Kamaladevi Chottopadhayay and the Making of Modern India: Round Table, 22nd April 2016
Opening Remarks by Devaki Jain
Welcome to the Round Table No table! Nor anything official.
We are using this concept just to provide an equal space to all of us, as non hierarchical as possible. As anyone can talk, question and challenge – a level field rather than a panel- Hope it works!
My sister, Kapila, will be with us this afternoon, so I will, with your permission take a few minutes and share some reflections.
Talking of non hierarchical, that was one more of the many special qualities of our dear mentor and friend, Kamaladevi. I was present in the IIC auditorium where she presided over a meeting of the world crafts council, of which I think she was the Chair or President that year. She refused to use the stage set up for her and others. She got the mike and cable and everything down and spoke standing with the mike in the hand. Again making the point she made later in Pune, by refusing to go to the podium along with the chief minister Chavan and others , to light the lamp celebrating the platinum jubilee of the AIWC . They brought the lamp to the back of the auditorium and she lit it there along with the rank and file - bold, audacious, ever so alert to catch any semblance of hierarchies and exclusion.
Another time, I was with her when she was the president or chair of the Sangeet Natak Akademi .That year M S Subbalakshmi was being honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar. Both of them, K and MS were seated on the dias and the secr was reading out the ovation. When it came to putting the vastram on MS and speaking , K d said .. Who is honouring Who? It is an honour for me, I am honoured to have this moment with M S ..
This culture of leveling out the field, of openness and non hierarchy was one of the many cultures that she brought into the running of the IIC, amongst other institutions. Those who worked with her here, whether as PAs, like dear Mr Kutty , or managers like dear Mr Joshi or the many housekeepers or the librarian Mr Kaul, Premola and all the programme office, all remember her as this accessible, warm open door “leader”. She created a non hierarchical culture in IIC.
I emphasize this, as this giant of a woman, - what you see in her words and achievements, had an extraordinary understanding of ethics, of equality, of justice. Once when I asked her if she could get me special invites to the Republic Day parade (my sons were school children at that time), she told me how she abhorred the whole ceremony. It was an abomination she said, as the parade showcases weapons of war – violence in Gandhi’s India. She also added, saying I am so ashamed that Dr Rajendra Prasad, is using the coach and four to the parade ..just like the british GG ! How could he do that, coming from the freedom struggle? How weak we are? And living in the g g residence, the Rashtrapati Bhavan- the place which ruled over us and which we abhorred?
So, here was someone who could teach us how to be Indians, how to safeguard what she and others fought for, how to be rebellious when hierarchies are imposed, how to combine a powerful intellect, gifted writing with a passion for art and the artist? I know of no one in our modern history, who was all this … so am grateful to all and especially to IIC and there to Kapila, to Premola and her colleagues who remember her and loved her for making this 10 day program possible. And, of course to Rohini and Nandan Nilekani for funding it and to another very dear friend, Darren Walker, the current President of the Ford Foundation, to have prodded me to doing this, after reading her memoirs.
I urge all of you to ensure that IIC not only retains this “culture” but also remains an open, simple, humane space.
Unlike many others here and outside, I did not know Kamala devi till 1966- the day I married Lakshmi Jain . He was , if I may say so, her right hand for many decades, working with her in building Faridabad , cottage industries , and I don’t know what else .But he adored her , and at the same time held her in awe . So since our marriage was a “secret” and not a secret on july 15thof 66 , he had to tell her first So he invited her to dinner in the flat , and I must say , we both really bonded, two women from Karnataka. She brought me a string of jasmine, and later told me , that she guessed he had married !
But between 1966 till her death, we were engaged with each other , but I am so sad and actually rocked with grief , that I did not know this person, whom I met for the first time in her , memoirs , Inner Recesses and Outer Spaces, which I urge everyone, Indian and not , to read.
In the 70s when I entered the women’s movement , Delhi was divided into the old and new women’s movements . New was considered radical, it was largely Marxist , and old was all that want before AIWC and thereby Kamaladevi also !
As the exhibition reveals she was a revolutionary, a dissenter even with the high ups in the freedom movement, she wrote and wrote and wrote into the papers , the congress vehicle and as you would see articles in newspapers in the USA in the 30’s. Premola helped to find a quote of her statement at the Harlem, NAACP, 1939- "We condemn Imperialism and oppression in South Africa and in any other part of the World... we feel a racial kinship with other colored peoples".
Wish we “new” had recognized that she led the first strike of women cashew nut huskers, large and successful in the early 1930s ( she would be 27 years old then ),Kamaladevi recalls this as her“first taste of conducting a labour strike and proved quite an experience. We had however a resounding victory”.(p. 187)
In the 1930’s she was lobbying for the Prevention of Child marriage Act and had some confrontation with Motilal Nehru.
Shechallenged Sardar Vallbhai Patel, wrote a stinging article criticizing him for not including the resolution of the youth congress, of which she was the leader. Nehru rebukes her for “---poisonous pen,” and then Gandhi confesses that he advised the congress leaders not to take her into the Congress Working Committee , -a kind of Kanhaiya of her times. So how was she labeled as “conservative” old Women’s Movement?
She met and informed the US of Gandhi’s struggle, India’s struggle for freedom. A book about her revolutionary work is coming out edited by two historians in the USA .
In my view she was a greater revolutionary radical person than others named so, in Indian history. I will not mention names. It is time for us to write in detail about this woman, to remove the narrow labeling .I hope many books will emerge after this exposition , if possible as many as we have on male leaders including Bhagat singh and others ..
This moment is specially special for me not only because we are going to talk about her and more but for an additional reason- you may not know that Gopal Gandhi (Gopu) as we call him is my once removed son-in-law (if he doesn’t mind the claim!) He is married to Tara, my brother’s daughter.
So it is both awesome and sweet to be with him at this session, sitting by his side remembering Kamaladevi. When Gopu was Indian High Commissioner in South Africa, he showed me the 5 big photos that he had adorned the residence. These were 5 women leaders of India
Welcome all.
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