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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

Role of Bengali Women in the Freedom Movement

Kasturi Roy Chatterjee1

Abstract

In women is always affected by the lack of opportunities and facilities. This is due to innate discrimination prevalent within the society for years. Thus when the role of Bengali women in the freedom movement is considered one faces a lot of difficulty, as because the women whatever their role were never highlighted. But in recent years however it is being pointed out that Bengali women not only participated in the freedom movement but had played an active role in it.

KeyWords: Swadeshi, Boycott, catalysts, Patriarchy, Civil Disobidience, , Quit India.

1 Assistant Professor in History, Sundarban Mahavidyalaya, Kakdwip, South , Pin-743347

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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

Introduction:

In attempting to analyse the role of Bengali women in the Indian Freedom Struggle, one faces a series of problem is at the very outset. There are very few comprehensive studies on women’s participation in the freedom movement. In my paper I will try to bring forward a complete picture of Bengali women’s active role in the politics of protest: from 1905-1947, which is so far being discussed in different phases. In this way we can explain that how the women from time to time had strengthened the nationalist movement not only in the way it is shaped for them but once they participated they had mobilized the movement in their own way.

Nature of Participatation in the Various Movements:

A general idea for quite a long time had circulated regarding women’s participation that it is male dictated. In recent years however various writings have came up with evidences against this opinion. In these writings it is being shown that once mobilized the women move on their own, acquiring a new confidence. In their writings Uma Rao and Ishani Mukherjee had pointed out how a number of women directly involved in revolutionary movements in Bengal, , Punjab etc. M. Tirtha(1991)1 there was also a big inspirational support base of women of the revolutionaries, the name of who will never come up in the dictionary of freedom strugglers.

The women in large numbers provided food and shelter, carried messages and arms. They were not always from the elite educated society. The uneducated poor women played this role without waiting for any social sanction. Thus the women’s invisible role in the nationalist movement, which provided greater support to it had received very little formal acknowledgement. Similarly women’s active participation also remained invisible. Recent attempts to reconstruct life stories of women activists and oral history from surviving women freedom fighters provide little substance to the theory of male direction, guidance or manipulation. Some British women who made Indian their own cause, played an important role as helpers as well as ‘catalysts’, such as ,Margaret Cousins,Irish etc.

But it is really unfortunate, but we will have to accept the fact that the leaders of the National Movement were themselves not aware of the growing base of women’s support and feelings of national cause. Huge women response in the Civil Disobidience Movement surprised them. Margaret cousins wrote a spirited letter to Gandhiji for his division of work by sex, as women had been left K. Madhu (1985)2 in the ashram and Sabarmati, while men accompanied him in his Dandi March. Despite the reluctance on the part of Gandhi and a band of women joined him in his destination. Many of these women never before had left their house, they were shy, orthodox women who were tradition bound yet they came forward in large spontaneously to do what they could at last for their country.

There was an inherent dichotomy found in Gandhian opinion about women participation in the National Movement. On the one hand, he asserted that women had the same rights of freedom

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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

and liberty as man. On the other hand while describing the women he says, ‘she is passive and he is active’ K. Madhu (1985)3 he also points out that though essentially the woman is the mistress of the house yet the man is the bread earner. Gandhi’s call for women thus was for their self sacrificing non-violent nature. This approach of Gandhi was being criticized by Gail Omvedt and Maria Mies Moes. They had shown how Gandhi had painted a new myth of Indian womanhood, where women shows Sita like devotion and self sacrificing attitude in what- ever work they are doing whether for family or for Nation. K. Madhu(1985)4. As a consequence the Gandhian appeal first attracted the educated elite women with well-placed husbands and servants. To these women family was the first priority than Nation.

