sign in sign up
<<
Home , Asaf Ali, Congress Socialist Party, Purnima Banerjee, Uma Nehru

Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Words of Freedom Ideas of a Nation by ,

1942.

‘ ’ .

16 1909 ( ) 29 , 1996.

23 1928 -

1930 , - ,

1932

10

1942 8 ‘ ’

5000

26 1946

1948 1955

1958 ,

1960 1975 1991 29 1996 1998 ‘ ’

, Words Of Freedom: Ideas Of a Nation. ‘ ’ 1944 ‘ ’ , ‘ - , ’. ‘ ’ ‘1942 ’ ‘ ’

, , ,

:

Purnima Banerji (1911 – 1951) Purnima Banerji* was a part of the constituent assembly from 1946 – 1950. She represented the United Provinces in the assembly. She was serving as a member of the legislative assembly in 1946. Apart from her many debates in the assembly, she also led the chorus in singing Jana Gana Mana after its official adoption as the national anthem on January 24th, 1950. Purnima Banerji was one among a radical network of women from Uttar Pradesh who stood at the forefront of the freedom movement in late 1930’s and 40’s. Her colleagues included Sucheta Kripalani, Vijaylakshmi Pandit, Uma Nehru, Rameshwari Nehru, Hajra Begum and many more. She was a member of the Congress since its inception in 1934, and a secretary for the ’ city committee in Allahabad. In 1941, she and Sucheta Kripalani were arrested for offering Individual Satyagraha. She was later arrested again for her participation in the Quit Movement. She is said to have pursued her B.A in prison **. She was a close friend of the Nehru family, often sharing jail space with Nehru’s sisters, nieces, and with Indira Gandhi. Purnima Banerji was also the younger sister of freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali. One of the more striking aspects of Purnima Banerji’s speeches in the constituent assembly was her steadfast commitment to a socialist ideology. She was 22 when Gandhi withdrew the civil disobedience movement in 1933. The Patel-Bose manifesto declared that Gandhi as a political leader had failed and called for a radical reorganization of the party, leading to greater acceptance of socialist ideologies and methods. Purnima Banerji’s political ideals are likely to have been shaped by the same forces that prodded the congress to acquire more diverse identities. , and communism became more mainstream, and official. This period also coincided with the introduction of voting rights for women in many provinces. The limited suffrage brought in greater awareness of political rights, and also pushed more women to contest for elections. Purnima Banerji in her capacity as secretary for the city committee was responsible for engaging and organizing trade unions, Kisan meetings, and work towards greater rural engagement. She remained Gandhian in spirit, and Marxian in deeds-a duality that did not seem very strange or isolating in 1940’s India. Purnima Banerji’s belief that education, and “right of livelihood and right of earning honorable bread” should be a part of the fundamental rights of the constitution accounted for many of her early speeches in the assembly. One specific instance of her requisitioning for greater government oversight was during the discussion on the fundamental rights on religious instructions in publicly funded schools. She wanted the addition of a new paragraph that would ensure that “All religious education given in educational institutions receiving statewide will be in the nature of the elementary philosophy of comparative religions calculated to broaden the pupils’ mind rather than such as will foster sectarian exclusiveness.” She debated that it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that through an approved syllabus, proper appreciation of all religions is inculcated into students for the sake of unity of the country. She also wanted an amendment to another clause in a justiciable fundamental right that called all state institutions to not discriminate against minorities seeking admissions. She wanted the words ‘state-aided’ to be added. Purnima Banerji’s arguments in these sessions and K.M Munshi’s rebuttal would later be cited by the supreme court in the T.M.A Pai foundation case in 2002. Purnima Banerji’s debates in the constituent assembly extended to the composition of members of the upper house. She was particular that an upper house whose composition would be determined by a parliament would be unwelcome. She wanted some assurance that “it will not be a House of vested interests or of people with large properties who would stay any legislation which is necessary in the interests of the country.” She also moved an amendment that would bring down the qualifying age for the upper house, from thirty-five to thirty. Her more significant argument came during the debate on Article 22 of the preventive detention clause in the constitution. Purnima Banerji agreed with many of her colleagues that while “any form of detention of persons without trial is obnoxious to the whole idea of democracy and to our whole way of thinking”, it would be necessary for a government to have that provision to defend itself. Her amendments to the originally proposed Article 15A asked for a specific time frame by which the detained person should be read their charges, in person appearance by the detainee in front of an advisory board and a maintenance allowance for the person detained, if they are the earning member in the family. The last of the amendments was negatived by Ambedkar who maintained that “If a man is really digging into the foundations of the State and if he is arrested for that, he may have the right to be fed when he is in prison; but he has very little right to ask for maintenance. However, ex gratia, Parliament and the Legislature may make provision. I think such a provision is possible under any Act that Parliament may make under clause (4).” Purnima Banerji on October 19th, 1949 stood up to make a case for returning women to seats vacated by women in the parliament. She acknowledged that she was exhibiting a spirit of diffidence and was opening herself up for ridicule in asking that the clause which allowed casual vacancies in the parliament to be filled by persons belonging to the same community/religion also be extended to women. She wanted to “make it quite clear that women do not want any reserved seats for themselves, but nevertheless, I suggest to the House that in respect of the number of women who are now occupying seats in the Assembly, if any of them should vacate their seats they should be filled up by women themselves.” Her request came at a time when three seats in the constituent assembly had been vacated by women – Malati Choudhury, Sarojini Naidu who had died earlier that year, and Vijaylakshmi Pandit who had joined the UN. Banerji felt “that not only is the association of women in the field of politics essential but it is indispensable, and therefore I feel that this indispensable section of the people should be amply represented in this House” What was notable about this amendment was the response of her colleagues. Shri H.V Kamath,a member from C.P and Berar countered her argument for more women to serve in government by pointing out that “regards the capability of women for government and administration is that woman is ruled more by the heart than by the head, and where the affairs of Government are concerned, where we have to be cold and calculating in dealing with various kinds of men, women would find it rather awkward and difficult to deal with such persons and that the head may not play the part that it must play in the affairs of government. If the heart were to rule and the head to take a secondary place then it is felt by many thinking men, and thinking women too, that the affairs of government might go somewhat awry, might not fare as well as we might want them to be.” Ambedkar in all his wisdom, rejected her argument. Another argument of Banerji’s which was rejected by Ambedkar, because of redundancy was the addition to the preamble which she felt should reflect that the sovereign authority of the masses from whom power is derived. Her wording for the preamble which received support in the assembly was “We on behalf of the people of India from whom is derived all power and authority of the Independent India, its constituent parts and organs of Government, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens..” She felt that as the ‘life-breath’ of the constitution, the preamble should adequately reflect the fact power was derived from the sovereignty of the people. Purnima Banerji’s final speech in the constituent assembly was on 24th November 1949. She maintained that the constitution far exceeded the expectations of the people with its idea of negative and positive rights. She took great pride in the directive principles of state, which she felt gave future governments a means to change the structure of society. She maintained that her wish would be for a government that could more effectively control key industries and mineral resources of the country to protect them from foreign aggression. Purnima Banerji’s biggest disappointment with the constitution were the restrictions that it had put on the fundamental rights of speech and of meeting and forming associations. She declared that the Fundamental Rights of meeting and forming associations should under no circumstances have been circumscribed or limited by any provisos.” She held strong to the view that while “all rights are always absolute. They are relative, but when it comes to stating the rights, I should think, Sir, that they should not be burdened by giving the circumstances in which those rights cannot be exercised. If these circumscribing Clauses had not been stated in this Constitution the difference would have been psychologically great.” Purnima Banerji’s political background, her ideology and her work is perhaps a testament to the varied ways in which the national movement