Jhansi ki Rani by Subhadra Kumari Chouhan

On her 117th birth anniversary, Google honoured Subhadra Kumari Chouhan, the Indian poetess and freedom fighter who wrote the famous poem Jhansi ki Rani, with a doodle.

The doodle is created by New Zealand-based guest artist Prabha Mallya. Kumari is pictured wearing a saree and holding a pen and paper in the doodle. In the back, Rani Lakshmi Bai can be seen riding a horse, while a few others marching in the country’s freedom battle.

What do we know about Subhadra Kumari Chouhan?

A poetess and an author, Subhadra Kumari Chouhan’s writings centred around the hardships that Indian women had to face during the freedom struggle. Her famous composition  Jhansi Ki Rani, an ode to the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai is one of the most recited and sung poems in Hindi literature.

Subhadra Kumari was born on 16th August 1904 in a Rajput family in Prayagraj District, Uttar Pradesh. She was an avid writer from an early age and was known to write even while riding a horse cart on her way to school. Her first poem was published when she was just 9-years-old.

As a participant of the Indian National Movement, she used her influential writing and poems to motivate others to fight for the nation’s sovereignty.

She was the first woman Satyagrahi to court arrest in Nagpur and was jailed twice for her involvement in protests against British rule in 1923 and 1942.

“In 1923, Chauhan’s unyielding activism led her to become the first woman satyagrahi, a member of the Indian collective of nonviolent anti-colonialists to be arrested in the struggle for national liberation. She continued to make revolutionary statements in the fight for freedom both on and off the page into the 1940s, publishing a total of 88 poems and 46 short stories,” the Google Doodle page notes.

With a total of 88 poems and 46 short stories, Chauhan’s writings remain a staple in many Indian classrooms as a symbol of historical progress, encouraging future generations to stand up against social injustice and celebrate the words that shaped a nation’s history.