AFVOA Newletter August 2020

Section 6 – eConnect Reviews CV 2 No. 02 / 2020 Page 218 of 237 into English under the title “Iconic Indian Women” that comprises the life and times of iconic women across vedic, puranic, ithihasic and historic times in our great Bharatvarsha. The subject of the talk today was “Jai Bharath – Hail Mother India”. While the veteran attendees prepared themselves to listen to the all too familiar freedom fighters’ accounts in the refreshingly different form of Harikatha, they were in for an unexpected surprise that none of the seven occurrences involving iconic women of India was familiar to most. So much for the education system that systemically blacked out of our own history in the 70+ years in the post Independent India! It was a revelation as to how our real heros and heroines have been deliberately dwarfed by history recorded in a narrative which was far from the truth , a history twisted and twined by historians with a personal agenda of their own. The first story narrated by Smt Vishaka Hari was that of Nayaki Devi, born in Goa and married into the Solanki royalty of Gujarat, never let her gender or her status as a widow come in the way of taking on Mohammed Ghori and defeating him in a battle fought in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, had the attendees sit on the edge of their seats. Her daughter Kurma Devi, was the second wife of Mewar Rajput Samar Singh, who was killed by Mohammed Ghori’s forces. Kurma Devi consolidated her forces, forged new alliances with Rajput rulers of the neighbourhood, led the Army and avenged her husband’s death a few years later. She personally inflicted serious wounds on Qutub- ud-din Aibak, who was left behind as the Viceroy of Delhi by Mohammed Ghori. The patriotism and commitment of Indian women were no less than their male counterparts. The second story of Vidhyulatha illustrated this amply. Her husband Samar Singh, who was consumed by his love for Vidhyulatha, was forced by circumstances into battle with Allauddin Khilji. Seeing the futility of fighting the enemy with a huge Army, and the overriding desire to return to his beautiful wife, Samar Singh did the most cowardly act of changing his loyalties in the battle field, killed his own people and returned triumphantly as part of the enemy’s forces. Sensing what had happened, his wife Vidhyulatha thought it better to commit suicide by forcing a dagger into her throat than allow a traitor to touch her. The next reiveting story was on Hadi Rani, a princess in a fiefdom in Rajasthan who was married to a Chundawat chieftain in Mewar. Without a second thought, she sacrificed herself to motivate her husband to go to war. When Maharana Raj Singh I of Mewar called his commander to join the battle against Aurangzeb, the commander, having married Hadi Rani only a few days earlier hesitated in doing so. Perceptions of Rajput honour caused him to join the battle despite his reservations. He asked his wife, Hadi Rani, for some memento to take with him to the battlefield. Thinking that she was an obstacle to his doing his duty for Mewar, she unhesitatingly asked her servant to cut