shaped people from different parts of the country. She was very much a product of the place she lived in and the circumstances that molded the politics of the land she lived in. There is little available information about her relationship with her sister Aruna Asaf Ali, or her life before she joined the congress. She died in 1951 in Nainital. *Purnima Banerji’s name has been spelt in different ways in different places. They include Poornima Banerji, Purnima Banerjee, Purnima Bannerjee, and Purnima Banerji. Her maiden name was Purnima Ganguly. The Nehru family referred to her as Nora. I’ve used the one that is more widely used. **Visalakshi Menon’s books on U.P politics and the United Provinces nationalism movement were the two books that I could find that spoke extensively about the politics that shaped the provinces and the many women who took part in the national movement in many diverse ways. She concedes that she could find very little information about a majority of these women, and her accounts were drawn from the more elite women who left behind some idea of their lives. Organization for Positive Peace. Not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. Aruna Asaf Ali: Building a New Vanguard for Peace. By Archishman Raju. The Indian freedom struggle is usually associated with the names of , and . These figures are sometimes seen to be in opposition to each other. Aruna Asaf Ali is a name who is not known, or discussed, but she lived to participate both in India’s struggle for freedom and the task of building a nation after independence. She interacted with all of the figures of the Indian freedom struggle and interpreted their ideas in a creative and dialectical fashion. The life of Aruna Asaf Ali covered, almost exactly, the period of the 20 th century. Born in 1909 in Punjab to a Bengali family, she lived until 1996 and stood witness to the upheavals which defined India’s birth into freedom: from struggle and elation to the tragedy of Partition and building of a new nation. In a time when so few of us appreciate the real importance of history, even as it unconsciously controls us, Aruna Asaf Ali would spend her life making that history and then constantly analyzing and re-analyzing it as new challenges presented themselves and her thinking matured under a free India. Central to her thinking was the concept of the making of a new vanguard which could both serve people and engage in ideological struggle. In a time which has been defined by protest and rebellion but lack of organization and ideology, her thinking takes on a particular importance. In a time when identity politics passes for revolutionary thought, her conceptualization of the necessity of ideals and sacrifice provide us with guidance. Her historical evolution provides us a lesson that we cannot afford to either forget or ignore. Aruna in the mainstream of the struggle for freedom. Aruna was a non-conformist from an early age. She came from a Bengali family living outside of Bengal and part of the Samaj sect of Hinduism. She ran away from home and, against the wishes of her family, married a much older Muslim man, Asaf Ali, who was a member of the Congress party and connected to the top Congress leaders of the time. She thus came in contact with a host of figures and was herself brought into the movement by a stalwart of the peace movement, Rameshwari Nehru, who suggested that Aruna join and work for the Delhi Women’s League. It was Rameshwari Nehru who mentored her in the art of organization and political activity. Along with Rameshwari Nehru, the foremost woman leader in Delhi in those times, Satyavati Devi also took Aruna under her wing and inspired her to commit herself to political activities. Thus from an early age Aruna was brought in to the mainstream of the freedom struggle and interacting with the vanguard of the freedom struggle of the time. Her earlier ideas were perhaps closer to, though not aligned with, those of Bhagat Singh who believed in individual and violent acts of heroism rather than the slow engagement and building of support among the masses of people. Aruna would participate in the salt march, getting arrested in 1930 and being sentenced to one year imprisonment. Even as other political prisoners were released in 1931, she was held in prison. Her prison-mates refused to leave the prison until she was released. She was subsequently arrested again in 1932, and protested the harsh and inhuman conditions of prison. For this, she was put into solitary confinement and her thinking and conceptualization of the national movement evolved during this period. In 1942, in the middle of the second world war, Gandhi gave a call to Quit India and the British subsequently arrested all of the Congress leadership. This created a vacuum of leadership at a critical point in the freedom struggle. Aruna rose to the occasion and became the de-facto leader of the movement unfurling