Latest news with #HamaaraItihaasArchivesofFreedomFighters
Indian Express
2 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
Sagari Chhabra's exhibition featuring invisible battles that played key role in India's freedom
Against the backdrop of India's 79th Independence Day, the quiet hall of the Art Gallery at Kamaladevi Complex, India International Centre, at New Delhi's Lodhi Gardens comes alive with voices from another time — voices that fought, bled, and sacrificed, yet remain absent from the history most of us know. The exhibition Hamaara Itihaas Archives of Freedom Fighters, on from August 9 to 23, is founded and curated by award-winning filmmaker and writer Sagari Chhabra. This exhibition features India's first and perhaps only international archive with a dedicated focus on women freedom fighters. Its purpose is as much to inspire as to educate, and to remind us that independence was won not only in the streets of India but beyond the borders, across the continents. Since 1995, Chhabra has been gathering oral testimonies, fragile letters, faded photographs, rare revolutionary publications like Bande Mataram and Talvar — by Madam Bhikaiji Cama, photographed fading faces, and pieced together the overlooked geography of India's independence movement. From the history of Mahendra Pratap's establishment of the First Provisional Government of India in Kabul in 1915, to Shyamji Krishna Varma's India House in London that provided a roof for all the nationalists to gather under — all the stories dismantle the notion that India's independence was fought on home soil alone. One of the exhibition's most striking sections centres on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA) and its legendary Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Recruited largely in Malaysia (Malaya) and Singapore during World War II, these women underwent rigorous military training, shouldering rifles and marching in step with their male counterparts. Through photographs collected and captured by Chhabra, the visitors are introduced to Gowri Sen, who reportedly signed a petition in blood when the regiment was disbanded; Rasammah Navaratnam, whose mother was firmly against her decision of joining the INA, but was later persuaded by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, who was the commander of Rani of Jhansi regiment; and Yamuki, who escaped an unwanted marriage to 'die for a cause', yet was never granted recognition or pension by free India. 'Most of these women had never had a reunion, never received a pension. Recording their experiences became my life's mission. It is a privilege, and an honour,' says Chhabra. The archive reaches far into Myanmar, where many INA veterans remain stateless to this day, denied citizenship by both India and Myanmar. Photographs by Chhabra capture the faces of Lt Perumal with his wife Mehrunnisa, standing before the remnants of an INA office in Yangon. The Gallery has many more stories — Tokyo Cadets trained for aerial warfare, one of them being Gandhinathan, who was photographed by Chhabra in Kuala Lumpur in 2004, the secret operatives in Malaysia, teenagers in the Balak Sena of Thailand, all getting trained through their youth to achieve a nation's dream of freedom. The exhibition also honours women who stitched their defiance into prison flags, who ferried messages for underground networks while raising children at home. It tells stories of Bengal's Pritilata Waddedar, who chose cyanide over capture, Gandhian activist Sushila Nayyar, who balanced her belief in non-violence with acts of resistance, and women prisoners who raised a Tricolour flag inside Lahore Women's jail in 1942. Running alongside the exhibition is the screening of Chhabra's 45-minute-long documentary Asli Azaadi, released in 1997 and daily walk-through at 5.30 pm led by the curator herself. Her storytelling bridges the gap between the dust of the past and the pulse of the present. For her, this is not just an act of remembrance but a rewriting of history from the margins. Hamaara Itihaas stands as a reminder that freedom was never a gift — it was seized, demanded, and defended by countless known and unknown heroes. Their battles, fought in jungles, jails, and faraway cities, deserve to be part of the nation's collective memory.
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Dive deeper into the history of India's lesser-known freedom fighters this Independence Day, with exhibition Hamaara Itihaas Archives of Freedom Fighters (HIAFF) in Delhi
Seventy-eight years ago, as the clock ticked towards midnight on August 14, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced the country's independence with an iconic speech, Tryst with Destiny, at Parliament House. In the Art Gallery of Kamaladevi Complex at India International Centre, New Delhi, before I examine the exhibition, Hamaara Ithihaas Archives Of Freedom Fighters, I engage in a surreal study of my proximity with time and space from where I stand, physically and existentially. It leads me to juxtapose the distance of four-and-a-half kilometres from Parliament House and the nearly eight decades from 1947. Surrounded by the maze of achromatic and sepia-toned portraits of revolutionaries — who chose to kiss the gallows over bootlicking the British colonisers — and the copies of newspapers that spoke truth to the powers that be, Nehru's words come to mind: 'At this solemn moment when the people of India, through suffering and sacrifice, have secured freedom…'. A peculiar installation, with a charpoy placed atop another charpoy and the Tricolour tied to one of its corners, catches my attention. As I point my phone's camera to click, a guard shouts out: 'Pictures not allowed'. 'I can give you a tour of the place, if you like,' says Sagari Chhabra, who introduces herself as the founder-director of Hamaara Itihaas Archives of Freedom Fighters (HIAFF). I am now a spectator to her demonstration, between contemplating the meaning of freedom and wrestling with the idea of sections in which the retrospective has been organised. The idea of the exhibition, says Sagari, is 'to create a record of the known and unknown freedom fighters, in India and across the world. There was virtually no or little record of the work done by women freedom fighters. So, we have a special focus on our women freedom fighters. The purpose is to educate and inspire the new and coming generations.' Coming from Punjab, my eyes look for Ghadarite Gulab Kaur's picture amidst portraits of Kartar Singh Sarabha and others, especially because Punjab Lok Sabhyacharak Manch — Punjab's cultural organisation for social change and activism — is observing 2025 as the centenary year of Gulab's death. But I am rushed to other sections that depict the works of revolutionaries who fought for India from foreign shores. Sagari lists names after names: 'International freedom fighters: Shyamji Krishna Varma, SR Rana. Other revolutionaries abroad: Taraknath Das, Bhupendra Dutt, Ajit Singh — uncle of Bhagat Singh. A special section on Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, and women who helped them: Durga Devi Vohra aka Durga Bhabhi, Sushila Mohan aka Sushila Didi….' And then shares: 'There is a special section on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army, based in South-East Asia with a particular focus on the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, one of the earliest all-woman military regiments of the world.' Sourced from Arkib Negara, the National Archives of Malaysia; National Archives, Singapore; National Archives of India; Prime Minister's Museum And Memorial Library; and some original recordings of HIAFF, Sagari informs that nearly three decades of research has gone into curating the retrospective. 'The archive contains oral testimonies, photos, audio, video, and film recordings across India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar. It displays photos and documents from London, Paris, Geneva, Stuttgart, San Francisco and other places, showing that India's freedom struggle was both revolutionary and non-violent. It contains rare documents of the paper, Bande Mataram and Talvar started by Madam Bhikaiji Cama and the Ghadar Party based in Vancouver and San Francisco,' she adds. As for the charpoy and Tricolour installation, Sagari coaxes me to look on the other side of the wall against which the installation is placed. It has pictures of several women. 'They raised the flag from inside the Lahore Women's Jail in 1942,' she informs, pointing at the interview of Bibi Amar Kaur, one of the protesters from the jail, playing on the screen from her documentary, Asli Azaadi. 'The courage and sacrifice of our freedom fighters, most of whom have gone unsung and unrecognised, deserves to be recorded,' she states in the press communiqué. The exhibition will be on view till August 23 at the Art Gallery, Kamaladevi Complex, India International Centre, 40 Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi; from 11am to 7pm.
