Even if it is
accepted that history does not always reflect the winners’ interpretation while
recording it, it is not always grounded in facts. History books have always
been biased in that sense and therefore the sacrifices of countless young men
and women in Indian freedom movement slowly faded away into obscurity. The love
and loyalty of these young legends for their motherland together with the
blatant refusal to bow down to the British colonist unfortunately fail to find
any significant mention across the pages of history textbooks. This is
especially true when it comes to women radicals. It is an irony that despite
equal involvements in Indian freedom struggle, the representation of women
finds very little room in the documentation of Indian freedom fighters. The present
essay is on one such unsung heroine Kalpana Dutta whose legacy deserves not
only to be celebrated but also deserves a dignified space in the discourse of
history. Kalpana Dutta (or Kalpana Datta), a woman with an iron will and nerves
of steel and a brilliant student of Science, despite being from a blue-blooded
family sacrificed her today for our tomorrow.
Kalpana Dutta was
born at Sripur at the Chattogram (Chittagong) District of undivided Bengal on
July 27, 1913. She pursued her high school education in Chattogram and on
completion of her Matriculation examination in 1929, she went to Calcutta (now
Kolkata) and was admitted to the prestigious Bethune College for graduation in
Science. It was at this time when she joined the ‘Chatri Sangha’, a
semi-revolutionary women’s youth wing, where she met Preetilata Waddedar and
Bina Das, the firebrand revolutionaries. She was inspired by Khudiram Bose’s
martyrdom and Kanailal Dutta’s courage. While the seeds of patriotism were sown
within her in Chattogram, the sense of patriotism got a further push in her
college days. However, as a distinguished student of Science, she was confused
whether to choose the path of revolution or Science. It was on April 18, 1930
that the infamous ‘Chattogram Armoury Raid’ was carried out under the
leadership of Master Da Surya Sen. She was tremendously influenced and inspired
and dearly impressed by Master Da’s ideals and principles and nursed the desire
to fight for her country’s independence. She chose the path of revolution and
hurried back to Chattogram. In May, 1931, she joined the ‘Indian Republican
Army, Chattogram Branch’, the armed resistance group led by Surya Sen.
In the meantime,
many of the leaders of ‘Chattogram Armoury Raid’ like Ananta Singh,
Ganesh Ghosh and Loknath Bal had been arrested and were awaiting trial. One day
during the trial, she came to the court dressed up as a Muslim woman wearing a
burkha. The agenda was to free the revolutionaries. The tall structure of the
woman caught the eyes of the police. She sensed something uncanny and
immediately changed herself into an old woman with a stick and escaped. All the
efforts of the police to nab her ended in smoke. Before escaping, she had
planted a dangerous explosive called gun cotton that worked like a dynamite.
She was an expert in making bombs, especially gun cotton – a mixture of nitric
acid and corpus cotton. She taught her fellow comrades how to make explosives.
She used to act as a courier agent for the revolutionaries. She also used to
have regular training in revolver shooting and learned the technique of
guerrilla warfare introduced by Master Da.
In September,
1931, Kalpana was entrusted along with Preetilata with a plan to attack the
European Club in Chattogram. A week before the action, Kalpana was conducting a
recce of the surrounding area, this time in a boy’s attire, wearing a shirt and
a trouser. She was caught by the police, arrested on charges of trespassing and
put behind the bar. She was subjected to utmost torture but the British police
could not squeeze out any information from her. While in jail, she was told
about the heroic attack in the European club by her fellow comrade Preetilata
and suicide of Preetilata by consuming cyanide to avoid surrender to the
British police. The death of Preetilata was a tragic blow to Kalpana. After two
months, Kalpana was released on bail for want of enough evidences. She then
went to underground at the bidding of Surya Sen. In the early hours of February
17, 1933, the police encircled their hideout and after an encounter, Surya Sen
was captured while Kalpana Dutta along with Manindra Dutta managed to escape.
