Not many are aware that the Rani of Jhansi regiment of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army had within its ranks a teenage spy who lost her parents in a bombing in erstwhile Burma and was tasked with collecting information against the British during the horrors of World War II. Laxmi Indira Panda was one of the youngest members of the Azad Hind Fauj, and, in 2008, after a period of intense struggle, was conferred the Rashtriya Swantantra Sainik Samman for her services to the nation. Sadly, she passed away only a few days afterwards and history and contemporary discourse have largely forgotten her.
Savie Karnel’s Laxmi Panda: The Story of Netaji’s Youngest Spy is a fictionalised narrative of history. It is not an entirely true story, but it is based on true events and people of history — people who played crucial roles during the Indian struggle for independence and who continue to be sources of inspiration for children all over the nation. Released last month, Karnel’s book is a tale of bravery, sacrifice, and the enduring spirit of youth in the face of adversity. In a chat with t2, she talked about her own experiences speaking to Laxmi Panda in 2008, her decision to bring Panda’s story out from the depths of oblivion, and what she hopes the impact of the book will be. Excerpts.
You mention in your author’s note that you met Laxmi Panda’s grandson, Probin Raj Patro, when you were working in Bangalore. Tell us what the journey since, till the conceptualisation of this book, has been like…
I met Probin in 2008. I was a reporter at the time, and I remember it was around seven or eight o’clock in the evening when this young boy in his early 20s walked into the newsroom. He told me he was going to every newspaper in Bangalore and telling his grandmother’s story. I found out later that Laxmi Panda had been thrown out of the house by her other grandsons at the time, and was working as a domestic help in Odisha to make ends meet. And Probin told me that while the Odisha government had previously recognised her contributions to the nation, her family was specifically looking for the freedom fighters’ pension, which the union government sanctions. So, for that he had come to Bangalore, and I believe he was working in Bangalore at the time. He had come with his grandmother’s story and the supporting documents to tell it.
Somehow, that evening I met him and I guess I sat with him for a bit. And when I spoke to him, I felt that this was a story which needed to be told. He called his grandmother then, because I wanted to speak to her, and the first thing that she said to me on the phone was, “Jai Hind”. I still get goosebumps thinking of the way she said it. There was so much devotion in the way she said it, you could tell she meant each syllable of it because she had actually lived through it.
And that really struck me. I think I was one of the first journalists who interviewed Laxmi Panda, and there was a lot I wanted to write about in the book, but because I meant it to be a children’s story, I didn’t want to make it too grim or turn it into a history textbook. But personally, I feel Laxmi Panda symbolises all the women soldiers of the INA whose stories have been lost. There are so many people, women especially, whose contributions to the nation we know nothing about, and I wanted to do something about that. That’s why I wrote the book.
It must have been a very elaborate research process. Did Laxmi tell you her story at all?
Yes, she told me she was 14 years old when her parents passed away in a bomb attack in Burma during World War II. They were railroad workers and in a foreign land she was suddenly an orphan. But she didn’t give me too many details, you know — she was in her late 70s when I spoke to her, so she just told me stuff in bits and pieces. But one thing she did tell me was that she joined the INA after her parents died. And when I asked her what she did in the INA, she very casually said that while she did do cooking and cleaning jobs — because, you know, she was so young and small — she was also thoroughly trained in warfare, and that she used to go to the British camps in the guise of selling frogs and collect information. She was actually a spy.
Writing a fictionalised narrative of history must have been a task in itself, too, given the general lack of information about Laxmi Panda. Which parts would you say were the most challenging?
Yes, the lack of information was quite a hindrance. I figured I had to use fiction to fill in the gaps in the story — the parts she didn’t tell me and the parts history doesn’t remember. I had to get back in touch with everyone I knew who had spoken to me about her in the past. I started writing the book in 2022, so I had to touch base with Probin again… some journalists in Odisha helped me, as did Anil Dhir, who’s the convener of Intach (Conservation Institute) in Bhubaneswar. He is the one who took care of Laxmi Panda in her old age. He was very helpful, and he provided me with a lot of documentation and information. But weaving all of that into a solid story required quite a bit of work, and that’s where I used fiction. I did take care to base whatever fiction I was writing on historic evidence of what actually might have happened during the war and in the INA. And then, of course, there’s the ending of the book. I’ve used the hoisting of the flag in Moirang to give the book a solid end, but there was obviously much more to her story than that.
It took me quite a bit of time to convince myself to use fiction at all, honestly, but there was no other way to write the story because there were simply too many gaps. Besides, the book had to be interesting as well. I cannot expect children or adults to read a history textbook, so that’s where the fiction came in handy. Thankfully, my own experiences helped a lot. For example, I have previously lived in upper Assam and gone to Myanmar, so I could use my memories of those times to create the story. And my husband was of great help, too. He’s an Army officer, so he helped me understand the campaigns of the Second World War.
Which parts of her character did you want to retain in your fictionalisation of her story?
Her fighting spirit. That remained until the end. Given her age and the circumstances she was in when I spoke to her, I should have imagined her as being very dejected, as someone who must have given up on life. But she didn’t come across like that at all. She came across as someone who still had a lot of gusto. That is what I have maintained in the character that I wrote of her as a 14-year-old. It is primarily what I have tried to bring out in her character.
Laxmi Panda is a children’s book, but the central theme itself is pretty heavy. And, of course, adults are reading it, too. What are you hoping everyone takes away from the read?
I think a 10 or 11-year-old will just read the book as a spy story. But an adult will ponder over it, especially knowing that it is true. Or maybe they will question why people like Laxmi Panda have been overlooked by history for so long, despite being part of something that was so crucial to our nation. Perhaps people might start wondering if we as a country should go and dig up tales of more such unsung heroes.
What I’m really hoping for is to make people understand that we as adults shouldn’t be shying away from discussing important things with our children. We need to approach and discuss all topics with our kids. I think most of the time parents or grown-ups try to cocoon kids by just telling them some hunky-dory stories, but I don’t think that ought to be the way because there is easy access to information nowadays. And we need to be aware of that because we don’t want our kids gaining information in the wrong ways, do we? I feel stories are the best medium for the imparting of information, and if kids — and adults — get to learn about the existence of such people through the written word, then that’s really the job done.
