Sarala Devi Chaudhurani
Sarala Devi Chaudhurani | |
|---|---|
 Sarala Devi Chaudhurani | |
| Born | Sarala Ghosal 9 September 1872 |
| Died | 18 August 1945 (aged 72) Kolkata, British India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Educationist, political activist |
| Spouse(s) | Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri
(m. 1905; died 1923) |
| Children | Dipak (son) |
| Relatives | Swarnakumari Devi (mother) Janakinath Ghosal (father) Debendranath Tagore (maternal grandfather) Rabindranath Tagore (maternal uncle) Indira Devi Chaudhurani (maternal cousin) Surendranath Tagore (maternal cousin) |
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Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, born Sarala Ghosal,[1] (9 September 1872 – 18 August 1945) was an educationist and political activist, who founded Bharat Stree Mahamandal in Allahabad in 1910. This was the first women's organization in India. One of the primary goals of the organization was to promote female education. The organization opened several offices in Lahore (then part of unpartitioned India), Allahabad , Delhi, Karachi, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Bankura, Hazaribagh, Midnapur, and Kolkata to improve the situation of women all over India.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Sarala was born in Jorasanko, Kolkata on 9 September 1872 to a well known Bengali intellectual family. Her father was one of the first secretaries of the Bengal Congress. Her mother Swarnakumari Devi, a noted author, was the daughter of Debendranath Tagore, an eminent Brahmo leader and father of poet Rabindranath Tagore. Her older sister, Hironmoyee, was an author and founder of a widow's home. Sarla Devi's family was a follower of Brahmoism, a religion founded by Ram Mohan Roy and later developed by Sarala's grandfather Debendranath Tagore.[2]
In 1890, she earned her BA in English literature from Bethune College. She was awarded the college's first Padmavati Gold Medal[3] for being the top female candidate in her BA examinations.[2] She was one of the few women of her time to participate in the Indian independence movement. During anti partition agitation she spread the gospel of nationalism in Punjab and maintained secret revolutionary society.[citation needed]
Career[]
Upon completing her education, Sarala went to Mysore State and joined the Maharani Girls' School as a teacher. A year later, she returned home and started writing for Bharati, a Bengali journal, while also beginning her political activities.[4]
From 1895 to 1899, she edited Bharati jointly with her mother and sister,[5] and then on her own from 1899 to 1907, with the goal of propagating patriotism and to raise up the literary standard of the journal. In 1904, she started the Lakshmi Bhandar (women's store) in Kolkata to popularize native handicrafts produced by women. In 1910, she founded the Bharat Stree Mahamandal (All India Women's Organization),[2] which is regarded by many historians as the first All-Indian organization for women.[6] With several branches around the country, it promoted education and vocational training for women without consideration of class, caste and religion.[2]
Personal life[]
In 1905, under family pressure, Sarala Devi married (1866–1923), a lawyer, journalist, nationalist leader and follower of Arya Samaj, the Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.[5][2]
After her marriage, she moved to Punjab. There, she helped her husband edit the nationalist Urdu weekly Hindusthan, which was later converted into an English periodical. When her husband was arrested for his involvement in Non-cooperation movement, Mahatma Gandhi visited her home in Lahore as a guest; and Gandhi fell for her. Gandhi-Saraladebi became a talk-of-the-town in Lahore on the account of their closeness. Gandhi lapped up her poems and writings, and used them in his speeches, and in Young India and other journals. She travelled with him all over India. When apart, they frequently exchanged letters.[7] According to Rabindra Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, the relationship between the two, although close, was nothing more than mutual admiration.[8] Her only son, Dipak, married Gandhi's granddaughter Radha.[2]
Later life[]
After her husband's death in 1923, Sarala Devi returned to Kolkata, and resumed editing responsibilities for Bharati from 1924 to 1926. She established a girls' school, Siksha Sadan in Kolkata in 1930. She retired from public life in 1935 and indulged religion, accepting Bijoy Krishna Goswami, a Gaudiya Vaisnava, as her spiritual teacher.[2]
She died on 18 August 1945 in Kolkata.[2]
Her autobiography Jivaner Jhara Pata was serialized in Desh, a Bengali literary magazine, during the later period of her life, in 1942–1943. It was later translated into English by Sikata Banerjee as The Scattered Leaves of My Life (2011).[9][10]
References[]
- ^ Ray, Bharati (13 September 2012). "Sarala and Rokeya: Brief Biographical Sketches". Early Feminists of Colonial India: Sarala Devi Chaudhurani and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-808381-8 – via Oxford Scholarship Online.(subscription required)
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h Ray, Bharati. "Chaudhurani, Sarala Devi". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/94958. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "Bethune College - Banglapedia". Banglapedia. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
- ^ Ghosh, Sutanuka (2010). "Expressing the Self in Bengali Women's Autobiographies in the Twentieth Century". South Asia Research. 30 (2): 105–23. doi:10.1177/026272801003000201. PMID 20684082. S2CID 19756923.(subscription required)
- ^ Jump up to: a b Neogi, Goutam (1985). "Bengali Women in Politics : The Early Phase (1857-1905)". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Indian History Congress. 46: 487. JSTOR 44141393.
- ^ Majumdar, Rochona (2002). ""Self-Sacrifice" versus "Self-Interest": A Non-Historicist Reading of the History of Women's Rights in India". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Duke University Press. 22 (1–2): 24. doi:10.1215/1089201X-22-1-2-20 – via Project MUSE.(subscription required)
- ^ Kapoor, Pramod (13 October 2014). "When Gandhi Nearly Slipped". Outlook India.
- ^ "Sarala Devi: From Tagore's family, a leading light of the swadeshi movement". The Indian Express. 8 March 2020. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
- ^ Mookerjea-Leonard, Debali (2017). Literature, Gender, and the Trauma of Partition: The Paradox of Independence. New York: Taylor & Francis. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-317-29389-7.
- ^ McDermott, Rachel Fell; Gordon, Leonard; Embree, Ainslie; Pritchett, Frances; Dalton, Dennis, eds. (2014). "Radical Politics and Cultural Criticism, 1880–1914: The Extremists". Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Columbia University Press. p. 283. ISBN 978-0-231-13830-7 – via De Gruyter.(subscription required)
Further reading[]
- Chaudhurani, Sarala Devi (2010). The Many Worlds of Sarala Devi: A Diary : Translated from the Bengali Jeevaner Jharapata. Translated by Ray, Sukhendu. New Delhi: Social Science Press. ISBN 978-81-87358-31-2.
External links[]
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- Bengali people
- Indian feminists
- Indian women educational theorists
- 1945 deaths
- 1872 births
- Bethune College alumni
- University of Calcutta alumni
- 19th-century Indian educational theorists
- 20th-century Indian women scientists
- 20th-century Indian educational theorists
- Founders of Indian schools and colleges
- Women scientists from West Bengal
- Women writers from West Bengal
- 19th-century Indian women scientists
- Women educators from West Bengal
- 19th-century women writers
- 20th-century women writers
- 19th-century women educators
- 20th-century women educators