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Indira's monkey army

When 12-year-old Indira Gandhi was denied membership by the Congress party in 1930, she formed a children's brigade named the Vanar Sena ("monkey army") to participate in India's freedom struggle. She was their general.

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According to Katharine Frank, the idea for the Vanar Sena actually came from her mother, Kamala Nehru, and Bishambar Nath Pande, a secretary of the Allahabad Congress Committee. The story goes that when Kamala was canvassing with Pande, street children followed them shouting "Kamala Nehru ki Jai". An old woman observing the procession remarked that the children resembled the vanar sena from the Ramayana. This led to Kamala mooting the idea of a children's movement by that name and Pande suggested that indira be made its leader.