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Saraswathi Rajamani (Img: Dynamite News)
Chennai: Saraswathi Rajamani, widely regarded as India's youngest woman spy, risked her life as a teenage intelligence operative for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army (INA) during the final years of British colonial rule in Southeast Asia. Recruited at just 16 in Rangoon, Burma, the freedom fighter disguised herself as a boy to infiltrate British military camps, smuggling out intelligence and weapons for the INA's independence campaign — and was shot rescuing a fellow spy from capture. Decades after India's freedom struggle ended, her story remains one of the lesser-known chapters of the country's fight for independence.
At an age when most teenagers were discovering the world around them, Saraswathi Rajamani was running secret missions, gathering intelligence and risking her life for India's freedom.
Born on January 11, 1927, into a wealthy Tamil family in Rangoon (now Yangon, Burma), Saraswathi grew up surrounded by comfort — her father owned a prosperous gold mine, and she wanted for nothing. But even as a child, she was drawn to the freedom struggle. At just 10, she reportedly stunned Mahatma Gandhi during a visit to her home by showing off her shooting skills and declaring she intended to "shoot the British." It was an early flash of the defiance that would define her life.
When Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Rangoon and began rallying support for the Indian National Army, his call for freedom found its mark. She was just 16.
By the early 1940s, the Indian freedom struggle was gathering momentum across Southeast Asia. When Netaji arrived in Rangoon in 1942 to raise funds and recruit volunteers for the INA, Saraswathi was in the crowd — and his speech moved her enough that she tore off her gold and diamond jewellery on the spot and handed it over for the cause.
Bose, taken aback, visited her family home the next day to return the jewellery, assuming a teenager had acted on impulse. Saraswathi refused to take it back. Impressed by her resolve, he renamed her "Saraswathi" — after the goddess of wisdom — and brought her into the fold.
She didn't want to stop at a donation. She asked to serve directly, and was first placed with the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the INA's all-women unit led by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (later Sehgal). It was there that Bose noticed her sharper instincts — she is said to have flagged a man within INA ranks who was passing information to the British — and moved her into intelligence work instead.
Saraswathi joined the INA's intelligence wing as one of its youngest undercover agents. Her hair was cut short, and along with a handful of other young women, she disguised herself as a boy — taking the alias "Mani" — to slip into British households and military camps as errand help: cleaning, running odd jobs, polishing shoes.
Behind the disguise, she was intercepting military intelligence and, at times, smuggling out guns from British officers' homes, passing everything back to the INA.
Every mission carried the risk of arrest or death. Fear never stopped her.
The danger caught up with the group when a fellow spy — named in some accounts as Durga — was captured by British forces. INA operatives were under standing orders that if one of them was caught, the others were to leave without attempting a rescue. Saraswathi ignored the order.
She disguised herself, by some accounts as a dancer, to get close to where her colleague was being held, and helped drug the guards to pull off the escape. She got her friend out — but was shot in the leg as they fled. The wound left her with a limp for the rest of her life, one she reportedly wore with pride as a mark of what she'd survived.
When the INA was disbanded after the war, Saraswathi and her family — having given away almost everything they owned to the cause — returned to India with little left. For years, she lived quietly and modestly in a small, sparsely furnished apartment in Chennai, its walls covered in photographs of Netaji.
Recognition came late. In the mid-2000s, the Tamil Nadu government, under then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, allotted her a house. Even in her final years, those who met her said any mention of Bose's name would light her up, undimmed by age or ill health.
She was never a soldier on a battlefield, but she fought a different kind of war — one of disguise, nerve and sacrifice. A teenager from Rangoon gave up wealth, comfort and safety for a dream shared by millions of Indians she never met.
Her story is a reminder that India's freedom was not won by famous names alone, but also by the countless young men and women who worked in the shadows, asking for nothing in return.
Patriotism, as she proved, has no age limit.
