‘Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’: This biography presents a women’s rights champion ahead of her times
She developed a keen understanding of the struggles of the Indian woman in global movements against sexism, colonialism and class inequality, shows Nico Slate.
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On March 12, 1930, Gandhi began his most celebrated march. A 386-kilometre trek from his ashram in Ahmedabad to the Arabian Sea. The plan was to scoop up a handful of salty sand and thus break the government’s monopoly on the production of salt. At first, 27-year-old Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was baffled by the very idea of the salt satyagraha. This concept occurred to her as rather “hazy”. How could a simple act of picking up a handful of salt spark a revolution against the British Raj?
“Is that all our Great Leader could devise?” she asked Jawaharlal Nehru. The 60-year-old Mahatma strode forward, walking stick in hand, accompanied by 78 carefully selected satyagrahis who were diverse in nearly all ways except for one glaring exception. They were all men. This rattled Kamaladevi even further. She was to learn that women were not allowed to participate in this satyagraha. “I had built up a whole edifice of hopes involving women in this great adventure”, she later recalled. “This was to be their breakthrough”.
A thorough feminist
Kamladevi rushed to Gujarat to speak with Gandhi directly. She caught up with him on 22 March between the small towns of Jambusar and Amod. Walking at his side, she...
