SARALADEVI ,FREEDOM FIGHTER BORN 1904 AUGUST 9 - 1986 OCTOBER 4

SARALADEVI ,FREEDOM FIGHTER 

BORN  1904 AUGUST 9 - 1986 OCTOBER 4

சரளாதேவி (Sarala Devi, 9 ஆகத்து 1904 – 4 அக்டோபர் 1986) இந்திய சுதந்திர இயக்க ஆர்வலர், பெண்ணிய சமூக ஆர்வலர், எழுத்தாளர். 1921ஆம் ஆண்டில் ஒத்துழையாமை இயக்கம் ஒன்றில் சேர்ந்த முதல் ஒடிசா பெண்மணி ஆவார். சுதந்திர இந்தியாவில் ஒடிசா சட்டமன்றத்தில் தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட முதல் பெண். ஒடிசா சட்டமன்றத்தி்ன் முதலாவது பெண் பேச்சாளராகவும் கட்டாக்கின் கூட்டுறவு வங்கியின் முதல் பெண் இயக்குநராகவும், உப்கால் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தின் முதல் பெண் செனட் உறுப்பினராகவும், இந்திய தேசிய காங்கிரசின் முதல் ஒடிசா பெண் பிரதிநிதியுமாகவும் இருந்தார்.

சரளாதேவி 1904ஆம் ஆண்டு ஆகