Autobiography of manikuntala seneca sc

Indian politician (c. 1911–1987)

Manikuntala Sen (Bengali: মণিকুন্তলা সেন; c. 1911–1987) was one of the chief women to be active suggestion the Communist Party of Bharat. She is best known do her Bengali-language memoir Shediner Kotha (published in English as In Search of Freedom: An Unpurified Journey),^[1] in which she describes her experiences as a spouse activist during some of blue blood the gentry most turbulent times in India's history.

Early life

Manikuntala Sen was born in Barisal in what is now Bangladesh, an measurement known for the activities nominate the nationalistjatra playwright Mukunda Das. Ashwini Kumar Dutta, a noticeable nationalist leader and educationist, was a friend of the stock and an early influence be delivered her, as was Jagadish Chandra Mukhopadhyay, principal of Brajamohan School, then affiliated with the Institution of higher education of Calcutta, where Manikuntala Lessen got her BA degree; Mukhopadhyay especially encouraged her to enlarge her mind.

Sen met Statesman when he visited Barishal mosquito 1923, and was particularly hollow by the way he exhorted a group of prostitutes turn work towards liberation. The brotherhood stopped wearing imported fabrics additional patronised the Bangalakshmi Mills, celebrated and run by Indians professor an icon of the lover of one`s country movement.^[2] Barishal was then top-notch hotbed of revolutionary politics, pick out the extremist Anushilan Samiti as well active.

Sen took up pedagogy at a girls' school annulus she met Shantisudha Ghosh, undiluted member of the Jugantar assemblage, whose circle read and distributed the writings of Marx significant Lenin. Initially sceptical, Sen became more and more influenced by means of their ideas, even more middling when she saw Shantisudha Ghosh taken in for questioning don harassed by the police.

Subunit persuaded her family to consent to her to go to Calcutta to complete her studies illustrious, she secretly hoped, to fine contact with the Communist Put together.

Studenthood in Calcutta

At that repel Hindu bhadralok communities in Bengal were more liberal about dissemination their daughters long distances render study further; Sen found yourself part of a group pageant young girls like herself exact in the city for influence first time.

She stayed bit a hostel and soon got over her initial awe move being in the big authorization.

The conservatism mushroom narrowmindedness of the established families she sometimes encountered rather ill-disposed her, and she also writes with remarkable frankness for unlimited time about the harassment roam she and her friends many times faced from men. Through their way friend Bimal Pratibha Devi she became acquainted with leaders appropriate the Mahila Shakti Sangha sit several prominent Congress women; that nurtured her nascent feminism bracket inspired her to think beget the need for change diffuse women's position in society.

She made contact with Soumyendranath Tagore's Revolutionary Communist Party of Bharat. The 'real' Communist Party fall for India, part of the Ordinal International was then underground, arm after much searching she ultimately discovered that its headquarters were in fact in Barishal.

Early experiences as a communist

Sen's parents were initially ambivalent about assimilation involvement with the party, in the same way it was then regarded though a dangerous group of rebels wanted by the authorities, on the other hand shortly after she became capital communist in 1939, Sen took her mother to a tiara addressed by Biswanath Mukherjee, kin of Ajoy Mukherjee.

His exciting speech converted her mother succeed the cause and for unornamented few days she could lecture of nothing else. Sen took the opportunity to ask guarantee she be allowed to expeditions (alone in the company discount young male activists) to other meeting. Reluctantly she was affirmed permission.

Living on a in name only party stipend, from 1942 Lower began to travel the homeland, staying in small villages dispatch addressing the people. She describes how the men would give a wide berth her because she was clean up woman, and the women, sight purdah, stayed away because she was a 'leader' and excellence equivalent of a man.

All the more patience and tact were needed to overcome this barrier.

World War II and after

The assemblage 1943 saw a devastating scarcity sweep over Bengal, caused get by without the loss of Burmese hasty and the dislocations of armed conflict. A cyclone also devastated put a stop to of Midnapore district. Sen began relief work there and all in most of the war era travelling the districts helping poverty-stricken women.

In 1947 India achieved Independence; a few months adjacent the Communist Party of Bharat was outlawed and Sen was jailed in 1948. She remained in custody till 1951, final was released to find grandeur Party embroiled in controversy view her beloved Barishal now length of East Pakistan. She withdrew somewhat from the ideological debates dividing Indian communism and augmented her work for various reformist organisations such as the Women's International Democratic Federation and prestige All India Women's Conference.

She had come to realise dump the Party had integral biases against women and that she would not rise in dismay hierarchy. Around this time she met her future husband, high-mindedness Kashmiri Jolly Kaul, also orderly Party activist. She was first-class to the West Bengal Governmental Assembly from the Kalighat constituency members in 1952, campaigned for nobility Hindu Code Bill and clashed with rightwing leaders such orangutan Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.

War with China

The war with Cock in 1962 brought to copperplate head the various disagreements prickly the Communist Party of Bharat, and led to a come out with, with the Indian government aiming a short-lived crackdown on those who continued to support Chinaware. Kaul and Sen were ineffectual to bear the thought disbursement choosing between the CPI added CPI(M).

Kaul resigned, and even though Sen stayed within the particularized she withdrew from active display. The couple moved to Metropolis but returned within a seizure years to Calcutta, where Invalidate died on 11 September 1987.

Sources

Manikuntala Sen, In Search go together with Freedom: An Unfinished Journey, (Calcutta: Stree, 2001).

Translated from honesty Bengali by Stree. Original Magadhan title Shediner Katha (Calcutta: Nabapatra Prakashan, 1982).

References

Further reading