Namastai, Namastai. Greetings, I bow to you. I would first off, like to thank all of you for giving me, one of the very few women in this conference, this opportunity. I would like to give a shoutout to my friends, Mumtaz Sahiba, and to Kamaladevi Ji. Thank you for sticking up for us, for women, and I would also like to personally thank my very good friend whom I respect greatly, the Mahatma. Thank you for being my guidance and letting me be a part of your journey for the independence of India. I would like to start off with a brief introduction of myself. I was born into a Bengali Brahman Hindu family in Hyderabad. My father was a scientist, a philosopher, and an educator. He founded the Nizam College of Hyderabad. He was also the first member of the Indian National Congress in Hyderabad. My mother was a poet in the Bengali language In the beginning, My father wanted me to become a mathematician or a scientist but I guess I was more like my mother because I was very attracted to poetry. The first time my father acknowledged my passion for poetry was when I expressed my words and emotions into a poem I wrote in English. I wrote to impress him actually, and I’m pretty sure it did because he encouraged me to keep on writing. With great thanks to The Nizam, which is the prince of Hyderabad, I was granted a scholarship to go study overseas in London at 16. I was studying at King’s College and later on joined Girton College in Cambridge. During my time abroad, I’ve met many influential people who have advised me into being ‘a genuine indian poet not just a clever machine made imitator of the english classics’. I met my husband, a non-Brahmin Indian man while studying in England. Our marriage took place during a time when inter-caste marriages were not allowed nor tolerated by the indian society at all. Which perfectly leads me to the next point I would like to address.
I was deeply affected by the partition of bengal in 1905, when the british decided to break the unity of us Indians. They parted us, they parted our families, into the west and east. ‘Muslims to the east!… Hindus to the west!’ said the British. I was outraged. I recognized that that was their divide and rule policy. They were trying to divide us to make us ‘easier’ to rule. That’s when I decided to join the Indian Freedom Struggle. Here is where I believe I’m more similar to my father. I took a rest from writing and I started to devote myself fully to the political causes of India.
The first time I met Gandhiji was when he had initiated his principles of passive resistance. At that time, i wasn’t able to meet him at his ship on his arrival but it was the next afternoon when I went around searching for where he was staying at the time being. I burst out laughing the very first time I actually got to meet him in person because this wasn’t what I pictured of our famous leader whose name had already become a household word in our country. Instead what I found was a man in an old, unfashionable house. I found a little man with a shaved head, sitting on the floor eating a messy meal of squashed tomatoes and olive oil out of a wooden prison bowl. I laughed because I was happy. I was happy because this showed me how humble and down to earth this man actually is. In a way, that ignited our friendship which flowered into a real and loyal, lifelong discipleship. I would say that I religiously followed Gandhi Ji actively and supported his other campaigns like the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, the Khilafat issue, the Sabarmati, the Satyagraha pledge as well as the civil disobedience movement. When Gandhiji was arrested after the salt march to Dandi, I led the Dharasana Satyagraha along with other leaders as well. At that time, I was aware that this march could potentially lead to violence. But I told my people that they must NOT use any violence under ANY circumstances. I told them, you will be beaten, but you must NOT resist: you must not even raise a hand to ward off blows. We have to stick together and show the British that we Indian brothers and sisters will stick together for the Independence of our country, without violence. We need to stand up for our country if we want to see the day where we are free from the British holding us back. I’ve been arrested for standing up for what I believe in, several times, and once it led to imprisonment for 21 months. And I will continue with great bravery to fight for our freedom because one day I want to be able to stand tall and proud and say Jai hind! Jai hind. Victory to India! After my release, I decided to go back into the political agitation but this time my prime focus was ensuring women’s safety and empowerment as a universal rule. Which leads to my next point, which is one of the main reasons why I decided to join politics in the first place. Equality for all women.
I wanted to devote myself to campaigning for widow remarriage, female education, and suffrage. Indian women, especially during this critical time, are often portrayed as ‘housewives’. Men want us to just sit and wait for them to come home. They expect us to be preparing meals for them, picking up after them, doing their laundry and raising our children at home. Don’t get me wrong I love my children and my husband very much but I believe that us women, we have so much more to offer than just doing household chores. Women deserve to do whatever they want. A lot of the men in the INC or even the Muslim League or the other individuals might not even be where they are right now if it weren’t for us. I would like to give my sincere gratitude to say that I am so very grateful to have this platform to speak about what I stand for, as well as I am grateful for you all for putting me in this position but because I have to do whatever it takes to bring equal rights to women. Although, yes many of you have acknowledged some of my views on women’s issues but as Mumtaz Sahiba has mentioned in the last conference, I can still see that in this political field it is a male-dominated. Kamala Devi Ji, you are my good friend, I respect you greatly and you are a life-long advocate and tireless worker for women’s issues as well but in all honesty, at times you prioritize the interests of the working class above the rights of women of all classes. Yes, I do understand that we want all of India to be unified, we want our brothers and sisters to be free from the British and some of you might want to prioritize that first, however, if we are able to unite women of all classes and across religious barriers, and just women in general. Then that is nearly half of the population already. We would truly achieve great strengths and unity just from the purpose of serious change for women’s empowerment. My point is, I want all women to be equal. I want all women to overcome the fear of sati because what is a woman without a husband? She is still a woman. A woman who will thrive and do whatever it takes to live, She will do whatever it takes to be able to support herself and her family. Even without a husband. I want to get rid of purdah because why do we have to hide behind curtains or hide behind fabric to stay out of sight of men or strangers. We should have the rights and the freedom to be wherever we want and to dress however we want. We should not have to worry about how men view us. That’s on their part. They should be able to stop themselves from doing anything to us when they see us in “normal clothing”. We should stop child marriage. We should stop sending off young girls to men who they barely even know. They should be able to choose who they want to start a family with. We should stop discriminating women from different castes. Whichever caste we are in, we didn’t choose it. Why discriminate even more, when we’re already being discriminated by the British. Women from all castes should be able to stand equally in this country. These are some of the things I want to achieve for all women of India because Hum Pool nahee, chingari hai. We are not flowers, we are sparks.
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