More images1. Lakshmi Sahgal2. Lakshmi Sahgal was a revolutionary of the Indian independence movement, an officer of the Indian National Army, and the Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad Hind government.Wikipedia3. 4. Born:October 24, 1914,Chennai5. Died:July 23, 2012,Kanpur6. Spouse:Prem Sahgal(m. 19471992)7. Education:Madras Medical College8. Children:Subhashini Ali9. Siblings:Mrinalini Sarabhai10. Affairs in theAzad Hind government. Sahgal is commonly referred to in India as "Captain Lakshmi", a reference to her rank when taken prisoner in Burma during the Second World War.Early life[edit]Sahgal was born as Lakshmi Swaminathan inMadras Presidency(now known asTamil Nadu) on 24 October 1914 to S. Swaminathan, a lawyer who practiced criminal law atMadras High Court, and A.V. Ammukutty, better known asAmmu Swaminathan, a social worker and independence activist from the Vadakkath family ofAnakkarainPalghat,Kerala.[3]Sahgal chose to study medicine and received an MBBS degree fromMadras Medical Collegein 1938. A year later, she received her diploma ingynaecologyandobstetrics.[4]She worked as a doctor in the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital located atTriplicaneChennai.[3]In 1940, she left forSingaporeafter the failure of her marriage with pilot P.K.N. Rao.[3]During her stay at Singapore, she met some members ofSubhas Chandra Bose'sIndian National Army.[3]she established a clinic for the poor, most of whom were migrant laborers from India.[citation needed]It was at this time that she began to play an active role in the India Independence League.The Azad Hind Fauj[edit]In 1942, during thesurrender of Singaporeby the British to the Japanese, Sahgal aided woundedprisoners of war, many of whom who were interested in forming an Indian liberation army. Singapore at this time had several nationalist Indians working there includingK. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha and N. Raghavan, who formed a Council of Action. TheirIndian National Army, orAzad Hind Fauj, however, received no firm commitments or approval from the occupying Japanese forces regarding their participation in the war.[5]It was against this backdrop that Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore on 2 July 1943. In the next few days, at all his public meetings, Bose spoke of his determination to raise a women's regiment which would "fight for Indian Independence and make it complete".[citation needed]Lakshmi had heard that Bose was keen to draft women into the organisation and requested a meeting with him from which she emerged with a mandate to set up a womens regiment, to be called theRani of Jhansi regiment. Women responded enthusiastically to join the all-women brigade and Dr. Lakshmi Swaminathan became Captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay with her for life.[5]The INA marched to Burma with theJapanese armyin December 1944, but by March 1945, with the tide of war turning against them, the INA leadership decided to beat a retreat before they could enterImphal. Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the British army in May 1945, remaining inBurmauntil March 1946, when she was sent to India at a time when theINA trialsin Delhi heightened popular discontent with and hastened the end of colonial rule.[5]Later years[edit]In 1971, Sahgal joined theCommunist Party of India (Marxist)and represented the party in theRajya Sabha. During theBangladesh crisis, she organized relief camps and medical aid in Calcutta for refugees who streamed into India from Bangladesh. She was one of the founding members ofAll India Democratic Women's Associationin 1981 and led many of its activities and campaigns.[6]She led a medical team to Bhopal after the gas tragedy in December 1984, worked towards restoring peace in Kanpur following the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and was arrested for her participation in a campaign against the Miss World competition in Bangalore in 1996.[5]She was still seeing patients regularly at her clinic in Kanpur in 2006, at the age of 92.[5]In 2002, four leftist parties theCommunist Party of India, theCommunist Party of India (Marxist), theRevolutionary Socialist Party, and theAll India Forward Bloc nominated Sahgal as a candidate in the presidential elections. She was the sole opponent ofA.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who emerged victorious.[7]Personal life[edit]Sahgal marriedPrem Kumar Sahgalin March 1947 inLahore. After their marriage, they settled inKanpur, where she continued with her medical practice and aided the refugees who were arriving in large numbers following thePartition of India. They had two daughters:Subhashini Aliand Anisa Puri.The Sahgals' daughter, Subhashini, is a prominent Communist politician and labor activist. According to Ali, Sahgal was anatheist. The filmmakerShaad Aliis her grandson.