Neera Arya was born on March 5, 1902, in India. She was the daughter of distinguished & eminent businessman Seth Chhajumal. She had been a patriot since her childhood towards her nation. Britishers were ruling India at that time.
Despite being in slavery, she always had the vision to get the freedom of the nation from the Britishers. She participated in many of the freedom movements too. Once she was also accused as an undercover agent by the British government.
When she was participating in the freedom movement, at the same time her father’s business was flourishing in Calcutta, though his father’s business was spread across the country. But Calcutta was the head branch or you can say the center of his business. As the business was spread in most of the parts of the country, her father thus had to travel a lot. When she was on a business trip with her father, she traveled to many countries. During her travels, she also learned a few languages such as Hindi, English, and Bengali.
Killing of Husband
Neera Arya was married to Shrikant Jairanjan Das, who was a British CID officer.[1] Realising that Neera had joined the Indian National Army, Shrikant wanted Neera to assassinate Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. When Neera refused, Shrikant wanted her to disclose Netaji’s whereabouts to assassinate Netaji himself. During a failed assassination attempt, Shrikant fired a shot towards Netaji. Netaji survived the shooting but his driver was killed. Upon hearing this, Neera stabbed Shrikant to death.
But when Netaji got to know about this that she had killed her husband. He did not appreciate it. She had to surrender to the British Government for killing her husband who was also a British servant.
Her trial took place in Red fort where she was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Neera Arya and Farhan Taj
In prison, she was tortured every single day. Neera had shared some of her life stories with an Urdu writer “Farhan Taj”. Farhan Taj had written heartwarming stories of Neera in his novel.
One of the heartwarming parts of her stories, She told:
After the trial, I was sent to Andaman for lifetime imprisonment (Kala Pani). Where all prisoners were stuffed into tiny cells.
There were other women same as me, who were serving their punishment. These women were also political prisoners.
I was worried always, How I would participate in the freedom movement while I am living on an unknown island in the middle of the sea?
I never asked for a blanket and kept sleeping on the ground despite the bitter cold for months.
One day, It was midnight two guards came to my cell and they had thrown two blankets on me. I felt bad about it. But there was some satisfaction of getting blankets in cold. But still, I was worried that I was tied with a hard iron chain around my neck, hand, and legs.
But the next day, god listened to my prayer, and the blacksmith came in. He started cutting off the chains of my hand. He had cut some flesh off my hand. I ignored that, but when he started cutting off the shackles from my legs, he had hit my bones 2–3 times with a heavy hammer.
It was so painful, I sighed and grieved. And said to him.
Are you blind that you had hit my legs 2–3 times?
It is giving me a lot of pain.
He replied that I can even hit on your heart as well and you can not do anything about this.
I knew that I was a slave there. They can behave in any way they liked. But still, I was angry and in rage, I spat on him and said to him “learn to respect women.”
The jailer who was watching all of this incident came close to me and asked.
If you tell us where is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, we will let you go.
So I replied, he died in a plane crash and everybody knows this. The jailer replied, that you are lying because he is still alive.
Then jailer again asked me that this is the last time I am asking you,
Where is he?
I angrily replied he is in my heart, in my mind.
Jailer furiously said. “If Netaji is in her heart, then remove him from there.’’
The jailer touched me inappropriately and tore all the clothes and indicated to the blacksmith about my breast.
The blacksmith immediately took a breast ripper and started pressing my right breast to cut it off.
While they were cutting it off, the pain had crossed all its limits.
The jailer held my neck and said if I ever argue with anyone. He will take off another balloon from my breast.
The jailer also hit me with a tweezer that was lying there and said be thankful to our Queen Victoria that this breast ripper was not heated.
Her last days and demise
After the Independence of India, She got out of prison. The rest of her life she spent while selling flowers in Hyderabad.
Even her cottage was also demolished by the Indian Government later. The government claimed that her cottage was built over government land.
On 26 July 1998, she left the world with a message to every Indian that “Did she deserve this much in her last days in independent India?”