Three months later on May 19, 1933, she was eventually arrested. In the second
supplementary trial of ‘Chattogram Armoury Raid’ case, Surya Sen and
Tarakeswar Dastidar were sentenced to death and Kalpana Dutta, in view of her
age and “having regard to her sex”, was sentenced to transportation for life.
Amid public protests, Mahatma Gandhi visited her in Alipore jail, Kolkata. The
news that Master Da and Dastidar were sent to gallows reached her inside the
prison and it was a huge blow to her. After six years of imprisonment, Kalpana
was released in 1939, thanks to the campaign launched by Mahatma Gandhi and
Rabindranath Thakur. It is to be mentioned here that Rabindranath Thakur and
Andrews talked with the Bengal Governor for her release.
She then
graduated in Science from the University of Calcutta in 1940. During her days
in Hijli Jail she met Bina Das, another firebrand revolutionist, who was
arrested for attempted murder of Bengal’s Governor at Calcutta University. She
was exposed to communism at this time and this served as a turning point in her
political orientation. During those days, she studied Marx and Lenin
extensively and reviewed her political positions critically. After her release
from jail, she joined the banned Communist Party of India (CPI) and fully
engaged herself to the party work in Bengal. In 1943, Kalpana married the
charismatic party leader and Secretary P.C.Joshi. During this time, she
mobilized the bhadrolok, women, kisans and ‘untouchables’ to the
struggle of empowering the masses to challenge oppression of any form. She
realized that middle class was not reliable in this struggle against capitalist
accumulation and political freedom cannot be the sole objective of the
struggle. She served as a relief worker (organizing relief kitchen for the
starving) during the 1943 Bengal famine and during the partition of Bengal. She
wrote an autobiographical book in Bengali which was translated to English as ‘Chittagong
Armoury Raiders: reminiscences’ and was published in 1945. In 1946, she
contested as a CPI candidate from Chittagong as part of the Bengal Legislative
Assembly but could not win. Then came the “insensate sectarian adventurism”
period in the Communist Party of India resulting in severe loss of the
communist movement of India. P.C Joshi and with him Kalpana were thrown out of
the party.
In 1947, when
India won freedom at the cost of partition of the nation leaving a permanent
scur, she migrated to India. With the country switching over to electoral
politics after independence, Kalpana kept herself away from the mainstream
politics and devoted her life to the cause of fighting for the underprivileged
and dispossessed. Later, with the support of one of her close friends Prof. P.C
Mahalanobish, she joined Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata where she
worked until her retirement. In early 1960s, she moved to Delhi and learned
Russian language. After retirement from the ISI, she worked as the Director of
Russian Languages till the age of 75. Prior to her death, she had recounted
every intimate detail of the bloody battle of Chattogram Uprising to her
daughter-in-law Manini Chatterjee. The narration became an inspiration for Mrs.
Chatterjee to author a non-fiction novel ‘Do and Die: The Chattogram
Uprising (1930 - 34)’.
Kalpana Dutta
breathed her last on February 08, 1995 in Kolkata. Independent India drank
herself so much into oblivion that even the Doordarshan could not spare a few
seconds to announce her passing away. At every event she had been witness to,
her identity as a woman armed freedom activist got reiterated and at every
step, she actively broke the gendered perspective of armed activism. Apart from
dreaming of a free India, Kalpana Dutta wanted to see a country devoid of
poverty and exploitation. She worked hard for the marginalized section of the
society till the last day of her life. Manini Chatterjee once wrote that
“shunning power, pelf and publicity of all kinds, preferring the comfort of
strangers in crowded DTC buses, accepting the craziness of the world around her
without judgement, Kalpana remained till the end a rare amalgam of fire and
grace.” The lure of office and the headline publicity never swayed her from the
duty, dedication, devotion and conviction of her service to humanity. Patriotism
of the highest order in her shall always remain as a shining memory in the
forgotten gallery of the unsung heroes and heroines of India.
