Matangini Hazra and Lakshman Naik sacrificed their lives in:

Correct — D, Quit India Movement. Both names belong to August 1942 and after. Matangini Hazra, of Hogla village near Tamluk in Midnapore, was a widow in her seventies whom the district called Gandhi buri, the old Gandhian woman. When the Tamluk sub-division rose in the autumn of 1942 she led one of the batches of the Vidyut Bahini that marched on the Tamluk police station on 29 September 1942, and she was shot dead in front of it, holding the flag — the first Quit India martyr of the district, whose insurgents went on to set up the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar. Laxman Nayak, of the Bhumia tribe, was a village headman's son from Tentuligumma in the Koraput country of what is now Odisha, who had spread Congress work among the tribal people of the region. During Quit India he led a procession to the Mathili police station to hoist the flag; the police fired, a forest guard died in the disorder, Nayak was tried for it and was hanged at Berhampur jail on 29 March 1943. The two deaths, a fortnight's march apart in Bengal and in the Odisha hills, are exactly what the phrase Quit India martyr means.

• (a)Bardoli Satyagraha — A no-tax campaign in the Bardoli taluka of Surat district in 1928, led by Vallabhbhai Patel, who earned the title Sardar there. It was a disciplined revenue agitation and produced no martyrs of this kind.
• (b)Non-Cooperation Movement — The movement of 1920-22, called off after Chauri Chaura in February 1922 — twenty years before either death. Matangini Hazra was moved by Gandhi's call in these years, but she died in 1942.
• (c)Civil Disobedience Movement — The salt-law campaign of 1930-34, whose martyrs belong to Dharasana and to the police firings of those years. Matangini Hazra did take part in the salt satyagraha and was jailed for it, which is what makes this the trap option, but she was killed eight years later during Quit India.

The Quit India resolution was passed by the All India Congress Committee at Gowalia Tank in Bombay on 8 August 1942, with Gandhi's charge to do or die. The entire leadership was arrested within hours, and what followed was therefore leaderless and local: strikes, attacks on police stations, post offices and railway lines, and in a few districts the setting up of parallel governments — the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar in Midnapore, the Prati Sarkar in Satara, and a short-lived administration at Ballia. Linlithgow called it by far the most serious rebellion since 1857.

The item can be settled from either name, so a candidate only needs one anchor. The commonest way to lose it is to slide Matangini Hazra back into the Civil Disobedience Movement, since she had broken the salt law and been jailed in the 1930s; the fact that fixes her is the year of her death, 1942, and the target, a police station. The parallel case worth carrying alongside her is Kanaklata Barua of Gohpur in Assam, shot on 20 September 1942 while leading an unarmed procession to hoist the flag at the police station there, with Mukunda Kakoti shot as he picked up the fallen flag. Flag-hoisting at a thana is the signature action of 1942, and it is what both names in this question were doing.

• The Quit India resolution was adopted at Bombay on 8 August 1942 and the Congress leadership was arrested within hours.
• Matangini Hazra, 1870-1942, of Hogla village near Tamluk, was shot dead in front of the Tamluk police station on 29 September 1942.
• The Tamluk sub-division of Midnapore went on to run a parallel government, the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar.
• Laxman Nayak, 1899-1943, of Tentuligumma in the Koraput region, led a procession to the Mathili police station and was hanged at Berhampur jail on 29 March 1943.
• Kanaklata Barua was shot at the Gohpur police station in Assam on 20 September 1942 while leading a flag procession, a closely parallel case.

• Dating Matangini Hazra to the salt satyagraha because she took part in it; her death was in 1942.
• Assuming Bardoli in 1928 was a violent campaign; it was a no-tax agitation and its outcome was a negotiated settlement.
• Confusing Laxman Nayak of Koraput with other tribal leaders of Odisha such as the Paika leader Bakshi Jagabandhu, who belongs to 1817-18.

As a martyr-to-movement item, as a question on the parallel governments of 1942, or as a which-statement-is-not-correct item about Quit India.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The parallel government known as the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar was set up during the Quit India Movement in which district?

  • (a)Midnapore
  • (b)Satara
  • (c)Ballia
  • (d)Koraput

  Answer(a) Midnapore — the Tamluk sub-division of Midnapore ran the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar; Satara had the Prati Sarkar and Ballia a short-lived administration of its own.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Kanaklata Barua, shot while leading a procession to hoist the national flag at a police station in September 1942, belonged to which province?

  • (a)Assam
  • (b)Bengal
  • (c)Bihar
  • (d)Odisha

  Answer(a) Assam — she was killed at the Gohpur police station in undivided Darrang district, and Mukunda Kakoti was shot as he picked up the fallen flag.