Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

 

A Gandhian, a freedom fighter, a social reformer,  a trade unionist, a patron of arts and a revolutionary of her times, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay will be long remembered for her enormous efforts in organizing women around various causes and for working towards improving the lives and livelihoods of the artisans of the country.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was born to Ananthaya Dhareshwar and Girijabai on April 3rd, 1903. They were an aristocratic family from Mangalore. Kamaladevi lost her father at a very young age and was brought up by her mother. Kamaladevi was a bright student. She studied Sanskrit drama tradition of Kerala – Kutivattam during school.

In 1917, when she was only fourteen years of age, she was married to Krishna Rao, and was widowed within two years, while she was still at school. According to orthodox Hindu rules of the times, being a widow she was not allowed to continue her education, yet she defiantly moved to Chennai, and continued her education from St. Mary’s School, Chennai and finally completed her high school in 1918. There she met a well-known poet, playwright, actor and brother of Sarojini Naidu, Harindranath Chattopadhyay and married him. The couple had one son. Shortly after marriage, Kamaladevi accompanied her husband to London where she received a diploma in Sociology from
University of London. It was during this time that Kamaladevi heard about Gandhi and his non-cooperation movement. She returned to India and joined Gandhi’s Seva Dal to work for upliftment.
As in-charge of the women’s section she was involved in recruiting, training and organizing girls and women of all ages across India to become voluntary workers. Kamaladevi soon became an active organizer of the women and youth wing of the Indian National Congress. She truly represented the changing face of the 20th Century Indian women. She was the first woman to run for a Legislative seat in India.

Kamaladevi founded the All India Women’s Conference, which soon became a reputed national organization working for legislative reforms. She travelled to many European nations during this time and got inspired to establish educational institutions run for and by women. Lady Irwin College for Home Sciences in New Delhi, thus came into existence, apart from many others. She was a part of the seven member lead team, announced by Mahatma Gandhi, in the famous Salt Satyagraha (1930), to prepare Salt at the Bombay beachfront, the only other women volunteer of the team was Avantikabai Gokhale. Later in a startling move, she went up to a nearby High Court, and asked a
magistrate present there, whether he would be interested in buying the ‘Freedom Salt’ she had just prepared.

On 26th January, 1930 she captured the imagination of the entire nation, when in a scuffle she clung to the Indian tricolor to protect it. In the 1930s, she was arrested for entering the Bombay Stock Exchange to sell packets of contraband salt, and spent almost a year in prison. In 1936, she became President of the Congress Socialist Party, working alongside Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Minoo Masani. When World War II broke out in the 1940s, she was in England, and she immediately began a world tour to represent India’s situation to other countries and drum up support for Independence after the war.

Kamaladevi also acted in a few films. In an era when acting was considered unsuitable for women from respected families. In her first stint, she acted in two silent films, including the first silent film of Kannada film industry Mricchakatika (Vasantasena, 1931), based on a famous play by Sadraka, also strarring Yenaskhi Rama Rao and directed by pioneering Kannada director, Mohan Dayaram Bhavanin. In her second stint in films, she acted in a 1943, Hindi film Tansen also starring K.C. Saigal and Khursheed, followed by Shankar Parvati (1943) and Dhanna Bhagat (1945).

In post-independent India, Kamaladevi worked relentlessly with more than 50,000 refugees in establishing new homes, new professions -for which they were trained in new skills. Thus, began the second phase of her life’s work, in rehabilitation of people as well as their lost crafts, she is considered as being single-handedly responsible for the great revival of Indian handicrafts and handloom, in post-independence era, and it is considered her greatest legacy to modern India.

 

All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC):

After Independence, while some nationalist leaders assumed the responsibility of running the administration, others, notably the socialists, opted for an opposition role to strive for a two party system and to bring their socialist preferences to bear on policy-making, Kamaladevi represented a third category of leaders who took up nongovernmental constructive work. She set out to establish co-operatives. As running co-operatives came naturally to women, she involved herself in the activities of the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC), not as a fiery feminist.