[8]Her sister wasMrinalini Sarabhai(born 11 May 1918)is a celebrated Indian classical dancer, choreographer and instructor.Mrinalini was married toVikram Sarabhai, who is considered as father of Indian Space program.Death[edit]On 19 Jul 2012, Sehgal suffered a cardiac arrest and died on 23 July 2012 at 11:20 A.M. at the age of 97 at Kanpur.[9][10]Her body was donated to Kanpur Medical college for medical research.[11]Captain Lakshmi Sehgal International Airportis proposed atKanpur Dehatdistrict.Awards[edit]In 1998, Sahgal was awarded thePadma Vibhushanby Indian presidentK. R. Narayanan.The fight will go on, said Captain Lakshmi Sehgal one day in 2006, sitting in her crowded Kanpur clinic where, at 92, she still saw patients every morning. She was speaking on camera to Singeli Agnew, a young filmmaker from the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, who was making a documentary on her life.Each stage of the life of this extraordinary Indian represented a new stage of her political evolution as a young medical student drawn to the freedom struggle; as the leader of the all-woman Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army; as a doctor, immediately after Independence, who restarted her medical practice in Kanpur amongst refugees and the most marginalised sections of society; and finally, in post-Independence India, her life as a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA), years that saw her in campaigns for political, economic and social justice.Freedom comes in three forms, the diminutive doctor goes on to say on camera in her unadorned and direct manner. The first is political emancipation from the conqueror, the second is economic [emancipation] and the third is social India has only achieved the first.With Captain Lakshmis passing, India has lost an indefatigable fighter for the emancipations of which she spoke.First rebellionLakshmi Sehgal was born Lakshmi Swaminadhan on October 24, 1914 in Madras to S. Swaminadhan, a talented lawyer, and A.V. Ammukutty, a social worker and freedom fighter (and who would later be a member of independent Indias Constituent Assembly).Lakshmi would later recall her first rebellion as a child against the demeaning institution of caste in Kerala. From her grandmothers house, she would often hear the calls and hollers from the surrounding jungles and hills, of the people who in her grandmothers words were those whose very shadows are polluting. The young Lakshmi one day walked up to a young tribal girl, held her hand and led her to play. Lakshmi and her grandmother were furious with each other, but Lakshmi was the one triumphant.After high school in Madras, she studied at the Madras Medical College, from where she took her MBBS in 1938. The intervening years saw Lakshmi and her family drawn into the ongoing freedom struggle. She saw the transformation of her mother from a Madras socialite to an ardent Congress supporter, who one day walked into her daughters room and took away all the childs pretty dresses to burn in a bonfire of foreign goods. Looking back years later, Lakshmi would observe how in the South, the fight for political freedom was fought alongside the struggle for social reform. Campaigns for political independence were waged together with struggles for temple entry for Dalits and against child marriage and dowry. Her first introduction to communism was through Suhasini Nambiar, Sarojini Naidus sister, a radical who had spent many years in Germany. Another early influence was the first book on the communist movement she read, Edgar SnowsRed Star over China.Meeting NetajiAs a young doctor of 26, Lakshmi left for Singapore in 1940. Three years later she would meet Subhash Chandra Bose, a meeting that would change the course of her life. In Singapore, Lakshmi remembered, there were a lot of nationalist Indians like K. P. Kesava Menon, S. C. Guha, N. Raghavan, and others, who formed a Council of Action. The Japanese, however, would not give any firm commitment to the Indian National Army, nor would they say how the movement was to be expanded, how they would go into Burma, or how the fighting would take place. People naturally got fed up. Boses arrival broke this logjam.Lakshmi, who had thus far been on the fringes of the INA, had heard that Bose was keen to draft women into the organisation. She requested a meeting with him when he arrived in Singapore, and emerged from a five-hour interview with a mandate to set up a womens regiment, which was to be called the Rani of Jhansi regiment. There was a tremendous response from women to join the all-women