Partha Chatterjee the eminent historian thus came up with the view that the new patriarchy of nationalism gave women a new social responsibility of not to alienate men, but to maintain the cohesiveness of family life and with the kin group. In addition by associating the task of “female emancipation” with sovereign nationhood, nationalism bound them to yet legitimate subordination. Partha Chatterjee also explain the disappearance of the women’s question from the political domain by the end of nineteenth century as a result of nationalism refusal to the women question an issue of political negotiation with the colonial state C. Partha (1994)5

There are some historians however who comes up with the thought that the basic problem arises from the tendency to find a linear connection between the reform movement and growth of nationalism and the roles prescribed for or played by women in the nationalist movement. The social reform did help to improve the status of Indian women but the merger of both had diluted the strength of both the movement. Everything the women had to do within the patriarchal family was not given importance as because the women were not seen as individuals. It was their hard work and readiness for come what may have helped them to prove their strength during the Movement, Salt Satyagraha and the .

It is the inner strength of women that came up during the Extremist Movement in Bengal, when a galaxy of young girls readily sacrificed their lives for the freedom movement and innumerable number of women provided support to freedom fighters, looked after their families in the absence of their fathers, husbands and sons. Participation in the national movement was not limited within the elite class. They did provided the organizational base and ideas to the common women but once aroused they became a strong part in the national movement.

The marked the formation of women organizations. These organizations became the medium for expression of women’s opinion. At the same time they were a training ground for the women, who would later take up the leadership role in the social and political institutions. Renowned historian Geraldine Forbes had pointed out that ‘these institutions played an important role in the formation of Nation’. The women organizations though build on the western model tried their best to adapt the role of an ideal Indian woman, as a companion of man and an ideal mother and at the same time standing for the savior of the country F. Geraldine (1996)6 .The first women organization though begun by men with the views of reform later the

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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

women themselves came forward. Some important organizations of the period are Mahila Shilpa Samiti (1906-1908), Bharat Stri Mahamandal, Ladies Social and Literacy Cell, Gujrati Stree Mondal. The Bharat Mahila Parishad organized several educational programmes in which notable women like Ramabai, Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu and several others gave speech. Local Muslim women’s organization was also found in the early 20th Century by the upper class Muslim women. In these organizations both Hindu and Muslim women started to define their own interests and proposed solution, and action was taken through association. Thus we see though the associations were initially urban and organized by upper class elite women yet it had the desire to serve all class of women and it was the members of these associations who were drawn to the nationalist movement by nationalist leaders like and .

In the swadeshi movement the Bengali men sought the help of women to strengthen it. The nationalists gave religious colour to the movement, by comparing women with ‘Shakti’ (primal power). It is the hidden strength in every woman which comes in front in the period of crisis. This touched the heart of women who could effortlessly identify themselves as parts however small with ‘Shakti’. C. Partha (1994)7 Women as a form of protest observed ‘arandhan’, ‘rakshabandhan’ etc. with great enthusiasm. Ramendrasundar Trivedi wrote a patriotic composition ‘Bangalakshmir Bratakatha’ which touched even the heart of village women.Women in large numbers stopped using foreign goods. Nirod Choudhury remembers that her mother had broken foreign utensils of cooking. Swarna kumari Debi, Kumudini Mitra, Banalata Debi and many others actively propagated for using Swadeshi goods.Sarala Debi played an important organizational role, she established at her residence in Calcutta a centre for physical culture. She also tried to infuse a martial sprit in the members of the club by introducing Birastami Brata and by organizing Pratapaditya and Udayaditya Utsav.In the first phase of revolutionary movement we also see women participating in manufacturing bombs. Radha Rani Roy wife of Motilal Roy and Netrakshi Ghosh niece of Sagarkali Ghosh became expert in mixing and pounding chemicals for manufacturing crude explosives.

The political participation of women in the Swadeshi movement was a merely extension of their domestic role as rightly pointed out by Meredith Borthwick and Tanika Sarkar S. Tanika(2001)8 But during the Non- Cooperation Movement women in different parts of India joined processions, propagated the use of and charkha, some of them left government schools and colleges. Renuka Roy, Vijaylaxmi Pundit and many others left the government institutions and joined the movement. Basanti Debi wife of C.R.Das asked women to boycott foreign goods. In Bengal women in numbers joined the protest. Women of Darjeeling and took the idea of spinning wheels. Helen Lepcha joined the Ahmedabad session of B. Meredith (1984)9

In the Salt satyagraha Sarojini Naidu along with a band of women followed Gandhi inspite of his objection in the beginning. Women in large number joined her to Dhasana where Gandhi had given her the Leadership. Not only did the women supported the salt Satyagraha, they also

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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

turned their own houses the shelter of Congress workers. They started selling small packages of salt at street corners, picketed shops and prevented men from entering liquor shops. The awakening of these women was mostly self motivated.