Among specific campaign issues taken up by Kamaladevi and her colleagues, was plugging the loopholes in the Sarada Act, as the Prevention of Child Marriage Act was known. Kamaladevi’s approach was two-fold: to expose and fight against gender injustice of all kinds and simultaneously to strive for the upliftment of women. In that context, she planted the seed of what later became the Lady Irwin College in New Delhi by campaigning for improving the quality and practical value of women’s education.

Meanwhile, the post-partition situation offered a ready-made problem for Kamaladevi to take up. Tens of thousands of refugees from mainly West Punjab were in Delhi looking for shelter and work. Many of them had lost vast property, when they fled their hearths and homes in the wake of mass killings. As many as 10,000 of them, were huddled in tents and makeshift shelters in and around Delhi. Pucca buildings like bungalows and homes vacated by Muslims who had migrated to Pakistan were evacuee property to be allotted by the government to the dispossessed from Pakistan. But it was a time-consuming process, whereas the approaching Delhi winter would make the lives of
the men, women and children in makeshift habitats miserable. She decided that co-operative house building was the solution. It was a long-term problem, in fact a problem for life, as far as the refugees were concerned.

There was no possibility of their going back to the property that they were forced to abandon in Pakistan. Secondly, it would be callous and inhuman to expect them to live in the makeshift structures, until the government was able to rehabilitate them. Running free kitchens and providing doles to them would be an insult to the pride of the Punjabis for whom living on alms was anathema. The result was the Indian co-operative union, which established co-operative farmers-cum-houses at Chattarpur and Jaitpur in the Mehrauli area of the Qutab Minar in Delhi. The Idea was that
the refugees would resume their traditional occupation of farming by growing vegetables and some grain on land to be given to them on a co-operative basis.  

Simultaneously, when the Chattarpur farm was on its feet, Kamaladevi embarked on an industrial township at Faridabad (now in Haryana), where 30,000 refugees were settled. Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the Ex. President of India, had agreed to be the Chairman of the Faridabad Development Board set up under the umbrella of the Indian Cooperative Union and then, the Central Cottage Industries Emporium, a government establishment. It included pottery, woodwork, carvings, metal artifacts, jewellery, furniture accessories and decorative items, besides designer clothes. Through training courses for talent, scouted from different parts of the country with the emphasis on ethnic
traditions, the Emporium has grown into a workshop for imparting new skills to artisans, weavers and crafts persons, besides marketing their handiwork.

Concurrently, Kamaladevi launched the Indian National Theatre (INT), as a means for the national movement to find expression through the arts, including theatre, with her natural flair for the theatre as an instrument of educating the people and spreading awareness of values in them, while reviving the nation’s cultural heritage. The entertainment dimension was an added boon. The INT, which had been confining itself to largely Gujarati plays, made a debut in Delhi with a ballet in English, based on Nehru’s book, The Discovery of India, highlighting the Pan-Asian aspect of Indian nationalism. It was staged at the 1946 Asian Relations Conference, at Purana Qila in Delhi. Overwhelmed, Nehru said that the ballet was “much better than my book”.

Kamaladevi went on to rejuvenate the traditional industries like weaving and handicrafts. As chief of the Board of Handicrafts, she started a pension system for the craftsmen. She set up a series of craft museums like the Theatre Crafts Museum in Delhi, to promote India’s indigenous arts and crafts and to serve as a storehouse for indigenous knowledge. She instituted the National Awards for Master Craftsmen. A culmination of her enterprising spirit lead to the setting up of Central Cottage Industries Emporia, throughout the nation to cater to the tastes of a nation, rising to its ancient glory.

In 1946, Kamaladevi started the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography (NIKC), Bangalore, under the aegis of Bharatiya Natya Sangh, affiliated to the UNESCO. She was instrumental in setting up the All India Handicrafts Board, and The Crafts Council of India. She was the first President of World Crafts Council, Asia Pacific Region. She also set up the National School of Drama and later headed the Sangeet Natak Academy and went on to become a member of UNESCO.