the Indian flag at a public meeting and then evading arrest and become part of an underground movement along with other socialists. Subsequently she was asked to surrender by Gandhi himself who wrote to her saying “I have been filled with admiration for your courage and heroism. I have sent you a message that you must not die underground. Do come out and surrender yourself.” In response, Aruna wrote “please forgive me if I say that the word surrender in your letter has surprised me. It hurts my pride to think that I should be expected to humiliate myself. I am in no mood to surrender to an unrepentant enemy. That would imply voluntary submission and willing renunciation of my revolt.” Gandhi would write back “My whole heart goes out to you. I consider myself to be incapable of asking anyone, much less you, to do anything that would hurt your pride…This struggle has been full of romance and heroism. You are the central figure.” In 1946 the Royal Indian Navy Ratings would go on a strike protesting discrimination, poor pay and lack of adequate nutrition. Aruna would join in with the strike of the ratings, and ask the Congress leadership for support. She would differ with the view of the leadership that this was an inopportune moment saying she would rather unite Hindus and Muslims at the barricade than on the constitutional front. Even as she became a heroine of the national movement, her own assessment was to say “I was but a splinter of the lava thrown up by the volcanic eruption of a people’s indignation”. Nobody can deny the heroism and courage of Aruna Asaf Ali in this period. She associated herself with the younger socialists in the party. However, evidently, even as Aruna Asaf Ali was part of the mainstream of national movement, she was constantly searching for alternative paths. Her ideas were constantly evolving with the changing social situations. She would write “Passing through a long procession of crises our national struggle has arrived at a turning point. It has either to turn into the bylanes of economic and social struggles and fight the entrenched enemies of the people or dissolve itself into nothingness.” Early on in her life, Aruna’s thinking resembled that of many young participants of the freedom struggle who confused radical disruption and rebellion with revolutionary change. However, in the period after independence Aruna re-conceptualized the role of the Freedom struggle and the challenges ahead. She would write her thoughts in the Link magazine in 1958 with the patronage of Jawaharlal Nehru and Krishna Menon. The pages of the magazine still hold some of the most important ideological discussions held in India in the post-independence period. These are under- studied but most important parts of her thinking. It is in this period that she participated in the peace movement, in the movement of Afro-Asian solidarity and the Women’s International Democratic Federation. In her own words, “For many of us the decade after independence was a period of quest and a search for a new theoretical base rooted in the facts of Indian history and social tradition.” It is then that she called for the building of a new vanguard for peace and social transformation. Building a new vanguard. Aruna was to give the call of building a new vanguard several times in her later life. How was this new vanguard to be made? First, it must appreciate the importance of history and all that can be learned from the old. She said: “Correct opinions and a noble ideology unless supported by concrete proofs of effectiveness have merely an academic place in human affairs. Therefore, this nucleus of new men and women must first recognize in themselves individuals who have a duty to those whose sharp differences with the elders have left them adrift. Fresh reservoirs of energy have to be tapped, weeding out redundant elements has to begin, before the foundations of a new brotherhood can be laid. The new order if it is to be new in spirit rather than in form only, has to draw its strength from all that is still vital in the old. Truth, simplicity and sincerity are not to be scoffed at. Age old precepts cannot be thrown away on grounds of antiquity.” Second, it must become close to the masses of people, be able to learn from the people and be a model of discipline and conduct. She said. “To build a society of free human beings, we need to be alert once again and resolve afresh to rededicate ourselves to our social and moral requirements. A new generation of nation builders must come forward to resist the many temptations that power brings in its wake, shun pride of office and abstain from indulging in extravagant luxuries so that they may evoke the respect and admiration of their fellow countrymen. These exhortations will sound trite to many and even pontifical. But if we want the masses of our people to respond to those who want to lead them, they cannot escape these compulsions.” Aruna