This is the statue of "Martyrs carrying a Flame" in the Fort precinct next to the Flora Fountain. A dedication to the lives laid down for a unified Maharashtra along with Mumbai!
My head bows to them who fought for a Marathi speaking Mumbai to be integrated with rest of Maharashtra.
These Hutatma foiled the evil intentions of politicians to create an independent Mumbai city.
Mumbai prides itself for letting people earn a living here in this city but its soul is undeniably Marathi and nothing can change that!
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There is a personal story attached to the Hutatma chowk.
When I look back at my Cooper family history I see the family has suffered severely. The walls of this house wailed of grief and pain even when I got married into this family.
1. A young Behram kaka leaving home and dying in London.
2. Inspite of he being a social worker and reformer. He founded the Student’s lending library, the DPYA school and the Perviz hall for widows. Adi my father inlaw had a heart attack and fell on the road.
3. Grandmother inlaw Arnavaz after loosing her 2 sons and my mother inlaw Chandan after her husband died in depression.
4. Aban went through divorce, daughter was kidnapped by husband. She went into severe depression due to being separated from daughter and a broken marriage. Dying in transit while returning from a holiday in Panchgani when she was not even 50 !
5. My husband Ardaviraf who died of heart failure at the age of 51.
I was wondering why ?
The connection I see is this…
I never knew I would marry into a family that was connected to the Morarji administration. My grandfather inlaw M P Cooper was Secretary to the CM.
The 1955 massacre of 106 demonstrators of Samyukta Maharashtra chalval were fired upon. Those are the Hutatma and that is the chowk in their memorial.
On 1 May 1960 Maharashtra state was formed.
Leaving out villages from Karnataka that spoke Marathi like Belgav, Bidar, Karwar etc. Later in 1969 when there was a fight for linguistic borders to be included Morarji ran his car over demonstrators killing 2.
Every year on this day I seek forgiveness on behalf of COOPER FAMILY even though no one is alive anymore from those that were killed and harmed. Their families that were affected by this inhumane act.
🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️