brigade. Dr. Lakshmi Swaminadhan became Captain Lakshmi, a name and identity that would stay with her for life.The march to Burma began in December 1944 and, by March 1945, the decision to retreat was taken by the INA leadership, just before the entry of their armies into Imphal. Captain Lakshmi was arrested by the British army in May 1945. She remained under house arrest in the jungles of Burma until March 1946, when she was sent to India at a time when the INA trials in Delhi were intensifying the popular hatred of colonial rule.Captain Lakshmi married Col. Prem Kumar Sehgal, a leading figure of the INA, in March 1947. The couple moved from Lahore to Kanpur, where she plunged into her medical practice, working among the flood of refugees who had come from Pakistan, and earning the trust and gratitude of both Hindus and Muslims.CPI(M) activistBy the early 1970s, Lakshmis daughter Subhashini had joined the CPI(M). She brought to her mothers attention an appeal from Jyoti Basu for doctors and medical supplies for Bangladeshi refugee camps. Captain Lakshmi left for Calcutta, carrying clothes and medicines, to work for the next five weeks in the border areas. After her return she applied for membership in the CPI(M). For the 57-year old doctor, joining the Communist Party was like coming home. My way of thinking was already communist, and I never wanted to earn a lot of money, or acquire a lot of property or wealth, she said.Captain Lakshmi was one of the founding members of AIDWA, formed in 1981. She subsequently led many of its activities and campaigns. After the Bhopal gas tragedy in December 1984, she led a medical team to the city; years later she wrote a report on the long-term effects of the gas on pregnant women. During the anti-Sikh riots that followed Prime Minister Indira Gandhis assassination in 1984, she was out on the streets in Kanpur, confronting anti-Sikh mobs and ensuring that no Sikh or Sikh establishment in the crowded area near her clinic was attacked. She was arrested for her participation in a campaign by AIDWA against the Miss World competition held in Bangalore in 1996.Presidential candidateCaptain Lakshmi was the presidential candidate for the Left in 2002, an election that A. P. J. Abdul Kalam would win. She ran a whirlwind campaign across the country, addressing packed public meetings. While frankly admitting that she did not stand a chance of winning, she used her platform to publicly scrutinise a political system that allowed poverty and injustice to grow, and fed new irrational and divisive ideologies.Captain Lakshmi had the quality of awakening a sense of joy and possibility in all who met her her co-workers, activists of her organisation, her patients, family and friends. Her life was an inextricable part of 20th and early 21st century India -- of the struggle against colonial rule, the attainment of freedom, and nation-building over 65 tumultuous years. In this great historical transition, Captain Lakshmi always positioned herself firmly on the side of the poor and unempowered. Freedom fighter, dedicated medical practitioner, and an outstanding leader of the women's movement in India, Captain Lakshmi leaves the country and its people a fine and enduring legacy.Lakshmi Sehgal is survived by her daughters Subhashini Ali and Anisa Puri; her grandchildren Shaad Ali, Neha and Nishant Puri; and by her sister Mrinalini Sarabhai.(parvathi.menon@thehindu.co.in)

Captain Lakhmi,s paasing away immediately reminds usof the freedom movement led by Nethaji . she joined nethaji nationalarmy in which she was the captain. Her dedication to the cause offreedom is unparalleled. She now joined Nethaji and she has equalreputation . She will be a role model to inspire the young generationto safeguard our hard one freedom at all cost. The nation stood stilland salutet the captain Laxmi for all her sacrifices.

I feel ashamed that we were not aware of such great patrioticpersonswho wereliving among us. Even the elders did not know about her then whatisabout younger generation.documentary pictures should be made about these great veterans and tobetelecasted between the tv episodes then only the fire for democarticIndia will remain in all our hearts.I felt patriotic when I read abouther in newspapers.State Govt should give subsidy to tamil films onlywhen each film producer is making documentary of our veterans of ourstate/country(during every film produced) as mandatory and have theduty of spreading awareness of freedom.BHARAT MATA KI JAI/It feels sad when some idols , the people who can be called as changemakers of modern India leave us in this world full of commotion and dissatisfaction along with inefficient administration ... A graceful contributor in Indian Independence..

