An extraordinary life

In this well-researched biography on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, historian Nico Slate delves into the life of one of the great women achievers of India in the 20th century

By Shevlin Sebastian

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay got the first shock of her life when her beloved father, Dhareshwar Ananthya, a Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin, suddenly passed away. She was only seven years old.

The second shock was to learn that because her father had not left a will behind, the vast property went to a stepbrother. ‘I woke up from a daze,’ wrote Kamaladevi. ‘This was what Mother had been alerting me about. Women had no rights and we should qualify to stake our claims and assert them. This question was not of possessions but of principle.’

Worried about her daughter’s future, her mother Girijabai arranged for her, at age 11, to get married. The groom was the son of one of Mangalore’s wealthiest men, Nayampalli Subbarao. The boy was a few years older. A little over a year later, her husband died. Now, Kamaladevi had become a child widow and expected to remain one for the rest of her life.

In a book she wrote called, ‘The Awakening of Indian Women’ (1939), Kamaladevi wrote, ‘Widows were souls in agony. They were relegated to a life of servility with scant regard for their feelings or needs. They are even regarded as objects of ill-omen.’

When you read the book, ‘Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay – The Art of Freedom’, by historian Nico Slate, you realise she is one of the great women achievers of India in the 20th century.

Kamaladevi handled a massive refugee rehabilitation programme, at today’s Faridabad, following the partition of India in 1947. She was the force behind the renaissance of handicrafts and handloom all over the country. Kamaladevi set up several institutions. These included the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the National School of Drama and the Crafts Council of India.

Kamaladevi was also a driving force in the Independence movement. She was close to Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And because of that proximity, she dared to stand up to Gandhi.

In 1930, Gandhi set off in a procession, from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, a distance of 275 kms, to protest the salt laws of the British. To her astonishment, Kamaladevi found out that there were no women participants.

She met Gandhi in a small town on the way and told him, “The significance of a non-violent struggle is that the weakest can take an equal part with the strongest and share in the triumph.” Gandhi had no option but to permit women to take part.

When Gandhi realised Kamaladevi was having a contentious relationship with senior Congress leader Sardar Patel, he encouraged her to spend time with him. So, Kamaladevi went to Patel’s home at Bardoli (35 kms from Surat).

Patel gave her a tour of his garden and orchard. This changed her understanding of Patel, the person. She wrote: ‘Here was a person other than the renowned ‘Iron Man’ handling seedlings with incredible sensitivity and with a rare soft light in his usual stern eyes.’

Slate also tackled the rumours of whether Kamaladevi had a romantic relationship with Nehru. There was nothing to show that there was a physical connection. But Kamaladevi wrote with a great deal of tenderness about Nehru. This could have raised eyebrows.

Here is a section: ‘The far-away look in his eyes speaks of hidden dreams. Once that deep-set mouth must have broken into smiles oftener; those firm lips melted into softer lines; the stern eyes danced with a more tender light. Those delicately shaped hands, the exquisitely chiselled feet, all so eloquent of a dream-laden soul, are today masked by the hard relentless marks of terrible struggle, which he so characteristically embodies in himself as the representative of a nation in the throes of a fierce battle.’

In her personal life, Kamaladevi faced many challenges. She got divorced, after 22 years, from a philandering Harindranath Chattopadhyay. He was a poet, dramatist, actor and musician, and the younger brother of political activist Sarojini Naidu. Their son Rama felt neglected. That’s because Kamaladevi, a world traveller, struggled to raise her son while remaining dedicated to the freedom struggle and being repeatedly imprisoned.

This is a deeply researched book. It provides an in-depth look at this magnificent personality. Slate is a Professor of History and Head of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University, USA. This is the third book in the ‘Indian Lives’ series. The book is edited and curated by noted historian and writer Ramachandra Guha.

In the foreword, Guha has provided an interesting comparison: ‘Perhaps only Rabindranath Tagore matched Kamaladevi in the range of multiple careers she led and the diverse social worlds she enriched.’

(Published in the Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)