She had no weapon but her courage. On 20 September 1942, a teenage girl from Assam walked toward a British police station — and into history
Kanaklata Barua was born on December 22, 1924, in the rural tranquillity of Barangabari village, nestled in Assam's present-day Sonitpur district. Her early life bore the marks of silent suffering. Her mother died when Kanaklata was just five. Her father passed away during her adolescence. Left to raise two younger sisters alongside a stepmother in a modest home, she never progressed beyond the third grade.
Yet, what Kanaklata lacked in formal education, she more than made up for in political clarity. In an India under the strain of colonial exploitation, she was part of a generation for whom freedom was not an abstract principle — it was a necessity worth dying for.
Mainstream histories of India's independence often marginalise the Northeast. However, Assam was far from passive. When Mahatma Gandhi's Quit India movement erupted in 1942, it profoundly stirred the Assamese consciousness. The echoes of Gandhi's call for "Do or Die" resonated through tea estates, tribal villages, and urban towns alike. Cultural leaders like Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and Bishnu Prasad Rabha combined poetry, theatre, and protest, inspiring youth across castes and genders.
Kanaklata, like many others, was swept into this movement. At just 17, she joined the Shanti Bahini — a peace corps tasked with maintaining order during nationalist uprisings. But she soon moved into more radical circles. Inspired by Agarwala's teachings and committed to the dream of Purna Swaraj (complete self-rule), she volunteered for the Mrityu Bahini — literally, the "Death Battalion."
(Credit: Global Bihari )
The Mrityu Bahini was no ordinary brigade. These were young, unarmed civilians trained for nonviolent resistance, willing to face lathi blows, prison, or bullets — without flinching. Their mission? To hoist the tricolour atop colonial police stations across Assam, as a symbolic act of sovereignty.
On September 20 1942, in Gohpur, Kanaklata led one such procession. A few dozen volunteers — some just teenagers like her — moved resolutely towards the British-held police station. As she approached, the commanding officer, Rebati Mahan Som, warned them to stop. The crowd held its breath.
Kanaklata did not break her stride.
Gunshots sounded. She instantly collapsed, still clutching the flag. Behind her, a young villager named Mukunda Kakoti rushed forward to lift the fallen banner — and was shot down in turn. Both were buried on the same day, martyrs to a flag they refused to let touch the ground.
(Credit: Wikimedia )
Kanaklata's sacrifice electrified Assam, though it received limited attention outside the state. To many, she was simply Shaheed Kanaklata — the girl who did not flinch. She became the symbol of what historians call "subaltern nationalism" — resistance led not by aristocrats or barristers, but by farmers' daughters, illiterate boys, and rural dreamers.
In 1997, the Indian Coast Guard named a patrol vessel after her — ICGS Kanaklata Barua. In 2011, her statue was unveiled in Gauripur's rock garden. Her life was dramatised in Epaah Phulil Epaah Xoril (2001), an Assamese film later dubbed into Hindi as Purab Ki Awaaz.
And yet, her name remains largely absent from national curricula — a startling omission in a country she died trying to free. Her final march was neither grand nor choreographed. It was raw, unrehearsed, and unequivocally human.
She did not carry a gun. She carried conviction. And sometimes, that's enough to rattle an empire.
