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Tileswari Barua was a heroic, courageous, valiant twelve years teenage girl. Exactly 75 years ago, on 20 September 1942 Tileswari Barua laid down her life while trying to hoist the national flag at top of the police station in Dhekiajuli, Assam. Tileswari was the eldest of four children of Bhabakanta Barua of village Nij-Borgaon on the outskirts of Dhekiajuli. She was so influenced by the patriotic songs which the Congress volunteers were singing every day that she did not think once about her life when Mahatma Gandhi’s call for raising the national tricolor flag.
With 15 persons had attained martyrdom in the Dhekiajuli firing of September 20, 1942, Tileswari was not only the youngest there in the entire country. Dhekiajuli incidentally is one place where even a nameless beggar and a nameless sanyasi had laid down their lives as they too joined the others to hoist the flag in the local police station on that fateful day. Nowhere else in this great country did a beggar and sanyasi attain martyrdom except in Assam. Tileswari was a little behind Monbor Nath, who headed the local mrityu vahini and was leading the group. When Nath defied orders of the police officer and climbed atop the police station, he was gunned down within a few seconds. Other volunteers followed, one by one. Tileswari was the fourth to be hit by the bullet after Nath, Kumoli Devi and Mohiram Koch, she faced a volley of bullets.
Nisha Sethia
To read the further article please get your copy of Eastern Panorama March issue @http://www.magzter.com/IN/Hill-Publications/Eastern-Panorama/News/ or mail to contact @easternpanorama.in
