Countless ordinary Indians have made sacrifices for our freedom. Our Independence was won  due to the efforts of this silent army  that  trudged  difficult paths and  endured hardships , without a thought for praise or reward. As our glorious nation celebrates  its 60th Independence Anniversary,  very few of   these foot  soldiers exist. Nearly all of that generation have died out. The living  are   old, ailing , distressed , lonely, and   very,  very disillusioned.

Meet Laxmi Indira Panda. She is among the countless Indians who fought for the country’s freedom.  Laxmi Panda  was one of the youngest members of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’s India National Army, and the only Oriya woman to have enlisted.  Today, she is probably the only living woman I.N.A freedom fighter of the country.

Laxmi Panda’s parents were labourers working for the railways being made by the Japanese in Burma. They were killed in a British air raid, and the young girl and her even younger brother were orphaned.  The siblings were mute witnesses of the death of their parents. The determination to avenge their death made them go to the nearby I.N.A.Camp where they begged for enrollment in the rank and file. The frail Laxmi was hardly fourteen years of age, but her determination melted the hearts of the I.N.A. leaders. She was taken in the Rani  Jhansi Regiment under Captain Lakshmi Sehgal. The young Laxmi soon proved her mettle and won the hearts of her superiors.  She recollects working with the famous Janaki Thevar, Gowri, Shah Nawaz Khan, Sehgal and   Dhillon. Unfortunately, her brother soon went missing and was never found.

Laxmi  recollects that Netaji personally gave her a new name “Indira”, to avoid confusing her with the far   more  famous Lakshmi (Captain Lakshmi Sehgal ). Netaji told her that in the I.N.A she would be henceforth  known as Indira, and this name struck.

(I met Captain Lakshmi Sehgal at Kanpur last month. At the age of   ninety three, she recollected this incident. I showed her Laxmi Panda’s photographs, nostalgia brought tears in her eyes. She vividly recollected Indira being the youngest soldier in her regiment.) 

Six months of intensive arms training in Burma shaped her into readiness for the onward march to the battlefront on the India-Burma border. She recollects the war time incidents of traveling by railway flatcars, the trenches and dugouts, the bombing sorties and the Japanese compatriots who fought alongside her. She was injured by shrapnel, the scars of which she still carries.

Laxmi Panda  recalls how Netaji Bose had instructed  her regiment to break into groups of 150 to move out of Rangoon when the INA was retreating. Laxmi was in the  second group that was led by Janaki Thevar  and  had a rough retreat, their train was bombed and the women had to walk to Bangkok - it took 26 days of night marches braving bombs and machine guns firing at them.

Laxmi  was  right by the side of Netaji up till  the time he gave the call for disbandment of the  I.N.A.  She recollects seeing Netaji  at Singapore on  the 12th August  1945. “I never saw him again. A week later, I heard that he had died in a plane crash,”' she says in an emotion ridden voice, and yes, she does not believe that Netaji died as reported.

After the Japanese surrender, the young Laxmi, who was in Singapore,  sailed back to India in a tramp steamer. At Chittagong harbor the British secret police arrested all the I.N.A soldiers, and Laxmi has vivid memories of throwing all her papers, medals and her I.N.A uniform overboard. She too was arrested, but seeing her frail health and young age, they let her go.

Laxmi went back to Burma, but she found that she was an alien there. Finding no one of her kin there, the young girl made her way back to Orissa, the home of her parents, a place that she had never seen, but only heard of.  Most of the journey from Burma was on foot, however she remembers coming to Berhampur and with the help of a few I.N.A veterans got accommodation and work. She married another I.N.A veteran Khageswar Panda in 1951. Her husband got a job as a driver in Hirakud, and the next few years were spent happily. Her troubles began after her husband died in 1976. Left all alone with an alcoholic son, she had to work as a domestic servant, a day labourer and a store attendant, working for a pittance to eke out a living.

The Government of Orissa   recognizes Laxmi Panda as a freedom fighter. This recognition entitles her to a meager pension of Rs 1000/- every month.  However freedom fighter status has been denied to her at the Centre despite several INA veterans, including Captain Lakshmi Sehgal corroborating her role. The fact that she has never been to jail is a lacunae.  The British Secret Service agents, who let the frail young girl go free from Chittagong harbor, did her a grave injustice. Had she been arrested, she would have been getting a pension of at least Rs 15000/- per month, enough to meet her medical needs and keeping her no good son’s extended family maintained.

I had got references about her from the Netaji Research Bureau at Calcutta while I was doing a research on the I.N.A.  The name of Laxmi Indira Panda had cropped up in many places, and a few local I.N.A veterans from Calcutta too had told me about her exploits in Burma.  All I could gather was that she was a brave Oriya lady, who had fought alongside Netaji and Lakshmi  Sehgal in Burma and had survived to come back .  I was curious and eager to meet her, as she was the only Oriya lady to serve in the I.N.A.

It took me a full six months to locate her. I went to places afar as  Berhampur, Hinjilicut, Phulbani, Angul, and Paralakhamendi before I found her at Jeypore  in Koraput.  She was living in a small   hut in a slum along with her son and his family. The one room broken down shanty is home for a family of ten.  She has languished in this slum for years, stricken with poverty and ill health, but even this little comfort has been snatched away from her. Her alcoholic son has thrown her out, and this proud icon now has to spend her days (and nights) at different places, thanks to a   few kindhearted benevolent persons.

The Collector of Koraput has allotted her a small piece of land to build her home, but this is little solace. At the age of eighty years, Laxmi Panda certainly cannot build her home.  She had to undergo an eye operation recently and this has resulted in very poor health.

“Delhi Chalo”  was the clarion call given by Netaji  to his fighters. The dream of unfurling the tricolor  at the ramparts of the Red Fort was what had driven his army to fight in the inhospitable  jungle conditions of Burma. She wants to go to Delhi to honour the allegiance and promise that she had made to Netaji. Her  “Chalo Delhi” comes a good 63 years late, but she hopes to make this her last stand.

Lamxi Panda had been approaching the powers that be for her home, but all have fallen into deaf years. I too have written to the government but shamefully nothing has been done for her. This little frail fighter does not have much fight left in her. She has planned her last battle.  She has  decided to wrap herself in the national flag and immolate herself in front of either  the Collectorate  at Jeypore or  the Parliament House in  Delhi. 

I have dissuaded  this octogenarian freedom fighter from these thoughts with a promise that  she will have a home within three months.  We, the free citizens of India owe her that much. It took me a full six months to find her, but you can meet her at the following address where she shall be there for a week. She calls herself a “Desh Ki Beti”, but the picture that comes to my mind whenever I see her is of  “Bharat Mata” , not all the chains of this Mother India  have come unshackled. 

Vande Utkal Janani.   Vande Mataram.    Jai Hind.

Lamxi  Panda will be staying  at the following address  till the 30th June.  She will be extremely happy to meet anyone who so desires.

Anil  Dhir’s  house at

112, Vaishno Villa

(Near Postal Stores Depot)

Satyanagar

Bhubaneswar

Phone :  9861020747   /  9337103957