Weaving tales of sacrifice: Indian women and their contribution to India’s freedom

Twāng hi pranāng shorire…..

Twāng hi Durga dashāprāharādhārini…

You are Life…You are Durga who protects us with your ten arms from the eight corners and from the sky and the earth …                                                                                                               Anāndamath, 1882.

India in the 20^th century found herself in the threshold of a transformative moment and she chose to take a leap of faith by recognizing and weaving in women and their voices in her struggle for freedom from the British Raj, thus signaling a paradigmatic shift in the collective social consciousness. Envisioning of the colonized nation as mother, as Goddess and as Life, found its earliest expression in Anāndamath(1882). Accent on shākti or woman power was more pronounced in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s next novel Devi Chāudhurani(1884), a remarkable tale of an easy straddling of the private and public domains by a village girl who rose to inspire and command an underground revolutionary movement, akin to Swādeshi dacoits of later years, embodying ethos which ex-post-facto were socialistic. In end 19^th century, nationalism or emotions of fidelity towards India as a nation was still in its embryonic stage and Bankim’s equating of the colonized country with mother, visualizing her in her pristine divine incarnation, indirectly inducted women into the imaginings of the nation thus signaling the prospect of their greater participation in future years. His works and the Swādeshi in many ways thus anticipated their involvement in Gandhian movements of the mid 20^th century.

Bankim’s texts were not feminist in tenor as his works did not address the overarching patriarchal structure that has held women captive for centuries. However these did anticipate a collaborative backdrop where personal and collective histories of the men and women of India would eventually collapse and synchronize. His eulogization of bharātmata did not per se ease the participation of women as they still needed to negotiate with the dual trappings of patriarchy and colonial rule at each step of their foray into the freedom struggle. Still it undoubtedly set the stage and the Swādeshi years(1903-1908) provided a climate of integration. While 1920 onwards Gandhi’s ardent call received unprecedented response from women of all classes, the latter’s association with freedom struggle was definitely pre-Gandhian.  Non-Cooperation or the years of Civil Disobedience saw a crystallization of their passion for the motherland in more concrete, constitutional forms, but the embers had been burning since 1905 especially in Bengal. Plans to split the Bengal Presidency on October 16, 1905 had evoked unprecedented emotions as people across class, gender or community appeared resolute to foil British efforts. As call for passive resistance or boycott of British goods failed to contain the widespread consternation of the youth, the latter turned to constructive nationalism or swādeshi and more pronouncedly to revolutionary terrorism. History documents conspicuous presence of women at this embryonic stage of nation building and it is of critical importance that such involvement instead of offsetting, blended seamlessly with their traditional role in the antāhpur(inner chamber). It is perhaps this fluidity of the public and private roles and spaces of such women that prompted Geraldine Forbes to argue that they could become actively involved in political acts of the times largely due to their traditional domestic roles, the latter often acting as potent camouflage of the revolutionary actions. Thus even though the involvement of a child widow like Nonibāla Devi or householder like Dukoribāla Devi with the national cause was initially at the behest of a male member of the family, who was either an active member of a revolutionary organization or a staunch advocate of Swādeshi and boycott, gradually they managed to curve out their individual spaces and purpose of involvement.  Above public suspicion, they reinforced the cause of the revolutionary outfits and “hid weapons, sheltered fugitives, and encouraged the men, their domestic roles providing cover for these subversive and revolutionary acts.”(Forbes 1996:123). Dukoribāla Devi was the first Indian woman to be convicted under the Arms Act as she was found guilty of hiding German Roda company pistols for the Swādeshi cause in 1914. In her memoirs, she recollects how despite making concerted efforts to frame her under a conspiracy case, the colonial police had failed to accumulate evidence and thus settled for a two years rigorous prison term in 1917. Post release, she continued to work for the country in different capacities.

