Heroes of Valour & Sacrifice

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj founded the Maratha empire in the seventeenth century, building an independent state across the Deccan from a network of hill forts in the Western Ghats.

He created a disciplined administration and a navy around the idea of swarajya (self-rule) and was crowned at Raigad in 1674. His forts remain places of pilgrimage across Maharashtra.

Guru Gobind Singh Ji was the tenth Sikh Guru, born in Patna in 1666, a poet and warrior who composed in several languages and led the Sikh community through decades of conflict.

In 1699 he founded the Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs, giving the community its distinct form and discipline. Before his death in 1708 he declared the Guru Granth Sahib the eternal Guru of the Sikhs.

Rani Lakshmibai was the queen of Jhansi, a principality in central India, in the mid-nineteenth century. When the British moved to annex Jhansi during the uprising of 1857, she took the field herself.

She defended her city and later fell in battle near Gwalior in 1858, becoming one of the most enduring figures of resistance in Indian history.

Maharana Pratap was a Rajput king of Mewar in the sixteenth century who refused Mughal overlordship and held out against far larger armies for decades.

He kept his court in the Aravalli hills, rebuilt his strength, and recovered much of Mewar before his death in 1597. In Rajasthan his name remains a byword for independence.

Subhas Chandra Bose, known as Netaji, was a leader of India’s independence movement who twice served as president of the Indian National Congress.

During the Second World War he raised the Indian National Army abroad, giving the freedom struggle its own standing force. His call for total sacrifice remains part of the country’s memory of the movement.