After all the hooplah about the need for a consensus on our next President, we are going to have an election after all! However, the fact that Dr. Kalam is going to win handsomely takes nothing away from Dr Lakshmi Sahgal's service to the society. Her life has been a saga of unwavering commitment to egalitarianism and gender equality. Handpicked by Netaji to lead the Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Indian National Army (INA), she recruited and trained the Ranis in Singapore and Burma. She also headed the Department of Women's Affairs in the provisional government of the Azad Hind, and stayed with her comrades in the jungles of Burma until the British caught up with her in 1945. After a month of intensive interrogation, when the restrictions were slackened, she even managed to hold an INA meeting and hoist the Indian flag in British-ruled Burma! This created a splash in the Indian newspapers, and she was promptly put under house arrest. Her offer to serve honorarily as a doctor in Govt.Hospital,Kanpur was turned down by Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the then Minister of Health, she established her own clinic in Kanpur which she runs to this day. In 1971, when West Bengal was facing a deluge of refugees from Bangladesh, she volunteered for the People's Relief Committee in Calcutta. And when the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) was started in 1980, she was elected one of its Vice-Presidents. Last year, she was elected patron of the UP state unit of AIDWA, after three terms as president. During the 1984 Kanpur riots (in the aftermath of the Indira Gandhi assassination), along with a few other committed people, she took to the streets to contain violence. The state finally took note of her services to the society and in 1998, awarded her the Padma Vibhushan. Not one to rest on her laurels, this angryyounglady continues to fight against feudalism and theomnipotent caste system. She personally cleans the place in front of her clinic, for she doesn't want to leave these jobs to themenialsTHE GOOD DOCTORDr Sahgal's autobiographyWe talked about the junior doctors who were striking in Lucknow and Kanpur that day. "The doctors should not take it out on the poor patients," she rued, going on to express her disappointment at the degeneration of the medical profession. "Doctors are more concerned with making money. In many nursing homes, they admit practically dead patients, keeping them alive using gadgets, milking the families for money."The scene was not very different in politics either, she complained. "The politicians these days are more interested innetagirithan in patriotism." Looking at the country now, did she expect things to be this way when they struggled for freedom, I asked her. "We had expected a more egalitarian society with social justice," she said, looking me directly in the eye. We are hardly moving towards it. Otherwise, why should I still be working at the age of 91?" she asked.Her voice held a strength that came from the courage of convictions, which guided her throughout her life.She had sustained her clinic for decades. She spoke of how her clinic did not contain a surgical unit, which she wished she could have had. There was a shortage of space and she could only admit a few patients. "It is not doing so well since the last two years," she told me then. Every day of the week she would be at the clinic by 9 am. When she passed away on July 23, 2012, it was reported that she saw patients until the end.By Vinutha MallyaDr Lakshmi Sahgal in her youthThe queue of women, most of them pregnant, kept growing at the clinic in the corner of a narrow street in Aryanagar, Kanpur. It was a day in January 2006, and the morning held a mild chill despite the bright winter sun. I sat at a distance on one of the wooden benches in the veranda. The old house located in a labour colony, which served as a clinic and maternity home, belonged to a bygone era. The veranda was not an ideal waiting room, but the anxious women did not seem to care. I was struck by the obscurity of the setting, where we were all waiting to meet the same woman: the legendary Col (Dr) Lakshmi Sahgal.I had to wait until the women, who had come from all over Kanpur and some from nearby Lucknow, had finished their turn. Unlike them, I was there to interview the doctor. Although her staff received me politely, I knew better than to expect to receive any preference in her schedule.Then 91, Lakshmi Sahgal had been attending to patients at this clinic since 1951, three years after she had moved to Kanpur. Her career as an obstetrician and gynaecologist was dedicated to providing medical help to poor women, like the ones I was sitting with on the wooden benches.Many of her patients came from families who were struggling for employment after the mills of Kanpur had shut. The loss of livelihoods has not just affected their