Women at War:: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment - Softcover

Hildebrand, Vera

9789352640683: Women at War:: Subhas Chandra Bose and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9352640683 ISBN 13: 9789352640683

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2016

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I want a unit of brave Indian women to form a Death-defying Regiment who will wield the sword which the brave Rani of Jhansi wielded in Indias First War of Independence in 1857.' � Subhas Chandra Bose The Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR), the first all-female infantry fighting unit in military history, was created in Singapore in July 1943 by Indian nationalist and visionary leader Subhas Chandra Bose to liberate India from British colonial oppression. His young recruits were girls from Indian families of the diasporas in Singapore, Malaya and Burma, and consisted entirely of civilian volunteers lacking any prior military training. These soldiers, deployed to the steamy jungles of Burma during the last two years of World War II, were determined to follow their commander to victory. Seven decades later, their history has been forgotten, their service and the role played by Bose himself having remained largely unexplored. Through in-depth interviews with the surviving Ranis in their eighties and nineties and meticulous archival research, historian Vera Hildebrand has uncovered extensive new evidence that separates the myth of the Bengali hero and his jungle warrior maidens from historical fact. The result is a wholly fresh perspective on the remarkable women of the RJR and their place in Indian and world history. The truth is every bit as impressive as the myth.

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About the Author

With a doctorate in Indian history and culture from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, Vera Hildebrand is a senior research fellow at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Previously, she taught at Harvard University and University of Copenhagen. She is the co-editor of At Home in the World: A Window on Contemporary Indian Literature (2002). For Women at War, she travelled to Malaysia, India, Singapore, the United States, Great Britain and Japan to identify and interview all surviving soldiers of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (RJR) of the Indian National Army, as well as male Indian and Japanese soldiers who had worked with RJR in World War II in Burma.

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