Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Rani Laxmibai, Sardar Vallabhai Patel - these names will be forever etched in India's modern history. But there are scores of people involved in India's freedom struggle - including some who are alive to this day - whose names hardly anyone knows.

Take, for example, 97-year-old M Velu from Tamil Nadu, who only recently received the arrears of his freedom fighters' pension. It was in April 2021 that he had started receiving the pension - almost eight decades after participating in India's freedom struggle.

Velu is one among many of the forgotten freedom fighters who have been made to run from pillar to post to get a moderate sum of money for their service to the country.

As India celebrates its 78th Independence Day, we look at how the courts have aided such freedom fighters in their struggle for pension.

Gratitude delayed

Velu was born in 1924 in Burma (now Myanmar), which was also a British colony then. At a young age, he participated in the freedom struggle and signed up for the Indian National Army (INA) headed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. 

Velu was arrested and jailed by the British between 1945 and 1946. In 1970, he returned to India and settled in Tamil Nadu. However, his struggle continued even long after the colonisers left India and its neighbouring countries. Though Velu is said to have applied for the State pension in 1987, his application was never traced. Instead, the application submitted by him in 2012 was considered by authorities. 

However, the benefit of pension in his favour did not come easy. The State first rejected his case while doubting the proof submitted by him. It accepted his claim only in 2021 after an order of Madras High Court.

There were three more cases thereafter in 2021, 2023 and 2024 over arrears of his pension. Though he was unsuccessful in receiving the arrears from 1987, a record was found of him having made an application in 2008. On that basis, the High Court in 2022 had ordered the State to quantify his arrears.

It was only on July 8 this year that Velu received the arrears - after the State lost in an appeal before the High Court and the bench hearing Velu's contempt of court petition took the matter seriously to ensure compliance with the April 2022 decision. 

Who is eligible for freedom fighters' pension?

The freedom fighters pension scheme was introduced by the Central government in 1972, on the 25th anniversary of India’s independence, to honour the freedom fighters. It was only in 1980 that the scheme was rechristened as Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension Scheme. Many states also have their own pension schemes for freedom fighters.

In 2022, there were around 23,566 beneficiaries under the Central government scheme.  As per an answer given by the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Rajya Sabha in 2022, there were 5,625 freedom fighters receiving the pension.

The rate of pension has been increased from time to time.

A person who had suffered minimum imprisonment of six months before independence is eligible under the scheme. Also, ex-INA personnel are eligible if they had suffered any detention for at least six months outside India. The requisite imprisonment period is only three months in case of women and those belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories. 

Those who had remained underground for at least six months after being declared a proclaimed offender, or on being issued detention orders are also eligible under the scheme.

The freedom fighters are required to submit a certificate to prove they had been in jail. In its absence, they can submit a Non-Availability of Records Certificate (NARC) from the authorities along with any co-prisoners’ certificate to support their claim.

Bureaucratic bungles and the courts

Having seen the plight of these freedom fighters, the Madras High Court in November 2020 put it down to “bureaucratic bungles”.

“It is an agonising fact that this Court has been repeatedly seeing pathetic cases of freedom fighters. Time and again, Courts have taken a very tough stand and has given directions after directions sensitizing the issue to the Government authorities / Officials / Bureaucrats, however the attitude of the Government authorities / Officials / Bureaucrats has not changed,” Justice R Suresh Kumar said in an order dated November 23, 2020. 

The Delhi High Court in November 2023 came across a similar case where the Centre, despite the Bihar government’s confirmation of his claim, had failed to grant pension to a 1927-born freedom fighter who had been declared a proclaimed offender by the British Raj in 1943. 

Justice Subramonium Prasad, while granting relief to the 96-year-old, had called the Centre’s inaction an insult to the freedom fighter and said that it was painful to see how such persons were being treated.

“A 96 years old Freedom Fighter has been made to wait for over 40 years for his pension. The 'Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension' Scheme was announced by the Government of India to honour the freedom fighters who gave their seat and blood to secure the freedom of the country. A 96 years old freedom fighter has been made to run from pillar to post to get his rightful pension,” the judge said in the ruling. 

Such bureaucratic and procedural hurdles are not new. Back in 1993, the Supreme Court had said that the expectation of the authorities for freedom fighters to be in possession of proof to be eligible for pension was "unrealistic".

“In the very nature of things, such documents have to be secured either from the jail records or from persons who have been named in the Scheme to certify the eligibility. Thus the claimants have to rely upon third parties. The records are also quite old. They are bound to take their own time to be available. It is, therefore, unrealistic to expect that the. claimants would be in a position to produce documents within a fixed time limit, What is necessary in matters of such claims is to ascertain the factum of the eligibility. The point of time when it is ascertained, is unimportant. The prescription of a rigid time-limit for the proof of the entitlement in the very nature of things is demeaning, to the object of the Scheme,” the top court said in May 1993.

In Mukund Lal Bhandari and Ors v. Union Of India and Ors, the apex court had gone to the extent of saying that the government should find out the freedom fighters or their dependents and approach them with the pension instead of requiring them to make applications for the same.

However, as shown by the multitude of cases before courts, the authorities have not acted in that spirit even 31 years after the judgment was passed.

The courts have of late been proactive when it comes to granting pension to the kin of deceased freedom fighters.

In March 2022, the Kerala High Court intervened in an INA veteran’s case 13 years after his death.

94-year-old old Edadan Chindan Nair had approached the Court in 2008 challenging the Kerala government's decision to not recommend him for the Central government’s pension scheme. He died in 2009.

His widow and son were impleaded as parties to the case in 2021. A year later, the High Court directed the State government to reconsider Nair’s  pension application.

In September 2023, the Kerala High Court pulled up the State government for denying pension to the divorced daughter of a freedom fighter. Such decision, the Court said, smacked of archaic patriarchal notions since it was based on the ground that two of her brothers were in a position to take care of her.

On July 3 this year, the Madras High Court intervened in yet another case of an INA veteran who died in 1991. His wife in 2021 had approached the Court against denial of pension to her by the Centre. She was granted relief by the Court in 2022.

However, the Centre appealed against the decision. The Court said that the widow had been fighting for the benefits for more than two decades.

While hearing the case of a 99-year-old who had faced imprisonment in the Lahore Central Jail during the Quit India Movement, the Punjab and Haryana High Court in November 2023 passed a unique order.

Gurcharan Singh had been receiving the pension from the Punjab government since 1998 even as his documents had later got misplaced at the government level. When he later applied for the pension under the Central government scheme, he was asked to re-establish his claim. 

In the meanwhile, his co-prisoners had passed away and his 93 per cent deafness also did not help his case. Taking exception to the conduct of the authorities in Punjab, Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj ordered the State to trace Singh’s record.

It further directed that if the record is not traced and the Centre declines to grant benefits to the freedom fighter for want of documents, then the State of Punjab itself will have to pay the pensionary benefits as prescribed under the scheme of the Government of India.

While the courts in these cases have shone the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel for some freedom fighters, others have died without any relief. Several others' cases continue to languish before the courts.

The Madras High Court summed up the situation best when it said in a recent order,

“Without all their sacrifices and unimaginable struggle, we would not have been enjoying all our freedom and the present day life. It is only because of the their struggle, the authorities who are considering the applications are adorning such positions today and the freedom fighters and the family members definitely command a better respect and compassion at least when their rights in granting pension is considered, that too which is extended by the Government in recognizing their sacrifices to our Mother Country."