was to understand and admire the idealism of youth. However, at the same time, she was wary of the pitfalls and ideological traps of inexperience. She was particularly critical of westernized intellectuals who would refuse to root themselves in an understanding of their conditions. She was opposed to a dogmatism that did not allow for a fresh appraisal of conditions and to find in them the direction for a new society. She did not believe that it was mere charisma and smooth oration that would create a new leadership, but rather it was principles and a strong belief that there could be an end to social and economic stagnation that would create the base for new leaders. She believed that a second struggle would have to be waged, against neo-colonialism and poverty. In her words, “Enlightened men and women of the post-freedom generation have a world to conquer and many worlds to lose. They have no option but to respond to the appeal of the masses for a united leadership for winning fresh battles in the great patriotic war against poverty, exploitation and armed as well as unarmed imperialist aggression.” Hence she saw the struggle for peace, or the struggle against imperialist aggression as closely linked with the struggle against poverty and exploitation. She fiercely fought those who believed that the salvation of an underdeveloped country or a people lies in copying and emulating advanced Western countries. Finally, she believed that there must be a struggle for a principled unity among forces of peace and social transformation. This unity was not to be a mere superficial alliance of forces and individuals who self-identified as left, but rather of serious political formations which could respond to the call of the masses of people. Such unity was not to be gained at the cost of anti-communism or a disparagement of indigenous traditions. It was to respect indigenous traditions and at the same time learn from the experience of socialism in the 20th century. Lenin and Gandhi. It was this that allowed her to make a formulation that was equally comfortable with Lenin and Gandhi. As natural as this seemed to her, it made her a rare personality at a time when there were those whose radicalism consisted of dogmatic application of European concepts. At the same time, she refused the anti-communism of those who extolled Gandhi for his non-violence and vilified all aspects of socialism hence rejecting the consequences of Gandhi’s message. Instead, she was equally comfortable with the role both of these personalities had played in history. She says in a tribute to Lenin, “Humanity’s long and exciting search for happiness, its search for spiritual bliss and the good things of life, would not have been so consistently progressive without great leaders and teachers who showed the way by telling people how they should live, what they should think and why they should never yield to evil. Whether it is a Buddha, a Christ, a Gandhi or a Lenin…their advent changed men’s thinking profoundly and made their followers better and nobler human beings…As we in India ponder over the life of this memorable son of Russia who changed the history of his country,…we are reminded of our own leader Gandhi whose birth centenary almost coincides with Lenin’s. Both of them wanted to end the suffering of all who are compelled to starve..Working in very dissimilar circumstances they evolved different techniques for realizing their aspirations and both were able to witness the breaking of a new dawn for their people.” Writing on Lenin, she admires his intellect, persistence, ability to face hardship and commitment to humanity’s liberation. She says “Thus with the passage of time Lenin will not be forgotten because the problems that he dealt with await lasting solutions. Lenin’s teachings will live because they are needed by the millions who long for peace, for bread, and for freedom.” In Gandhi, she admires his understanding of the Indian political and social environment, his concern for the oppressed and suffering and his role in awakening the masses of India. Of the young radicals who considered Gandhi to be soft on British rule or thought he was Utopian and unnecessarily introduced spirituality in Indian politics she would say. “This superficial view of Gandhian ethics was particularly fashionable among the more westernised of our young people…India’s new young intelligentsia of the post British period has been unable to make an impact as yet on the minds and hearts of the people of our country. Can this be because they have not been given an opportunity to assimilate the experience of Gandhi-Nehru and other leaders of the immediate past?”