Context

An illustrated Google Doodle has honoured Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, India's first woman satyagrahi who also wrote the iconic Jhansi ki Rani poem on her 117th birth anniversary. 

About

About Subhadra Kumari Chauhan

Early life

• Birth: August 16, 1904, in Nihalpur village, Prayagraj.
• Education: She attended the Crosthwaite Girls' School and passed middle-school in 1919.
• Spouse: She got married to Thakur Laxman Singh Chauhan of Khandwa at the age of just 16. 

Contribution to India’s freedom struggle

• Both Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and her husband became a part of Mahatma Gandhi's Non-cooperation movement in 1921. 
• During the struggle, she became the first woman satyagrahi to court arrest and was subsequently jailed in Nagpur.
• Subhadra Kumari Chauhan continued to participate in the freedom struggle and joined Mahatma Gandhi's movements in 1923 as well as in 1942.
• In between this period she also became a member of the legislative assembly in what was formerly known as Central provinces.

Work

• Chauhan became a prominent poet and freedom fighter in an age that was dominated by males. 
• She used her poetry to boost the morale of the countrymen in their fight for freedom.
• She also highlighted the hardships faced by Indian women including "gender and caste discrimination"
•  She died in 1948 in a car accident in Seoni, MP, on her way back to Jabalpur from Nagpur, where she had gone to attend an assembly session.

Legacy

• The country honoured her by naming a coast guard ship after her and the state did so by putting up a statue in Jabalpur.    
• India Posts released a postage stamp to commemorate her.

Collections of poems Jeevan phool Jhilmil taare Neem Tum Rakhi Koyal Iska Rona Khilonewala Veeron Ka Kaisa Ho Basant Tridhara Mukul YehKadamKaPed Seedhe-Saade Chitra (1946) Mera naya Bachpan (1946) Bikhare Moti (1932) Jhansi ki Rani Short Story Hingwala