Nishat-un-Nisa Begum Hasrat Mohani

Nishat-un-Nisa Begum (1885–1937), known as Begum Hasrat Mohani, was the revolutionary's wife who became a revolutionary in her own right — a woman who stepped out of purdah and onto the political stage when the empire tried to silence her husband. Married to the poet-revolutionary Maulana Hasrat Mohani, she could have remained in his shadow. She chose otherwise.

In 1908, when her husband was imprisoned for sedition for the anti-colonial editorials in Urdu-e-Moalla, Begum Hasrat Mohani did something extraordinary: she took over the publication herself. She managed the press, evaded police surveillance, defied confiscation threats, and kept the newspaper alive while her husband languished in a British jail. It was an act of courage that announced to the colonial state: you can imprison the man, but you cannot imprison the idea.

During the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements, she addressed gatherings of women across Uttar Pradesh, urging them to participate in swadeshi boycotts and donate to the Tilak Swaraj Fund. Alongside Bi Amma, Sarojini Naidu, and Basanti Devi, she was part of the first generation of Indian women who transformed the freedom movement from a male-dominated affair into a genuinely mass struggle. She died in 1937, having spent her entire adult life in service of a cause greater than herself.