access to healthcare facilities, but it had also affected the education of their children. "As my fees are little, my clinic is always full," she said to me later.Each time the door of the consultation room opened, I would catch a glimpse of the doctor inside, getting ready to attend to her next patient with the help of two other doctors. The room was small, with a table, two chairs, and a bed on which patients were examined.I sat there wondering how many of her patients knew that the sprightly nonagenarian was a celebrated warrior of India's freedom movement; that she had held command of the Rani Jhansi Regiment of Subhash Chandra Bose's Indian National Army; and she was the first Indian woman to contest the Presidential elections, in 2002, when President A P J Abdul Kalam was elected.When I was a school student, I was enamoured by the heroines of history that had made their way into our textbooks, perhaps also because they were so few. History textbooks of that time ended with India's long and glorious freedom struggle, in which Netaji and the INA were a small mention. Lakshmi Sahgal was perhaps the last heroine to be mentioned. I hadn't foreseen then that I would get to meet her some day.I had first met her in 2005, when she visited her sister Mrinalini Sarabhai in Ahmedabad. By then I had heard many stories first-hand from Mrinalini, of their childhood years in Madras (now Chennai). Although they had a "very British" upbringing, their exposure to political life began at the height of India's struggle for freedom. Their mother, Ammu Swaminadhan, a prominent figure in Madras society was active in the Congress. She became a member of the All India Women's Conference when Lakshmi was entering college after SSLC.Lakshmi (R) with mother Ammu Swaminadhan and sister Mrinalini (Courtesy of Mrinalini Sarabhai, Darpana Academy,Born on October 24, 1914, Lakshmi was the second child of Ammu and Subbarama Swaminadhan. Her father was a radical lawyer, from the Palghat Iyer community, who defied caste rules to marry her mother, a Nair girl from the Vadakkath family in Anakkara, Palakkad district. She grew up in an environment free from caste and religious prejudices, and the sisters were never treated differently than their brothers Govind and Subbaram. Her mother was involved with the Congress and the nationalist movement. By the time they were in their youth, Lakshmi and Mrinalini had interacted with many prominent personalities in her home at Gilchrist Gardens in Madras.A young Dr LakshmiOver her two-week stay in Ahmedabad at the Sarabhai home, in 2005, I had the opportunity to meet her a few times. Unlike in the photos of her youth, where her hair was worn long, she was wearing it short now a shock of grey. It gave her a youthful look. Her twinkling eyes and charming smile were captivating. Her contagious enthusiasm, and her interest in the world around her was enough to easily draw one into a conversation with her. She was clearly enjoying the time she was spending with her sister and her family. Lakshmi was known to have been a beauty in her youth, and there was every trace of it radiating in her face at age 90.A year later, I was waiting for my turn with her at her clinic in Kanpur. My timing was not great: there was a wedding in the family the following week. Nevertheless, she agreed to meet me for the interview. After arriving by the Shatabdi from Delhi, I made my way to her clinic directly, in the hope that I would get some time with her there. "She leaves the clinic at 2 pm every day," her daughter Subhashini had alerted me in an email ahead of my visit.At around 2 pm, Dr Sahgal and I set off in her car to go to her home in Civil Lines, where she lived with Subhashini. Along the ride, she quizzed me on the political drama unfolding in Karnataka, my home state. The government led by the then chief minister Dharam Singh was facing a precarious future, and she was following the developments keenly. My experience of having spent time with her sister, too, had shown me that their deep interest in national politics and development issues, and their active participation in it, was a family legacy.EARLY INFLUENCES Col (Dr) Lakshmi Sahgal, who passed away at the age of 97 in Kanpur on July 23, was a distinguished freedom fighter best remembered as the leader of the womens regiment of the Indian National Army ...more1/14Mail Today | Photo by DeshabhimaniShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to PinterestClosePrevious imageNext imageLakshmi had always known that she would dedicate her life to serving the underprivileged and poor. "From an early age, both Mrinalini and I knew what we wanted to do. She was passionate about dance and I about service to the people," she told me during our conversation that afternoon.One of her earliest influences was Comrade Subhashini Chattopadhyay, Sarojini Naidu's youngest sister, who was the first Indian woman