Subhadra Kumari Chauhan
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Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (16 August 1904 – 15 February 1948) was an Indian poet. One of her most popular poems is "Jhansi ki Rani" (about the courageous
Queen of Jhansi Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi (; 19 November 1828 — 18 June 1858),Though the day of the month is regarded as certain historians disagree about the year: among those suggested are 1827 and 1835. was an Indian queen, the Maharani consort of ...
).''


Biography

Subhadra Chauhan was born in Nihalpur village in
Prayagraj District Allahabad district, officially known as Prayagraj district, is the most populous district of Uttar Pradesh state of India. The district headquarters is Allahabad which was renamed Prayagraj at the same time as the district was renamed. The Di ...
, Uttar Pradesh. She initially studied in the Crosthwaite Girls' School in
Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
where she was senior to and friends with
Mahadevi Verma Mahadevi Varma (26 March 1907 – 11 September 1987) was an Indian Hindi-language poet, essayist, sketch story writer and an eminent personality of Hindi literature. She is considered one of the four major pillars of the '' Chhayawadi'' era in ...
and passed the middle-school examination in 1919. She married Thakur Lakshman Singh Chauhan of Khandwa in 1919 when she was sixteen with whom she had five children. After her marriage with Thakur Lakshman Singh Chauhan of Khandwa in the same year, she moved to Jubbulpore (now Jabalpur),
Central Provinces The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur. ...
. In 1921, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and her husband joined Mahatma Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement. She was the first woman Satyagrahi to court arrest in Nagpur and was jailed twice for her involvement in protests against the British rule in 1923 and 1942. She was a member of the legislative assembly of the state (erstwhile
Central Provinces The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur. ...
). She died in 1948 in a car accident near
Seoni Seoni is a city and a municipality in Seoni district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. This tribal household dominated district was formed in the year 1956. Rudyard Kipling used the forests in the vicinity of Seoni, or as was spelled dur ...
, Madhya Pradesh, on her way back to Jabalpur from Nagpur, the then capital of Central Provinces, where she had gone to attend the assembly session.


Writing career

Chauhan authored a number of popular works in Hindi poetry. Her most famous composition is ''Jhansi Ki Rani'', an emotionally charged poem describing the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai. The poem is one of the most recited and sung poems in Hindi literature. An emotionally charged description of the life of the queen of Jhansi( British India) and her participation in the 1857 revolution, it is often taught in schools in India. A couplet repeated at the end of each stanza reads thus: This and her other poems, ''Jallianwala Bagh mein Vasant'', ''Veeron Ka Kaisa Ho Basant'', ''Rakhi Ki Chunauti'', and '' Vida'', openly talk about the freedom movement. They are said to have inspired great numbers of Indian youth to participate in the Indian Freedom Movement. Here is the opening stanza of ''Jhansi ki Rani'': Subhadra Kumari Chauhan wrote in the Khariboli dialect of Hindi, in a simple, clear style. Apart from heroic poems, she also wrote poems for children. She wrote some short stories based on the life of the middle class.


Legacy

The ICGS Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, an Indian Coast Guard ship, was named for the poet. The government of Madhya Pradesh placed a statue of Subhadra Kumari Chauhan before the Municipal Corporation office of Jabalpur. On 6 August 1976,
India Posts India Post is a government-operated postal system in India, part of the Department of Post under the Ministry of Communications. Generally known as the Post Office, it is the most widely distributed postal system in the world. Warren Hastings ha ...
released a postage stamp to commemorate her. On 16 August 2021, Google commemorated Subhadra Kumari with a Doodle on her 117th birth anniversary. Google commented: "Chauhan’s poetry remains 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".


Works


Collections of poems


''Khilonewala''
* ''Tridhara'' * ''Mukul'' (1930)
''Yeh Kadamb Ka Ped''
These anthologies consist some of the well-known poems like "Jhansi ki Raani", "Veeron Ka Kaisa Ho Basant" and "Yeh Kadamb Ka Ped". * "Seedhe-Saade Chitra" (1946) * "Mera naya Bachpan" (1946) * "Bikhare Moti" (1932)
"Jhansi ki Rani"


Short stories

* ''Hingvala'' (or Hingwala)


References


Further reading

* *


External links

*


Jhansi Ki Rani English Translation By Qazi Muhammad Ahkam


at ''Bharat Darshan'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Chauhan, Subhadra Kumari 1904 births 1948 deaths Hindi-language poets Poets from Uttar Pradesh People from Allahabad district Indian women poets People from Khandwa People from Jabalpur Indian independence activists from Uttar Pradesh Prisoners and detainees of British India 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian poets Women writers from Uttar Pradesh