The Importance of Being Lakshmi Sahgal
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ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 The Importance of Being Lakshmi Sahgal INDU AGNIHOTRI Vol. 47, Issue No. 32, 11 Aug, 2012 Indu Agnihotri ([email protected]) is with the Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi Captain Lakshmi's death saw glowing tributes paid to her in the media, even as this was denied in the near past to other such towering women involved in the women's movement since Independence. What was it about her that evoked such admiration? In a country where politics and politicians are currently the most berated community inviting the ire of the public at large, the response that “captain” Lakshmi Sahgal evoked in her death was truly encouraging. The fact that Lakshmi Sahgal hailed from Kerala, grew up in Chennai and had lived in Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, away from the seat of politics made it even more so. At a time when a Bill to increase women’s political participation in elected bodies at the higher level has been hanging fire for over a decade and a half, this raises several questions to which there may not be any one answer. While part of the reason may lie in the very uniqueness of her personality, it may be worthwhile to explore how a communist, a woman and a nonagenarian at that, evoked such a response on her passing away. Though such comparisons serve no purpose, and may even be misread or misrepresented, one may point out for instance that the death of no less a heroine than Aruna Asaf Ali, in the mid 1990s, did not draw forth a similar response. While the National Federation of Indian Women, (NFIW) an organisation she remained associated with for long, did conduct a condolence meeting which was attended by representatives of many women’s organisations many had felt at that time that for a woman of her stature, this was not tribute enough. The support that the Narasimha Rao government offered when she most needed it in her last days certainly ensured dignity to a woman whose life epitomised some of the most interesting possibilities that Independence had opened up for women in India. Aruna Asaf Ali, hit the headlines with the Quit India movement in 1942 and every school going child would testify to the fact that her hoisting the flag in Bombay Maidan remains the most striking visual of that movement. She soon moved from the Congress to the Communist Party of India though the lines of her political affiliation often got blurred, given her proximity to both Jawaharlal Nehru and the Soviet establishment in the early years after Independence. But her distancing herself somewhat from the Nehru family in the face of the ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 antics of the Sanjay Gandhi brigade evoked displeasure from Indira Gandhi and that perhaps marked a shift in her role at the national level. However, this too may be insufficient as an explanation for the lack of recognition given her location in the national capital and long involvement with politics at the centre as well as with the trade union and women’s movements in Delhi. The trajectory of Aruna Asaf Ali’s life remains significant for the women’s movement: transgression of strictly Gandhian norms of politics, a cross- community marriage, an early focus on women’s “work” and the workers’ movement. Along with other communist women in the National Federation of Indian Women, she kept alive a tradition of activism from a socially progressive standpoint during the “silent years” in the history of the women’s movement, even as she remained caught in the limitations of the political line she was long associated with, her perceived proximity to the Nehru family and, perhaps, the inter-linkages between the two. Nevertheless, between the 1950s and 1970s, she, along with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, represented the lineage and linkage of the women’s movement with the freedom struggle. “Pani Wali Bai” Equally unfortunately, the death of Mrinal Gore, within the same week as the departure of Lakshmi Sahgal, did not go beyond an announcement in the national dailies. A remarkable woman in her own right, Gore, drawn into public life through the socialist stream, was one of the most respected political leaders in Maharashtra. She caught the public eye when she, along with Ahilya Rangnekar- a firebrand communist from pre-Independence days - launched the anti price rise movement (APRM), in the 1970s. This developed into a mass campaign with a strong political edge, with women masses hitting the streets, rolling pin in hand. Badhate Daam Ghatata Jeevan Maan, a slogan of the movement, summed up the link the women’s movement drew between the nature of economic progress and increasing vulnerabilities. The 1970s saw these two, along with Pramila Dandavate- an equally well known socialist woman parliamentarian in subsequent years- literally shake the municipal corporation and the state assembly. The APRM heralded a new form of women’s activism in the contemporary phase. Having first made her mark by highlighting a simple but basic necessity of water and mobilising women in Bombay city Mrinal came to be known as the “paani wali bai” (the water woman). Gore’s presence in Delhi prompted a popular slogan: paani wali bai dilli mein aur dilli wali bai paani mein, in the wake of escalating price rise and popular anger against it in the early 1980s, after Indira Gandhi’s comeback election. Mrinal Gore appeared on the national scene in the post Emergency period when all three- Gore, Rangenkar and Dandavate- shifted their arena of activity to the national capital, with the first two having been elected to Parliament in 1977 and the third shifting base along with her husband Madhu Dandavate, the then railway minister. Gore’s shift to Delhi was instrumental in extending the work of the Mahila Dakshata Samiti to Delhi. From the start, she pushed for joint action by women. In later years, this task was taken forward by Dandavate who followed up her interventions on the floor of the House with the joint movement of women’s organisations against dowry, under the banner of the Dahej Virodhi ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Chetna Manch. Gore, however, shifted back to Maharashtra where she steered legislation on the sex determination tests. The rising tide of right wing politics did not spare her. The Shiv Sena targeted her on many occasions even as the waning of the Socialist Party’s influence limited the scope of her political interventions. Gore’s passing, though it received wide coverage in the Maharashtra press, went largely unnoticed at the national level although few would forget the influence she and her associates had on young women growing up in Maharashtra in the latter part of the last century. The making of Captain Lakshmi Somewhat in contrast with the fading away of public memory with regard to these two at the national level, is the case of Lakshmi Sahgal. Sahgal grew up in Madras , and soon after completing her medical education enlisted as a doctor serving in Singapore, where her meeting with Subhash Chandra Bose’s drew her into the struggle. She responded to Bose’s call to all Indians including women to join the Indian freedom struggle by enlisting themselves for service in the Indian National Army. Being the daughter of Ammu Swaminathan, associated with the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) from its inception, for Lakshmi, the lines between the personal and political were continuously blurred. With the AIWC being the most significant voice of Indian women’s movement in the decades prior to Independence, she had early exposure to the link between women’s issues and the freedom struggle despite AIWC maintaining an apparent distance from the Congress. For Lakshmi the boycott and burning of foreign cloth, picketing and the politics of the Gandhian era were a given. She had grown up with it and drew upon this legacy to frame issues and her own consciousness. She never drew a line between politics and activism on women’s issues. Social change, justice and dignity were integral to the framing of her mental world as also the links between politics with reference to national events or its link with daily life. What changed her life was the meeting with Subhash Chanda Bose and she never failed to make a note of that. After Independence, though she consciously chose to stay away from the politics of power and the coteries operating at work in the corridors of power, she remained deeply political in a fundamental sense remaining ever sensitive to the suffering of the people. It is this, along with her professional commitment to the medical profession which kept her close to the people and sensitive to the political upheavals overtaking the country, be it Partition, the 1971 events, Bhopal or the anti Sikh riots. She joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the 1970s and later became a founder member of the All India Democratic Women’s Association in 1981. The latter gave her a fitting platform to take forward her commitment to issues of social change and women’s rights and from then till she became a patron of the organisation with advancing age, she was ever ready, present and available for any campaign or struggle launched. Her humility, willingness to perform any task, including translating for comrades into different languages at meetings, were all part of her matter of fact approach to tasks at hand. Seeing her, all sense of personal woes faded into ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 insignificance. Above all, her laughter and sense of joy were legendary and infectious, to say the least.