to join the Communist Party. She had spent some of her underground years at Ammu Swaminadhan's house. "I used to sit up night after night while the rest of the household slept, and listen to her," Lakshmi wrote in her autobiography, A Revolutionary Life: Memoirs of a Political Activist (Kali for Women, 1997). By the time we met in Kanpur, I had read the book, which chronicles her INA days, for most part.However passionately Lakshmi had felt about fighting for freedom, she did not respond to Gandhiji's call to students to leave their studies and join the Civil Disobedience Movement. She felt that India would need well-educated and trained professionals once freedom came. She qualified for the MBBS degree in 1938 and obtained her diploma in gynaecology and obstetrics a year later. Soon after, she moved to Singapore and worked as a doctor there.INA AND THE WAR YEARSCapt. Lakshmi Sahgal with Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and other members of INA (Wikimedia Commons)She joined the Indian National Army in 1943, after being drawn to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and to his idea of raising a women's regiment named after Rani Lakshmi Bai. She was soon offered the command of the Rani Jhansi Regiment with the rank of a captain (she was later promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel). In Netaji she found a leader in whom she placed her absolute trust and loyalty. Like him, she felt, "that the final blow for independence would have to come from armed struggle".Although her regiment never went into active combat when the INA fought alongside the Japanese against the British, the Ranis experienced the harshness of the war. She was taken prisoner in the Karen Hills (eastern Burma) in early1945. The region was in war chaos and the British commander decided to send the prisoners of war and refugees to Toungo, a 100-mile journey by foot, which took 10 days. Lakshmi's description of this walk captures the horrors of the war, but to touching detail like how difficult it was for her Keralite blood to not bathe and change clothes for 10 days! She remained in Burma to provide medical care for the troops.Upon her return to India in March 1946, she became disillusioned with the Congress and the political environment, and she decided not to be drawn into the public arena "come what may". While the Congress wanted to patronise the INA, the communists would not have anything to do with them. "They just branded us fascists and didn't give us another chance," she said. Lakshmi was also upset at the journalists who glamourised Netaji, and INA officials like her, instead of trying to understand the movement that he had built.She continued her medical work and got involved with the welfare of returning troops, and after Independence, with refugees' rehabilitation.KANPURWith niece Mallika, sister Mrinalini, husband Prem, mother Ammu and daughter SubhashiniDr Sahgal's autobiography mentions little about her personal life. She married P K N Rao, a pilot with Tata Airlines, while she was still studying for the MBBS degree. Within three months she felt it was a mistake, and returned from Bombay to Madras to continue with her studies. Rao, who didn't forgive her, did not give her a divorce. So, when she fell in love with a classmate at Madras Medical College, unable to marry and live together, the couple left for Singapore. But that friend, who also joined the INA, did not like her getting involved in it, and the relationship ended.Greeted by her sister on her return from SingaporeIn Singapore she met Prem Sahgal, a soldier from the Indian Army who had joined the INA. She said that it was he who decided more than her that they should spend the rest of their life together. He supported her in everything that she did. "He was the kind of person who when he took up something, give it his all," she said. They married in March 1947. Col Prem Sahgal had accepted a job as a junior executive in a textile mill in Kanpur. "After a quiet wedding we came to Kanpur, a dirty, disease-ridden city from which there seems to be no escape," she felt.Lakshmi settled down in Kanpur to a non-political life. "I would have liked to settle down in the south, in Madras. But you know how it is. Being a north Indian, Prem would have found it difficult to adjust to the south. We south Indians can adjust more easily to the north," she told me knowingly, as I was a south Indian too. (Col Prem Sahgal passed away in 1992.) I was again reminded then that despite having lived in north India for nearly 60 years, her Hindi was not strong. Her accent revealed the flavour of mellifluous Malayalam.Lakshmi with her mother Ammu Swaminadhan, sister Mrinalini, grandmother and brother GovindTheir house was always open to progressive, non-communal people. Lakshmi had begun her medical work to serve underprivileged women and children. Her daughters, Subhashini and Anisa