On 26 October 1930, when the Civil Disobedience Movement was at its crescendo, the Bombay War Council, the team of senior Congress leaders developing and implementing strategies for satyagraha, attempted to hold a flag salutation ceremony at the Azad (“Free”) Maidan, formerly a part of the Esplanade of Bombay, renamed so by the nationalists. After a group of male demonstrators were arrested, a group of women activists from the Desh Sevika Sangh entered the fray. They resisted all attempts by the police to seize their flags and stood their ground in spite of a lathi charge. A few women were arrested, but the rest were bundled into a police van, and dropped off at Ghatkopar, about 15 miles (nearly 24 km) away, in the Bombay Suburban District.

Implicit in this action was the assumption that

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