In the Quit India Movement almost all the top leaders of congress were arrested even before the movement took its shape, yet the movement was carried on with the full enthusiasm of the participants. In a young girl named Kanaklata Barua led a procession of five hundred women and was killed by the police. In Matangini Hazra was killed while leading a protest procession. Adivasi women of Balurghat participated in Quit India movement .In Coochbihar students of Sunity Academy took a positive role. Thus we see that the Gandhian movement broke its restriction and move on its own discourse and the women were more formative in their protest. M. Tirtha (1991)10

Beside the women joining the nationalist movement called by Gandhi, there were few women who did not believe in the path of non- violence. They were active in Bengal, Dacca, Comilla and . Kalpana Joshi, Preetilata wadedkar were associated with the , Preetilata died while assisting Masterda . Shanti and Suniti two young girls of Commilla shot dead Stevens the District Magistrate of Commilla in December 1931 and were given life imprisonments. Few of them had come in front but there were many others whose life and contribution still had to be reconstructed.

But the point that should not be omitted is the joining of non elite women in different political protests, as has been pointed out by Tanika Sarkar9.The late twenties saw the growth of many working class association and women workers particularly became active in and Calcutta. Their main form of political protest seemed to have been sporadic and frequently violent outbursts in the course of an ongoing struggle. Official reports as well as contemporary document show that women strikers of Bauria, Chengail Jute Mill often clashed with the police and stoned the European mill assistant. S. Samita (1999)11 Renu Chakrabarty the communist leader of the time discussed about the multiplicity of the participation in the peasant movements. The peasant women were in large participants of various Gandhian movements; they from time to time refused to pay tax and had protested even in lying down on streets. But in the Tebhaga movement their expression was much matured, they fought for their own cause. While there are the communist women leaders like and trying to organize the Tebhaga Movement, housewives like Bimala too of Medinipore coming in front fighting with all obstacles and at the same time the Rajbanshi women of North Bengal and sharecropper wife like Batashi of Kakdwip became ardent workers of the movement. Thus it became clear that women movement even in the lower level had started shaping on its own.

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Heteroglossia: A Multidisciplinary Research Journal June 2016 | Vol. 01 | No. 01

Conclusion:

The nationalist discourse of the nineteenth century had thus given a new shape to the traditional role of Indian women as mothers and wives in a modernized form with a patriotic flavor. Politics was integrated with the women social reform movements. The women long secluded in their private domain controlled by men came out in large numbers. In their political participation thus comes out their collective aspirations along with their nationalistic demand.

Reference:

1. M. Borthwick (1984): The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849-1905, Princeton University Press, 1984. 9 –Pp25-27 ibid 60-64 s

2. P. Chatterjee (1994): The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1994.5-Pp12-14 7-27-30

3. G. Forbes Geraldine (1996): Women in Modern India: The New Cambridge History of Modern India iv.2, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp 80-95.

4. M. Kishwar (1985): Gandhi on women (in 2 parts), Economic Weekly, Vol 20, no.40, 5 October 1985. 2-Pp2Vol 20 3-Pp4 Vol40 4 –Pp6-7 Vol40

5. T. Mandal (1991): The Woman Revolutionaries of Bengal, 1905-1939, Calcutta, 1991. 1-Pp13-16 10-Pp80-90 Ibid-Pp95

6. T. Sarkar (2001): Hindu wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and , Delhi, Permanent Black, 2001. 8-Pp 67- 70

7. S. Sen (1999): Women and Labour in Late : The Bengal Jute Industry, Cambridge University Press, 1999. 11-Pp 50-57

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