Manikuntala Sen was born in Barisal, in modern-day, Bangladesh, in 1911. Barisal is commonly associated with the jatra playwright, Mukunda Das. Ashwini Kumar Dutta, a prominent nationalist leader and educationalist, was a friend of the family and an early influence on her, as was Jagadish C. Mukhopadhyay, principal of Brajamohan College, which was affiliated with the University of Calcutta, where Manikuntala earned her BA. She met Gandhi, when he visited Barisal, in 1923. She was particularly interested when he convinced a group of prostitutes to advocate for liberation. Her family stopped wearing imported fabrics, they became patrons of Bangalakshmi Mills, owned and run by Indians and an icon of the nationalist movement. Barisal was a hotbed for revolutionary politics at the time. Manikuntala would later take up teaching at an all-girls school, where she met, Shantisudha Ghosh, a member of the Jugantar Party, who read and shared the writings of Lenin & Marx. She was skeptical at first but she was brought under their sway, especially after Shantisudha was taken in for questioning and harassed by the police. Manikuntala convinced her family to send her to Calcutta to further her studies and as she secretly hoped, make contact with the Communist party.
When she moved to Calcutta, she lived in a hostel with several other young girls. At first, she was in total awe of living in a big city but that would soon fade. Manikuntala often wrote very bluntly (which was very unconventional for the time) of the harrassment her and her friends often faced from men. Through a friend, she became acquainted with leaders of, Mahila Shakti Sangha and a number of notable congresswomen, this encouraged her budding feminism and pushed her to further look into the need for women's position in society, to change. Manikuntala also got in touch with the Revolutionary Communist Party of India, the "real" communist party of India, which was an underground entity at the time and after some digging, found that their headquarters were located in Barisal.
Her parents were initially reluctant to accept her involvement with the party, as it was regarded as a dangerous group of rebels, wanted by the authorities. But shortly after becoming a communist in 1939, Manikuntala took her mother to a meeting led by, Biswanath Mukherjee, the brother of, Ajoy Mukherjee. His impassioned speech converted her mother to the cause. Manikuntala took this chance to ask for permission to travel alone (along with young male activists) to another meeting, she was given consent, albeit grudgingly. She lived on a party stipend and starting in 1942, Manikuntala began travelling around the country, staying in small villages and addressing the people. She describes how men shunned her because she was a woman and women would avoid her because of purdah and she was seen as a leader and therefore, the equal of a man.
In 1943, a devastating famine swept over Bengal, caused by a shortage of rice and the dislocation of whole populations of people due to war. A cyclone also hit the district of Midnapore (West Bengal) and Manikuntala began relief work there, she spent the war years travelling the districts of West Bengal, providing aid to poor, vulnerable women. Manikuntala was imprisoned in 1948, the year after India gained independence and the communist party was banned. She remained in custody until 1951, only to than find the party in shambles and her hometown, Barisal, a part of of East Pakistan.
After this she stepped back from the political scene and increased her work with feminist organizations such as, the Women's International Democratic Federation and the All India Women's Conference. Manikuntala had come to realize the communist party had inherent biases against women and that she would never rise through the ranks. It was around this time she met her future husband, Jolly Kaul, a Kashmiri, also a communist part member. She was elected to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, on a seat in the Kolkata district, in 1952. She campaigned for the Hindu Code Bill and clashed with rightwing party leaders such as, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee.
The onset of war with China, in 1962, brought the forefront the various disagreements, in the Communist Party of India and led to a split with the Indian government briefly cracking down on all those who still sided with China. Both Manikuntala and Jolly, agreed they couldn't choose between the 2 new parties formed from the split of the communist party. Jolly resigned, Manikuntala stayed on but withdrew from active party participation. The couple moved to Delhi, but returned to Calcutta after a few years.
Manikuntala Sen died on September 11, 1987. Her memoir, Shediner Kotha (In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey (translated from the original Bangla in 2001), recounts her experiences as a female activist during some of the most turbulent times in India's history.
Side notes:
Jatra- a popular form of Bengali folk theatre.
Ajoy Mukherjee- an Indian independence activist and politician he served three short terms as the Chief Minister of West Bengal.
Purdah- a form of religious and social isolation practiced by women in many sects of Islam and Hinduism.
Hindu Code Bill- a series of laws passed in 1950's that aimed to codify and reform Hindu law in India.
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Women in Literature and Music
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