In the quiet corridors of a Patna home, history lives on—not in textbooks or statues, but in the fragile voice of a 97-year-old woman who once stood at the frontlines of India’s freedom struggle.
Bharati ‘Asha’ Sahay Choudhry, known affectionately as Asha San (a respectful Japanese suffix for women), is among the last living members of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the all-women combat unit of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA). Her memoirs, once scribbled on scraps of paper in Hindi, have now been meticulously translated into English by her great-granddaughter-in-law, Tanvi Srivastava, in a book titled The War Diary of Asha-san.
“When people speak of the freedom movement, they often forget the women who marched, who fired guns, who never returned home,” Srivastava said in an interview. “Asha San is one of them.”
From Kobe to the Battlefield
Born in 1928 in Kobe, Japan, Asha’s life was shaped by revolution from the start. Her father, Anand Mohan Sahay, was a senior member of the INA, and her mother, Sati Sen, a niece of the legendary Chittaranjan Das, was already deeply involved in the independence movement. The family had fled British persecution and settled in Japan—where young Asha would grow up under the shadow of air raids and wartime uncertainty.
At just 15, she approached Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Tokyo to offer her service. He declined, citing her age. But two years later, a resolute Asha stood before him again—this time at 17. Bose relented.
What followed was a dramatic shift from schoolgirl to soldier. Trained in guerrilla warfare, pistol shooting, machine-gun handling, and truck driving, Asha transformed into a combat-ready officer, soon appointed lieutenant in the newly formed Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Her unit was tasked with aiding the Japanese offensive against British forces in Burma.
Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja
In early 1945, Asha and her fellow soldiers began an arduous journey—on foot—from Bangkok to Burma. Their mission: join the INA’s main forces and press forward toward India. But their march was halted at the Irrawaddy River, swollen and uncrossable due to monsoon rains.
Stranded and exposed, the regiment was eventually attacked by British forces and captured. Asha was imprisoned for over a month before being released and sent back to Bangkok—her family scattered, her future uncertain.
Meanwhile, her father was incarcerated in Singapore, and news of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki reached her. Days later, on August 18, 1945, Netaji’s reported death in a plane crash shattered the INA’s momentum.
India’s hopes for independence, though briefly dimmed, reignited a year later. In 1947, Asha and her father were repatriated to India and reunited with her mother in Delhi—just months before India’s tryst with destiny.
An Unheralded Legacy
Despite her remarkable contributions, Asha San—like many INA women—faded into obscurity. She married in 1949, resumed her education, and remained active in volunteer work in Patna. But public recognition eluded her for decades.
“Her story wasn’t in history books,” Tanvi Srivastava said. “It lived only in family conversations, letters, and bedtime tales—until now.”
Tanvi spent years translating her grandmother-in-law’s notes, deciphering old Japanese letters, and cross-referencing INA archives to produce The War Diary of Asha-san, a rare firsthand account of India’s war for independence from the East Asian front.
Asha’s memories are tender and vivid. She recalls learning Hindi for the first time, laughing at makki ki roti mistaking it for a chapati made of flies, and the fearlessness she developed under Tokyo’s wartime sky.
Now, her story has begun to find an audience.
“Be a Real Indian Who Never Surrenders”
Today, Asha San lives in Patna, surrounded by family and fading photographs of another time. Her voice is frail, but her message is clear.
“If anyone says anything against your country, be brave enough to stand up and correct them,” she says. “Freedom came at a cost. Never forget that.”
In her great-grandchildren’s bedtime stories, she is no longer just a great-grandmother. She is a soldier, a patriot, a living symbol of resistance—and now, thanks to Tanvi’s work, a voice for an entire generation of forgotten warriors.