Kalpana Dutta: The woman of 'fire and grace'

Kalpana Dutta: Life of an Unsung Heroine

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.

Suman Sinha

30/06/2021