Chandrashekhar Azad was arrested as a teenager for participating in a protest connected to the non-cooperation movement, and when a magistrate asked him his name, his father's name, and his address during the court proceedings, he reportedly answered 'Azad' (meaning free), 'Swatantrata' (independence), and 'jail' respectively — a defiant response that earned him both a public flogging sentence and the name he would use for the rest of his life.
He went on to become a key organizer within India's more militant revolutionary networks, involved in operations including the 1925 Kakori train robbery aimed at funding revolutionary activities, and reportedly made a personal vow after his early arrest that he would never again be captured alive by British police.
For years, he lived largely underground, moving between hideouts and evading a determined British manhunt, becoming something of a legendary, elusive figure whose actual whereabouts were rarely known even to close associates, all while continuing to organize and mentor younger revolutionaries within the movement.
In February 1931, surrounded by police in a park in Allahabad after being informed on, he engaged in a prolonged gunfight, and as his ammunition ran out and capture became certain, he used his final bullet on himself rather than be taken alive — holding, until the very end, to the vow he had made as a teenager years earlier.