Gandhi’s entry into Indian politics in 1915 and his call for Satyāgrāha touched lives across gender. Though his visualization of Indian women as Sitā and Damāyānti or in archetypal domestic roles has often been critiqued and read as a virtual compromise with the patriarchal structure, it is undeniable that Congress under his stewardship for the first time ensured mass participation of both the genders. 1920s ushered in a perceptible change in the way women became involved with the nation, forming separate associations, leading marches, boycotting British goods with a vengeance, donning khaddār and picketing.  While this was the general trend across the country, in Bengal, Bombay, Madras and Punjab, the zeal of the women was infectious. Educated upper class women like Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, Muthulakshmi Reddy or Rajkumari Amrit Kaur of Kapurthala royalty, responded to Gandhi’s call for participation and thousands of women followed their lead. Despite remaining within the Congress fold, they however refused to subjugate their struggle under the meta nationalist discourse, instead choosing to continue fighting for civil liberties of Indian women. Such parallel crusades though theoretically outside the nationalist agenda, continued to embellish the latter by forming prominent women’s organizations like Rāshtriya Stree Sāngha and Desh Sevika Sāngha( 1930s Bombay under Sarojini Naidu),  Māhila Rāshtriya Sāngha MRS (1928 Bengal under an Oxford educated school teacher Latika Ghosh) to name a few. They organized marches and gave fiery speeches on the need of education and sacrifice as being fundamental for Swāraj. Women from politically prominent families like that of C.R Das or Motilal Nehru led through example as they volunteered in picketing, salt satyāgrāha and often faced police atrocities and even imprisonment– the latter instances inviting unprecedented public vehemence against the Raj. Leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose recognized the revolutionary spark in many women and advised them to protest institutionally. In fact his decision to invite uniformed women volunteers to march with men in the procession to inaugurate the annual Congress meetings in Calcutta as early as in 1928 was historic, where he anointed Latika Ghosh as the colonel in charge of the volunteers, who were principally students from Bethune College and Victoria Institution in Calcutta.

Recognition of a woman as being capable of leading her own people inspired thousands to participate and sacrifice their youth and lives. In keeping with this tradition of leadership, Sarojini Naidu while facing arrest, urged her followers to view her not as a woman but as their general, thus implicitly urging them to think beyond the gender stereotypes and the associated ‘vulnerabilities’. The notion of imprisonment came to be coveted by many as it held the possibility of granting legitimacy to their voice and struggle, both as women and as nationalists—the two identities not always merging in the dominant nationalist discourse. Sacrifice was the māntra that moved the women of the times irrespective of background,education or lineage. The instance of the Chittagong Armory Raid in April, 1930 had an electrifying impact especially among the youth who believed it’s an honour to die for the nation.

I felt…I would go mad if I could not find relief in death. I only sought the way to death by offering myself at the feet of the country…

This particular excerpt from the memoirs of Bina Das seems representative of the contemporary mood.  Her unsuccessful attempt to shoot the Governor of Bengal at the Convocation ceremony of the University of Calcutta in 1931 sent ripples across educated, elite Calcutta as she was one of their own, thus inspiring hundreds to jump into the cauldron of self sacrifice.

Such uncompromising resolve instead of mere passive inclusion in the nationalist struggle created new pathways for the latter though the women freedom fighters had more than one demon to fight, both within and without. Besides a patriarchal, conservative society, what the women also needed to negotiate with in their journey towards emancipation was an inner conservatism or fixed conceptions of respectability and non-respectability that often created invisible barriers. Women active in revolutionary movements or militancy found it comparatively easier to free themselves from such notions as the nature of their association demanded them to be equal to the men in training and fighting. As they often had to travel alone or with strangers, learn to take disguises, to shoot, drive cars and even to make bombs, such women revolutionaries fractured once and for all, myths of their gender vulnerability. The girls and women of Bengal and to an extent Punjab shone brightest as they perhaps found it easier to slip into the well carved traditions of militancy in their respective provinces. Though mainstream nationalist discourse did not always accord similar respect to such acts of immense heroism and sacrifice as to instances when women achieved victory through institutional, non-violent means; history remembers them equally as those who left behind cares of life for a nation that was still in the making. Like the ten-armed Goddess herself, Indian women, be as activists or as revolutionaries, continued to protect the home and the hearth and simultaneously weave a nation through valour, commitment and continual self sacrifice.

Somdatta Chakraborty

Senior Adjunct Researcher

 References:

Arun Chaudhuri(ed) Aguner Parāshmoni, Calcutta: Ababhash, 2003.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. (a)Anandamath, Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad,1978(1882).

(b) Devi Chaudhurani, Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad,1978(1884).

Geraldine Forbes. Women in Modern India, The New Cambridge History of India, USA: Cambridge University Press,1996.

Sumit Sarkar. Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903-1908, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2011.