. Ammukutty was a social worker and freedom fighter.Lakshmi was a rebel since her childhood. She first rebelled against the demeaning institution of caste system in Kerala and had participated actively in nationalist programmes of burning of foreign goods, including her own clothes and toys and picketting of liquor-vends.After High School, Lakshmi studied MBBS at the Madras Medical College in 1938 and also received her diploma in gynaecology and obstetrics a year later.Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940, at the age of 26, where she established a clinic in order to help the poor especially migrant Indian labour to receive medical treatment.In 1942, during the historic surrender of Singapore by the British colonial power to the Japanese, she came across a lot of nationalist Indians like K. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha, N. Raghavan, and others, who were deliberating over the Japanese proposal to form an Indian army of liberation. While Lakshmi Swaminadhan was extremely enthusiastic about this possibility, she actively participated in the deliberations that finally resulted in the formation of the INA under Gen. Mohan Singh.It was in 1943 that she met Subash Chandra Bose, who was keen to raise a women's regiment, the Rani of Jhansi regiment, which would also fight for Indian independence and make it complete. Lakshmi's name was suggested for the regiment by Shri Yellappa and as soon she came to know about the proposal to join the regiment she accepted it. Hence, Dr. Lakshmi Swaminadhan became Captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay with her for life.Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the British army in May 1945 during the march to Burma that began in December 1944.She remained under house arrest in the jungles of Burma until March 1946, when she was sent to India.Captain Lakshmi married Col. Prem Kumar Sahgal in 1947 after which they moved to Kanpur from Lahore. In Kanpur, Lakshmi 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.Lakshmi worked at a camp in Bongaon for several months, in 1971, when huge numbers of refugees came from East Pakistan into West Bengal. Her compassion and service to the poor have become legendary in the city.Later she became very active in politics and became the Vice-President of All India Democratic Women's Association in 1981.She also came forward, during the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 after Indira Gandhi's assassination, in defense of Sikh families and shops near her clinic and did not allow any of them to be harmed.Captain Lakshmi Sehgal was awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the President of India in 1998.A freedom fighter, dedicated medical practitioner, and an stupendous leader of the women's movement in India, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, breathed her last on 23rd July 2012 as a result of cardiac arrest, at the age of 97.Lakshmi Sehgal is survived by her two daughters Subhashini Ali and Anisa Puri; her grandchildren Shaad Ali, Neha and Nishant Puri; and by her sister Mrinalini Sarabhai.