The stories concerning the role of sweet shops of the North Delhi district (Delhi) in the freedom struggle have been passed down orally.
Food anthropologist Sabyasachi Gorai states that freedom fighters were imitating the tactics of French revolutionaries “who hid in bakeries and loaded up on bread that would sustain them.” Exchanging sweets became a subterranean mode of communication as the sweets were used like morse codes and their boxes used to convey messages to freedom fighters. Thus, a box of laddoos signified bombs were landing, a box of Bengali rasgullas was valent to a consignment of explosives and motichoor ladoos with a few coloured boondi dots were used to make a map of an area by joining the dots.
Moreover, some sweet shops became hideouts for revolutionaries, who disguised themselves as kitchen hands to hold secret meetings and get a constant supply of high-calorie, energy-giving food unnoticed. These tactics stemmed from the popularity and open distribution of sweets during pujas and festivals, and would thus garner least suspicion and that the mithai shops were hardly raided. The buzz around sweet shops was used by freedom fighters to blend in easily after the British banned public gatherings. An example of this is Ghantewala in Chandni Chowk, a sweet shop which was often frequented by Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad.
Thus, sweets and sweet makers emerged as an ally of the freedom fighters in the fight against British rule.
Source: Indian Culture Portal