were born soon. After she opened the clinic, she also started working in a municipal dispensary, which, for several years, had not been able to get a woman doctor. She also trained several women as medical aides and midwives. For a while she also tried her hand at farming in the foothills of Nainital, and became an expert in driving a tractor, and supervising sowing and other operations.The couple unhappily watched the INA disintegrate, even though they tried to set up an independent non-political welfare organisation to preserve its identity.COMRADE LAKSHMIComrade Lakshmi addresses a CPI (M) meeting (Wikimedia Commons)Lakshmi became restless politically, unsatisfied with the way things were going. "The fruits of independence were benefiting only a few the white rulers had been replaced by darker ones."When her daughter Subhashini (Ali, now a prominent labour activist) joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Lakshmi got involved with the Party's activities, and later opened a clinic for families of workers. Gradually, she was accepted by the Party in her own right and received her membership in 1972. She was one of the founding members of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), set up by the Party. "My own belief was, and still is, that only some form of socialism suited to our ethos can help towards solving our problems," she wrote.The Government of India presented Col (Dr) Lakshmi Sahgal with the Padma Vibhushan in 1998, in recognition for her service to the nation. The Left parties nominated her candidacy for the Presidential election in 2002, during which time she said, "My one-point objective would be to maintain the unity and integrity of this great nation."

Indialost the Rani of Jhansi all over again. At 11.20 am on July 23, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, who commanded the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of Netaji Subhash Chandra Boses Indian National Army (INA), died in Kanpur at the age of 97. Sehgal has been admitted to a private hospital on July 19 after she suffered a heart attack. She had been kept on life support.

The gynaenocologist was born Lakshmi Swaminathan to lawyer Dr S Swaminathan and social worker Ammu Swaminathan in Chennai on October 24, 1914. In 1940 she left for Singapore to pursue academics, and it was during the surrender of Singapore by the British to the Japanese in 9942, that Sehgal helped wounded prisoners of war, several of them keen on forming an Indian liberation army. When Bose arrived in Singapore in July 1943, he expressed his dream of forming a womens regiment, and Sehgal found the opportunity to become Captain Lakshmi.Doctor by profession but soldier by choice, Captain Lakshmis stint with the INA was translated to film by Bollywood filmmaker Kabir Khan. The Forgotten Army (1999) retraced the INAs journey as it marched from Singapore to Imphal, where it was finally defeated in 1945. The first thing that struck me about her was how tiny she was, says Khan, who interacted with her for several months while they shot in Burma. She was a dainty lady with the spirit of giant; forceful and articulate when she spoke about ideologies. Khan says Captain Lakshmis role was significant since she was responsible for enlisting women from Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, all girls who were of Indian origin, but had never been toIndia. She inspired them to fight for a concept called India, says Khan.Captain Lakshmis time in Burma during the shoot was a sort of a pilgrimage since she hadnt returned to the country after the Second World War. She hasnt imagined shed go back at 85, Khan says. Her visit to Mount Popa where the INA was defeated in April 1945, was especially moving. Her husband, Colonel Prem Kuma Sahgal, along with Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Gen Shah Nawaz Khan, were tried for their activities at Mount Popa, says Khan. But Captain Lakshmi had never been there. Her husband would talk about it incessantly. In fact, she joked that she feared that if she ever had a son, hed name him Popa!Maymo, the city that served as the provisional headquarters of the INA, threw up a surprise for Sahgal. She was positioned there during the war, thus and keen on revisitng Netajis home. As we approached it, a man came out and went straight to her saying, If it isnt the most beautiful woman in the world. He turned out to be Netajis doctor, who had stayed on after the war. After 65 years, he still recognised her! remembers Khan. Another magical moment came when they were shooting in a jungle. Col. Dhillon insisted on finding the cave that had served as their headquarters. We found it after four days of searching, and in it was the little Buddha idol that Colonel Sahgal had left behind, and believed would protect them, says Khan. Lakshmi Sahgal is survived by her daughter Subhashini and filmmaker grandson Shaad Ali.