Pushpa Lata Das was born on 27th march 1915 in North Lakhimpur to Late Rameswar Saikia and Smt. Swarnalata Saikia of Jorhat. At the age of 6, she joined the ‘Banar Sena’ to popularise the Khadi among the people and organized Chakra Sangha. Inspired by her mother, she took pledge for freedom and never looked back ever since. Pushpa Lata Das was thrown out of her school, Panbazar Girls High School, at the age of fourteen years because she was the secretary of the Mukti Sangha and along with her inmates, she tried to record a protest in the school against the hanging order of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. Pushpa Lata Das passed her matriculation examination as a private candidate in the year 1934 and went to Banaras Hindu University from where she passed Intermediate and took admission in Andhra University for her graduation. After completing her garduation, Pushpa Lata Das got her Masters Degree in political Science in the year 1938 from the same university. Later she joined Earle Law College in Guwahati and was selected the secretary of the College Union in the year 1940. However, during that time her study in law ended when she was jailed for ‘Individual Satyagraha’. In the year 1942, Pushpa Lata Das married Omeo Kumar Das, a true Gandhian and social worker, despite of strong opposition from some of her relatives and shifted from Guwahati to Tezpur. From the year 1940 to 1942, Pushpa Lata Das was in Bombay as a member of the Women Sub Committee of the National Planning Committee. During that period, she worked with Mridula Sarabhai and Vijay Laxmi Pandit for development and constructive works. She after her marriage, along with Jyoti Prasad Agarwala and others prepared a team of workers for organizing people. She organized the Shanti Bahini and Mrityu Bahini with her co workers in Tezpur and was supposed to lead the procession to put the National Tricolor Flag on the compound of Gohpur Police Station. However, at that time fate intervened and Kanaklata Barua took charge over the procession from Pushpa Lata Das and got bullets from the British rulers. Pushpa Lata Das opposed Jawaharlal Nehru on the question of dragging Assam into grouping. As a member of the AICC and the convener of the women’s wing of the Assam Congress Committee, she delivered a remarkable speech on that special session and succeeded in getting an amendment moved by Purushottam Das Tandon. Gandhiji’s statement also helped Assam in remaining out of grouping with the erstwhile East Pakistan. Pushpa Lata Das was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha in the year 1951 and retained it for the next term till 1961. In the year 1958, she was the member of the All India Congress Working Committee. She visited a number of East European countries as a member of Parliamentary delegation in the year 1959. She was also a member of Assam Legislative Assembly she was also associated with a number of other organizations like All India Khadi Board (Chairperson of Assam Branch), Central Social Welfare Board, Planning Committee of Congress (Women Section), East India Motion Pictures Censor Board among others. She was also the Chairperson of the State Bhudan and Gramdan Board. She was also the Chair person of Kasturba Memorial Trust, Assam Branch. She also worked as an editor of historically well known Assamese magazine ‘Jayanti’ for some time. Pushpa Lata Das was offered the Tampatra by the Indian Government for her services rendered during freedom movement. But she refused to accept the Tampatra and wrote about it to the then Assam Chief Minister, Shri Sarat Chandra Sinha. On 9th November 2003, at the age of 88 years, she breathed her last.
