Kalpana Dutta
Born in Chittagong district (now Bangladesh) on 27 July 1913. While studying at Bethune College in Calcutta, she was inspired to join the Chhatri Sangha, and was drawn into the revolutionary circle in Chittagong led by Surya Sen, known as ‘Master-da’.
Born in Chittagong district (now Bangladesh) on 27 July 1913. While studying at Bethune College in Calcutta, she was inspired to join the Chhatri Sangha, and was drawn into the revolutionary circle in Chittagong led by Surya Sen, known as ‘Master-da’. After the Chittagong Armory Raid (April 1930) Kalpana and Pritilata Wadedar persuaded Master-da to train them for direct action. Kalpana planned to plant a dynamite fuse under the court building and inside the jail to free the revolutionary leaders. The plot was discovered, but even while she was in internment she managed to evade police surveillance and to visit regularly the village where Surya Sen was staying. Pritilata attained martyrdom during the attack on the European Club at Chittagong (September 1931). Kalpana had been arrested a week before the action, and heard about Pritilata’s martyrdom while in jail. On obtaining bail, she went underground and managed to escape arrest when the police captured Surya Sen from their hideout. She was eventually arrested a few months later. Surya Sen and Tarakeswar Dastidar were sentenced to death, and Kalpana was sentenced to transportation for life. Released in 1939, she graduated from Calcutta University in 1940. Soon she joined the CPI and married P.C. Joshi in 1943. She went back to Chittagong to organize the Kisans’ and women’s fronts of the party. In 1946 she contested, unsuccessfully, in the elections to the Bengal Legislative Assembly. Kalpana Datta died on 8 February 1995.
Three young students Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha were released on bail on June 15 through a historic order by the Delhi High Court.
Ranjana changed the course of her life through her commitment to the ideas of Marxism, by being inspired by the ideas of socialism, and her dreams of living up to the ideals of communism.
The election battle, and the challenges ahead
While heated debates and discussions were expected after the Supreme Court’s Sabarimala judgment, what is unusual is the kind of public intervention made by Union Minister Smriti Irani in her widely…
AIDWA expresses its deep outrage over the sexual abuse and trauma that a number of women in the field of media have suffered. Some of them have broken their silence recently and come out with…
