The Karnataka State Government has announced that Onake Obavva Jayanti would be celebrated on November 11 every year.

The Kannada and Culture Department had earlier proposed celebrating the birth anniversary of Onake Obavva, who died in Chitradurga Fort while fighting Hyder Ali during the 18th century.

Onake Obavva was the wife of Kahale Muddahanumayya, a security guard in the fort of Madakari Nayaka in Chitradurga. When Hyder Ali attacked Chitradurga fort, she stopped them with her onake (paddy pounding stick) and is said to have killed more than 100 soldiers.

Chitradurga fort was ruled by Madakari Nayaka between 1754 and 1759. Obavva overheard that the soldiers of Hyder Ali had plans to enter the fort through a small hole in a rock which was just big enough for one person to crawl through. According to the folk story, Obavva took a pestle and hid silently next to the stone hole, killing each soldier as his head appeared through the opening and dragging his body inside the wall. When her husband came in search of her, she asked him to alert the army. He climbed the fort and blew his horn. The soldiers rushed and defeated Hyder Ali’s army. But while directing the army towards the enemy, Obbava missed to spot the last soldier who entered the fort and killed her.

The hole through which the soldiers had entered, called ‘Onake Obavvana Kindi’ (kindi means hole in Kannada), is now a tourist spot.

Obavva is considered to be the epitome of Kannada pride along with other female warriors of Karnataka like ‘Abbakka Rani’, the first Tuluva Queen of Ullal in coastal Karnataka who fought the Portuguese; Keladi Chennamma, the queen of the Keladi Kingdom who is known for having fought the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb; and Kittur Chennamma, Queen of Kittur in the 1824 revolt against the British East India Company.

Chitradurga Fort, known as Elusuttina Kote (‘the fort of seven circles’) in the Kannada language, is situated in Chitradurga, 200 km northwest of Bengaluru.

Obavva Pade In 2018, the Chitradurga police formed the ‘Obavva Pade’, a squad of women police constables to protect and educate women in the district. They teach women about basic self-defence, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act, offences under the Indian Penal Code, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, cybercrimes, and mobile offences. The initiative was then implemented in Bengaluru in the same year and by the Shivamogga district police in 2019.

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