She Spied on the British, Was Shot At, and Still Escaped: The Untold Story of 16-Year-Old Woman Spy, Saraswathi Rajamani

“We shoot and kill looters, don’t we? The British are looting us, and I am going to shoot at least one of them when I grow up.” Spoken in 1937, these were the words of a 10-year-old Saraswathi Rajamani. No one could have imagined then just how seriously that little girl meant it. Years later, at just 16, instead of running away, Saraswathi Rajamani disguised herself as a dancing girl and entered the British compound. She served drinks poisoned with opium to the guards and waited for them to become drowsy. When the guards lay unconscious, Saraswathi reached Durga’s cell and helped her escape amid British scrutiny. This is her story. Decades before Dhurandhar, India had Saraswati Rajamani—the Indian woman spy.

In the year 1944, Saraswathi Rajamani, a devout nationalist determined to bring freedom to India, joined Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army. Having already donated all of her gold and jewellery to fund INA, the young girl was now putting her intelligence to contribute to the Indian freedom struggle. Thus, as part of INA’s Rani of Jhansi Regiment, she got involved in providing crucial intel regarding British movement, plans, and strategies to Netaji. 

Every day, she, along with her young operative, Durga, were engaged in dangerous assignments. Disguised as boys, the two girls took up ordinary jobs around British military establishments—polishing shoes, doing laundry, and carrying supplies. To the British, they were simply local workers who posed no threat, and that was precisely what Rajamani and Durga wanted them to believe. As they went by doing their work around the British camp, the two girls quietly listened to conversations and observed military activity. Rajamani would then carefully memorise, or sometimes write on paper slips, about the troop movements, supplies, plans and other information that could be useful to the INA; and send them across.

For months, their spy activities went on smoothly until one day. Rajamani’s comrade, Durga, did not come back one evening because she had been caught by the British and taken to a high-security military prison. Now, contrary to what you might think, Rajamani did not flee. Instead, she entered the very British prison where her friend was held.

For the same reason, Rajamani dressed herself as a dancing girl and entered the British military compound, offering drinks to the British officials. But these were no ordinary drinks; they were laced with opium to intoxicate the British. The plan worked. Slowly, the guards became drowsy. That was her moment. Gradually, she made her way through the compound, reached Durga's cell, and helped her escape. 

But just as they were about to leave the British compound, a guard spotted them fleeing and instantly fired shots at them. A bullet pierced Rajamani’s right leg, blood oozed out, but she kept moving as she could not afford to be captured. At this point, capture could mean not only death, but the exposure of INA’s entire intelligence network.

Thus, they kept running and managed to escape into a surrounding forest. As the British were still searching for them and Rajamani was badly wounded and was barely able to walk, the two girls decided to hide in the branches of a large tree, while the British searched for them in the area. For days, they stayed hidden until after the British called off the hunt on the third day. It was then that the two girls came down and made their way back to the INA camp. The incident left her with a permanent limp. But it did not matter to her. What mattered was that she managed to spy on the British and managed a daring escape from under the British nose. 

Her bravery did not go unnoticed. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose later praised Rajamani for what she had done and referred to her as the “first Indian woman spy.” And that is the most remarkable part of her story. The girl who had once said that she would shoot a British man had actually grown up to do something far more dangerous. She became a spy. And at just 16, when most teenagers were learning how to navigate life, Saraswathi Rajamani was walking into enemy territory, gathering vital intelligence for India’s freedom struggle.