This Day In History- September 11

1803 – The Battle of Delhi. The Marathas of Scindia’s under General Louis Bourquin fought against the British under General Lake’s command at Patparganj.

Battle of Delhi 1803

Battle of Delhi 1803
Source: The Hindu

1895 – Freedom Fighter and regarded as the ‘National Teacher of India’ Acharya Vinoba Bhave was born. Vinoba Bhave read and was highly influenced by Mahabharat, Ramayana and Bhagvada Gita at a very young age. In 1921 he associated with Mahatma Gandhi and took charge of his ashram in Wardha, Maharshtra. During this time Acharya Bhave brought out a Marathi monthly ‘Maharshtra Dharma’. In 1932 he was arrested for conspiracy by the British government and sentenced to imprisonment for six months. In 1940, Mahatma Gandhi selected him to be the first individual satyagrahi against the British. In 1951 he started his historic ‘Bhoodan’ movement by walking across India asking people to people to give him one -seventh of their lands which he distributed among the poor. In 1958 Vinoba Bhave became the first recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and in 1983 the Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna posthumously.

Vinoba Bhave

Acharya Vinoba Bhave

1965 – After an intense battle with Pakistani troops the Indian infantry captured the town of Burki in Pakistan. According to Melville de Mellow 84 Pakistani tanks were demolished in this battle. The 5 Gorkha Rifles(Frontier Force) of the Indian army was conferred ‘Battle of Honour Burki’ and ‘Theatre of Honour, Punjab’ for its role in capturing Burki.

Mahadevi Verma

Mahadevi Verma

1987 – Eminent writer, poetess, freedom fighter and educationist ‘Modern Meera’ Mahadevi Verma passed away. She studied at the Crosthwaite College in Allahabad where she began writing poems secretly until her senior and room-mate renowned poetess Subhadra Kumari Chauhan discovered Mahadevi’s hidden talent. Soon they started writing together, attended seminars and met with famous writers and poets. Mahadevi Verma along with Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, Jaishankar Prasad and Sumitranandan Pant is considered as a major poet of the ‘Chhayavaadi’ generation. Her anthologies published include ‘Neehar’ (1930), ‘Rashmi’ (1932),’Neeraja’ (1934),’Sandhyageet’, ‘Deepshikha’ (1939) and ‘Agnirekha’ (1990). A lot of other compilations are a collection of her poems from the aforementioned anthologies. ‘Gillu’, another of her works, talks about Mahadevi Verma’s experience with a squirrel. Her childhood memoir ‘Mere Bachpan Ke Din’ was included in the syllabus for 9th Standard by the Central Board for Secondary Education. She received India’s highest literary honour the ‘Jnanpith Award’ in 1936 for ‘Yama'(a compilation published in 1936). In 1979 she became the first woman to be conferred with the ‘Sahitya Akademi Fellowship’. The Government of India honoured her with the Padma Bhushan in 1956 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1988.

1998 – Former Captain of Women’s Hockey Team, Athlete and Olympian Stephanie ‘Stephie’ Dsouza passed away.
Stephie brought laurels to the country at international level in both Athletics and Hockey. She was a member of the team that won the Gold in 4×100 m relay in the second Asian Games (1954) in Manila, Phillipines and that won a Bronze in the third edition of the Asiad at Tokyo, Japan (1958). She was exemplary in the latter competition in which she won Silver in she also won the 200 m race, created an Asian record in the semi-final and finished in the fourth position in 100 m. She was a part of the contingent at Tokyo in the 1964 Summer Olympics but finished sixth in the eliminator round of the 400 m. She was also a part of the team that participated in the first international women’s hockey tournament in London (1953) and was assumed captaincy in 1961. In 1963 she became the first woman to receive the Arjuna Award.

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