Urmila Devi, sister
of Deshabandhu Chittaranjan Das, was born at Telirbagh
in Dacca on 3 February 1883, in an upper middle
class Hindu Vaidya family. Her father Bhuban Mohan
das was an eminent lawyer and Solicitor.
Born with the proverbial silver-spoon in her mouth,
she had her early education at he Lore-to Convent
School in Calcutta. Teenage found her married
to Ananta Narayan Sen and burdened with the social
and family duties of a wife and mother. But she
continued her studies at home and applied herself
so assiduously to the task that she acquired remarkable
proficiency in both spoken and written Bengali.
She closely followed the fast-changing political
scene of Bengal right from he days of the Swadeshi
movement. In the ‘twenties her brother’s
house was the hub and center of Calcutta, and
here she came into contact with people of various
shades and opinion, which was an education by
itself. Among attracted to the quite-spoken
Mahatma Gandhi, for whom religion and politics
were one and the same.
In 1920 Gandhiji gave the call for non-violent
non-cooperation. Her Husband’s death occurred
the same year, and in her distraught state of
mind Urmila Devi felt an urge to hold on to
something. Non-cooperation was the answer. From
1921, when she joined the non-cooperation movement,
till 1933, when at Gandhiji’s behest she
toured South India to promote eradication of
the evil of untouchability, she remained a close
adherent of Gandhiji. Even her brother’s
short-lived estrangement from the Mahatma could
not interfere with her strong loyalty to Gandhiji.
Urimila Devi was among the first batch of women
in Bengal to have defied the ban of selling
Khadi during the non-cooperation movement. It
was while calling for a hartaal to be observed
on 24 December 1921, on the occasion of the
arrival of the Prince of Whales in India, that
she was arrested and sentenced to a term of
imprisonment. On her release, she organized
the Nari Karma Mandir to
act as the women’s wing of the non-cooperation
movement and also to
|
undertake the work
of national reconstruction. The association was
banned as an unlawful organization soon after
it was started. In 1926 she toured all over India
accompanying the Congress President, Sarojini
Naidu.
In 1930 she set up her Nari Satyagraha Samiti
for picketing in front of shops dealing with foreign
cloth. The Samiti was banned soon after for the
offence of organizing a mammoth procession, in
defiance of he Governments order, on the occasion
of Deshabandhu’s birth-anniversary, and Urmila
Devi was sentenced to six month’s imprisonment.
On her release in 1931, she vehemently upheld
the right of the detenues for being represented
on the Commission of Enquiry set up in connection
with the Hijli outrage, and was arrested once
again for presiding over a conference held in
Howrah district in that connection. Later, she
was placed under house-arrest on two occasions
and was bound over for defying the order both
the times.
After this hectic episode of her career she
retired from active politics, although she kept
herself in constant readiness to take up any
work that Mahatma Gandhi assigned her. It was
in that she went to South India in 1933 on Gandhiji’s
Harijan mission, and, while there, succeeded
in throwing open a temple in Malabar to the
untouchables. In 1946, worn-out as she was physically,
she unhesitatingly attached herself to Gandhiji’s
party when he toured Noakhali in his peace mission.
The old campaigner was laid to rest on 10 May
1956. It may be said here that Urmila Devi did
not wish, nor had any need, to shine in the
reflected glory of her great brother, C.R.Das.
That, of course, should not be taken to mean
that her brother did not exert the influence
of his powerful personality on Urmila Devi’s
formative years. But the fact of the matter
is that by her very nature and outlook she was
cast in the mould which shaped such examples
of India’s woman-hood as Sarala Devi Chaudhurani
and Sarojini Naidu.
|