Know My Name: Lakshmi Sahgal ✍ Chandra Lakshmi Sahgal started and ended her career as a doctor, but in between, she became a soldier. Inspired by India’s efforts for independence, she joined the Indian National Army (INA) in 1943 to fight the British Empire. The INA’s founder recognized Sahgal’s tenacity and made her captain of the Rani Jhansi Regiment, a women’s military unit and the first of its kind in Asia. After being taken prisoner by the British, “Freedom comes in three forms,” she said. “The Captain Sahgal (or Captain Lakshmi as she’s first is political emancipation from the commonly called), returned to her medical conqueror, the second is economic practice in India. During the partition riots, she [emancipation], and the third is social… India gave medical care to Hindus and Muslims alike. has only achieved the first.” In 1981, she helped found the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), According to The Hindu, Captain Sahgal began which fought for women’s education and fighting for the third — India’s social freedom — employment, among other causes. When anti- as early as childhood. Despite her Sikh mobs flooded the streets in the wake of grandmother’s outspoken disdain for castes of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, people “whose very shadows were polluting,” Sahgal protected Sikhs in her area from Sahgal took the hand of such a girl and invited violence and harassment. her to play. It may come as no surprise, then, that Sahgal’s compassion for others lasted a lifetime. As a doctor, she continued to treat patients into her 90s. A TO Z INDIA ● JULY 2021 ● PAGE 16