Guwahati, Dec 18 Did you know that a 12-year-old girl from Assam by the name of Tileswari Barua is the youngest martyr of India's freedom struggle? Or that General Thangal of Manipur is the oldest martyr of India, having been hanged to death at the age of 80?
A new book titled 'Untold Stories of the Freedom Struggle from Northeast India' written by veteran Guwahati-based journalist and author Samudra Gupta Kashyap, has not only rediscovered these two stories, but has also brought together numerous other stories of patriotism, courage and sacrifice from across the northeastern region.
The book has been published recently by the Publications Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, as part of 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav'.
Divided into seven chapters each dealing with one of the seven states of the northeast, the book brings to the fore hitherto unrecognised battles that freedom-loving tribal communities of the region fought against the heavily-armed, repressive, exploitative British.
It begins with the story of the first revolt led by Gomdhar Konwar two years after the British annexed Assam in 1826, records the execution of Piyoli Phukan and Jiuram Duliya Barua in 1830 and then unfolds, in a chronological manner, a series of incidents of the anti-colonial resistance till 1947.
The Maniram Dewan story and massacre of over 185 Hindustani sepoys in 1857, which had so long remained neglected at the national level, the subcontinent's first peasants' uprising at Phulaguri
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