. Aruna was convinced that even as we must fashion new methods of struggle for our times, we must remember and imbibe the past leadership that the country had seen. Writing in the preface of a book, she says. “Ebb and tide in the values that move a nation are perhaps inevitable…They are like the troughs and peaks in the lives of individuals. In any case, it will strengthen us in meeting the challenges of these troubled times if we can recapture something of the spirit of the Gandhi-Nehru years. I shall feel rewarded if the book contributes to that end.” Indeed she ends her book with a call to renew the Gandhi-Nehru legacy. She again calls for the development of cadres, a “corp of dedicated volunteers who would be willing to forgo lucrative careers and to work for the cause of national regeneration on a modest allowance.” Aruna Asaf Ali today. In studying Aruna Asaf Ali today, we study the best of our traditions and one of the most important of our leaders. Her thoughts and ideas take on a renewed importance today. We must work to build that dedicated circle of volunteers who will be willing to build peace, who either come from, or are not afraid of associating themselves with the poor and working masses of people. This circle will have to think through the challenges of our age afresh, but unless it is able to root itself in a radical organic tradition, it will be led astray. Our time calls for a new leadership and the work of regeneration has to be done for the sake of those who come after us. Leaders like Aruna Asaf Ali continue to inspire us and give us hope for as she, so poetically, says, “In the human spirit hope never dies; phoenix like it springs again and again vibrant with the glow of sunrise to spur it on its way through new heavens. The thought of ‘those who come after us’ and that we must not betray them, haunts us. We must not seek solace in self pity. Through sacrifice and effort let us work for victory over an evil order.” Aruna Asaf Ali: Remembering The Legacy Of A Political Activist Who Fought Against All Odds. Born on 16th July, 1909 in Kalka, Punjab, Aruna Asaf Ali spent most of her life as a political activist and an educator. A pivotal role played by her in the Indian Independence Movement is still remembered by many. Post-Independence, she became Delhi’s first Mayor. Born in a liberal Brahmo family. Aruna Asaf Ali was born in a liberal Brahmo family. Her father, Upendranath Ganguly, had migrated from Barisal, to the United Provinces (now-Uttar Pradesh). Both her parents were ardent followers of the Brahmo Samaj and were ‘fairly liberal’. 1928 – Married defying all odds. While working as a teacher at Gokhale Memorial School, Calcutta, Aruna met Asaf Ali, a prominent barrister who had defended freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt, and was a member of the Indian National Congress. Despite opposition to the relationship , Aruna married Asaf Ali in 1928 in the city of Allahabad. Describing her family’s reaction to her marriage, she has said in one of her biographies that “My father was no more when Asaf and I married in 1928. My paternal uncle Nagendranath Ganguly, a university professor who regarded himself as my guardian, said to relatives and friends that as far as he was concerned I was dead, and he had performed my shraddh” First arrest and support by fellow women prisoners. Aruna Asaf Ali formally joined the Indian National Congress and subsequently became active in the Indian Independence Movement. In 1930, she joined the Salt Satyagraha but was not released from the prison in 1931 despite other political prisoners being released. She was imprisoned on the grounds that she was a vagrant. However, it is also contended that the British government felt threatened by her growing popularity. Upon not being released, she received immense support from the masses and other women prisoners who refused to be released unless Aruna Asaf Ali was released as well. Succumbing to the public agitation and an intervention by Mahatma Gandhi, the British finally released her from jail. Aruna Asaf Ali as a leader of the ‘’ When leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were arrested in the Quit India Movement of 1942, Aruna Asaf Ali took leadership of the movement , ensuring that the momentum of the movement doesn’t fade. She gave directions to the masses and followers in the absence of major leaders. She further rose to the occasion and gave push to the movement by hoisting the Indian Flag at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay. She went underground after an arrest warrant was issued against her. Nevertheless, she continued working for the cause of Indian Independence despite not being directly present in the field. Aruna Asaf Ali was successful in passing her message to the youth and followers of the movement through editing a monthly magazine Inquilab. While being underground, she continued working with prominent leaders like and to ensure that her message and words were passed to the youth. The arrest warrant against her was withdrawn in 1946, marking her return into public life and politics. Post-Independence work by Aruna Asaf Ali for women’s rights. Post independence, she joined the newly formed Socialist Party in 1948. She believed that the party catered more to the ideals of socialism than the Indian National Congress. However, she left the Socialist Party too and joined the .