In 2007, the Outlook magazine chose Kamaladevi amongst it's list of 60 Great Indians and she was one of India Today’s 100 Millennium People. Today, the World Crafts Council gives two awards in her memory, the Kamaladevi Awards and the Kamala Sammaan, for exceptional craft persons or to individuals for their outstanding contribution to the field of crafts. The crafts council of Karnataka also gives the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Vishwakarma Awards, each year to noteworthy crafts persons. For over three decades now, Bharatiya Natya Sangha has been awarding the ‘Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Award’ for the best play of the year.

Awards and honors:

The Government of India conferred on Kamaladevi, Padma Bhushan in 1955 and Padma Vibhushan in 1987. She also received the Ramon Megasaysay Award (1966) for community Leadership. She was awarded the Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship, Ratna Sadhya in 1974. UNESCO honoured her with an award in 1977, for her contribution towards the promotion of handicrafts. Shantinikethan honoured her with the Desikottama, its highest award. UNIMA (Union Internationals de la Marlonette), International Puppetry Organization, also made her their Member of Honour.

Kamaladevi is an accomplished writer. Some of her books include The Awakening of Indian women, Everyman’s Press, Socialism and Society, Chetana and Traditions of Indian Folk Dance. Her autobiography Inner Recesses and Outer Spaces: Memoir, became very famous.

Kamaladevi’s immense contribution in working with women, refugees and artisans will continue to inspire us. She was truly a woman ahead of her times. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay died on October 29th 1988.

Books by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay:

• The Awakening of Indian women, Everyman’s Press, 1939
• Japan-its weakness and strength, Padma Publications 1943
• Uncle Sam's empire, Padma publications Ltd, 1944
• In war-torn China, Padma Publications, 1944
• Towards a National theatre, (All India Women's Conference, Cultural Section. Cultural books),
• America: The land of superlatives, Phoenix Publications, 1946

 

 

• At the Cross Roads, National Information and Publications, 1947
• Socialism and Society, Chetana, 1950
• Tribalism in India, Brill Academic Pub, 1978, ISBN 0706906527
• Handicrafts of India, Indian Council for Cultural Relations & New Age International Pub. Ltd., New Delhi, India, 1995.
• Indian Women’s Battle for Freedom. South Asia Books, 1983. ISBN 0-8364-0948-5
• Indian Carpets and Floor Coverings, All India Handicrafts Board, 1974
• Indian embroidery, Wiley Eastern, 1977
• India's Craft Tradition, Publications Division, Ministry of I & B, Govt. of India, 2000. ISBN 81-230-0774-4
• Indian Handicrafts Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd, Bombay India, 1963
• Traditions of Indian Folk Dance
• The Glory of Indian Handicrafts, New Delhi, India: Clarion Books, 1985
• Inner Recesses, Outer Spaces: Memoirs, 1986. ISBN 81-7013-038-7

Books on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya:

• Sakuntala Narasimhan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. New Dawn Books, 1999. ISBN 81-207-2120-9
• S.R. Bakshi, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya : Role for Women’s Welfare, Om, 2000, ISBN 81-86867-34-1
• Reena Nanda, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya: A Biography (Modern Indian Greats), Oxford University Press, USA,
2002, ISBN 0-19-565364-5
•Jamila Brij Bhushan, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya - Portrait of a Rebel, Abhinav Pub, 2003. ISBN 81-7017-033-8
• M.V. Narayana Rao (Ed.), Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: A True Karmayogi. The Crafts Council of Karnataka:
Bangalore. 2003
• Malvika Singh, the Iconic Women of Modern India - Freeing the Spirit. Penguin, 2006, ISBN 0-14-310082-3

As a young lady from a Sarawat Brahmin family, Kamaladevi had a child marriage at the age of 14. She lost her husband early and become a widow. Here she crossed many hurdles of Hindu rites and got re-married in those days and pursued her higher education in London. She is a true role model, not only for the women of today, but for every Indian. Her work in various fields and areas for the up-liftment of people and for promoting ethnic arts and crafts, will always be remembered.