lucknow her name didnt find a prominent place in the list of women who participated in the freedom struggle but she was kaptaan captain one who led women volunteers during the freedom movement and was even jailed for picketing shops selling foreign goods in lucknowshivrani devi wife of legendary hindi literature munshi premchand contributed immensely in the struggle for independence as well as through her literary worksmunshi premchand stayed in lucknow for around six and a half years from 1924 to 1930 with her two sons daughter and wife shivrani devi both munshi premchand and shivrani devi both wanted to go to jail while fighting for the countrys independence and it was shivrani who was jailed for two months says eminent critic virendra yadavshe was arrested for picketing shops selling foreign goods on november 11 1930 at the jhandewala park aminabad she was always interested in the socioeconomic uplift of the people and actively participated in the freedom movement what moved her more was the speech and arrest of swarup rani nehru mother of former prime minister jawahar lal nehru at jhandewala park during the freedom movement says yadavshivranis active participation in all freedom movements made her so popular that when congress worker mohan lal saxena made a list of women volunteers shivrani was unanimously chosen as their kaptaan captain he addsthe most interesting thing about her participation in the freedom movement was that even munshi premchand was unaware of it he came to know about it when he found his wifes name as the congresss women wing leader in the list of volunteers which was sent to him for translation into hindi and urdu says yadava book titled life and works of premchand by manohar bandopadhyaya which is published by the publication division ministry of information and broadcasting has details of shivranis arrest and surging sentiments of the arresting policemen in a touching narrative taken from shivranis book premchand ghar meinduring shivranis arrest at jhandewala park one of the policemen could not resist his emotions of tribute to these selfless women volunteers who were happily going to jail for the sake of the countrythe book quotes her interaction with the policeman mataji we get rs 23 here but if anyone offers us even rs 10 elsewhere we would happily give up this sinful service the policeman had saidshivrani devi who was quite moved by the cops statement consoled him that he was after all performing his official dutyto this the policeman replied you are so generous that is why you are going to jail it is painful that we are taking our mothers and sisters to jail instead of worshipping themshivrani devi did not sit idle after her release from jail and even though her health deteriorated considerably she organized an active protest against the illtreatment of cclass prisoners who were inhumanly starved and denied warm clothes during the winter the authorities had to finally concede to their demandwhen shivrani was arrested premchand was in varanasi he later visited