(CPI) She established the women’s wing of the CPI called the National Federation of Indian Women with other members of Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti, a mass organization linked to the CPI. She also assumed the leadership of the National Federation of Indian Women by becoming one of its Presidents. With a motive to elevate and promote women’s education in India , Aruna Asaf Ali also started a journal titled ‘Weekly’ and a newspaper titled ‘Patriot.’ A modest woman and leader. Aruna Asaf Ali received various accolades in the later years of her life but remained modest. An excerpt from an article written about her by her relative describes , “after Leonid Brezhnev presented her the Order of Lenin, she casually gave me, a child, then, a red box with the medal. On year after her death, in 1997, she was awarded the Bharat Ratna: she could not have cared less.” Legacy of the ‘Grand Old Lady’ of the Independence Movement. Also known as the ‘Grand Old Lady’ of the Indian Independence Movement, Aruna Asaf Ali countered various battles, both at personal and national front. Defying all societal norms and pressure, and taking the step to marry a person of her choice is an example of many of her brave decisions made at a time when major parts of Indian society were still very conservative. Moreover, her resilience which was seen when she decided to take control of the Quit India Movement can never be forgotten. The movement could have become directionless with the absence of its major leaders. However, her leadership ensured that the movement remains a success. Aruna Asaf Ali’s name is remembered not only as a political activist and educator but, she is also regarded as an epitome of bravery, resilience and an inspiration to the women of India. Liked this post? Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views. Individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times. If you have a complementary or differing point of view, sign up and start sharing your views too! kracktivist. “Feminist archiving is all about loss and recovery. It is about the celebration of history.” That was Dr. Malavika Karlekar, editor of the Indian Journal of Gender Studies and a fellow at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), Delhi. She was speaking at a national seminar on ‘Feminist Archiving: Possibilities and Challenges’, organised by Dr. Avabai Wadia and Dr. Bomanji Khursehdji Wadia Archives for Women, Research Centre for Women’s Studies and University Library and SNDT Women’s University in association with the Indian Association of Women Studies (IWAS). While tracing the history of archiving in India, Ms. Karlekar stressed that a major body of historical and archival material needed to be recovered. They exist in various forms, including ballads, texts, pamphlets, postcards, posters and photographs, but they have not been collated or given a social or historical context. The photographic image, for instance, has not received the kind of attention here, especially when compared to the West. Ms. Karlekar herself got drawn to it almost by accident. It was in 2002 when CWDS mounted an exhibition conceived as a visual documentary to celebrate the metamorphosis of women over 72 years. As curators of that exhibition, she — along with Leela Kasturi and Indrani Majumdar of CWDS — began putting up photographs, some from family, friends, colleagues and institutions. The intention was to recreate the history of Indian women, interwoven into the history of the nation. Thus began a journey of exploration. The initial collections were mostly studio portraits, with informative annotations on the details of garments and jewellery. They framed women with husbands and children, underlining the attitude that prevailed towards women, especially upper class women, in the late 19th century. Slowly, the postures have relaxed as thought processes got liberated. As education for women became increasingly emphasised, photographs of indigenous schools showing children from various castes and classes mingling together for the first time, emerged. Soon there were snapshots of women in college — with pioneers like Parvati Kunvar, Emmeline da Cunha, Phulrenu Dutta and Tarabai Nabar seeking higher education. There is definitely a class issue here. The tricky thing about feminist archiving is ‘who’ gets to represent Indian women. Since photograph was an elite pastime, these archives largely capture upper class lives and, later, those of the emerging middle classes. There is an in-built narcissism discernible, with the ‘other’ (the working class) emerging as figures that provoke curiosity but remain firmly on the margins. Photo documentation of the early history of the Indian labour force, whether wage labour or bonded labour, is largely absent. Women, in particular, did not leave behind much by way of writings, nor were the early movements of working class women documented in any detail. Explains Ms. Karlekar, “In 1921, the year after women joined Gandhi in his non-cooperation movement, it was estimated that a third of the female population was in the workforce. While a handful became professionals, the majority joined mills, factories and plantations.” Interestingly, the national movement in which innumerable women participated provided a new visibility to them in the public space. Women like Aruna Asaf Ali, Kasturba Gandhi, Mridula Sarabhai and Kalpana Joshi surfaced as national icons. From the exhibition that CWDS mounted emerged an interesting concept: “We came up with the idea of having the annual CWDS calendar as a form of a feminist archive. So every year, thereafter, we have had a different theme for our calendars, but they were all forms of feminist archiving,” reveals Ms. Karlekar. Each calendar merges texts with visuals to provide a platform that is easily accessible. It has the ‘every day’ quality of being a calendar, while at the same, through its visuals and captions, reminding people of the richness of India’s feminist history. The 2013 calendar, titled ‘Fire and Grace: Kalpana Dutt Joshi’, focuses on a revolutionary from the national movement. Joshi was born into a middle class family at Sripur, Chittagong district, which falls in today’s Bangladesh. After she completed her matriculate in 1929, she joined the Chhatri Sangha, a student body. Nationalist leader, Purnendu Dastidar, drew her into the revolutionary activities of Mastarda Surya Sen. On May 19, 1933, Joshi, along with some , was arrested. In the second supplementary trial of the Chittagong Armory Raid case, Surya Sen and Tarakeswar Dastidar were sentenced to death, and Joshi was sentenced to transportation for life — she was just 20 years. After being released in 1939, she graduated from Calcutta University in 1940. She soon joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) and resumed her battle against British rule. In 1943, she married P.C. Joshi, a CPI leader. She was back in Chittagong, organising the peasants’ and women’s fronts of the party. In 1946, she contested, though unsuccessfully, in elections to the Bengal Legislative Assembly. After India gained Independence and the sub-continent was partitioned, Kalpana migrated to India and withdrew from active politics. She died on February 8, 1995, in Kolkata. The 2013 calendar on her reflects the various aspects and problems of archiving — most obviously the lack of material. The first photograph is a mug shot of Joshi kept in prison records and subsequently recovered by the family. There is a significant gap of years between the first and second photograph featured, which was taken after she married P.C. Joshi at a simple wedding ceremony in 1943. The newly-married couple is shown on the terrace of the CPI headquarters in Bombay (now ). Interestingly, the original photograph had its top corner chopped off near the flag. “Since it was very important to show the flag, we used digital technology to restore it,” explains Ms. Karlekar. Joshi with her first-born, Suraj, at Balraj Sahni’s Juhu residence in 1946, makes another heart-warming visual. “The problem we faced was the lack of choice, since the photographs we had were limited and could hardly capture the many facets of a revolutionary woman like Kalpana. If you have read the life of Kalpana Joshi, you would know that she lived in a commune. To come across this typical ‘mother and child’ image is something of a surprise, but it is important,” adds Ms. Karlekar. Another photograph in the calendar was taken nine years later. It shows Joshi with her two sons, Suraj and Chand, in Calcutta, 1949. Ms. Karlekar says, “We had two or three photographs but we chose this utterly delightful one — not only for the look in Kalpana’s eyes but the way the children are obviously attracted to something outside the frame.” A family photograph follows. The image that opens the calendar is a montage — the photograph of Joshi taken by famous photographer, Sunil Janah, in 1945. It was also featured on the cover of her book, Story Retold . At the insistence of her daughter-in-law, senior journalist Manini Chatterjee, Joshi recounted the fierce Chittagong Uprising — its plan, execution and the martyrdom of Surya Sen. Feminist archiving is a still at a nascent stage in India. With new technology emerging at a frenetic pace, the curator is left perplexed. As Ms. Karlekar puts it, “How we choose to document or not document a movement is something we need to pay attention to. If we are now documenting and archiving our every move – or so it would appear – what does this say about our relationship to history at that particular moment?”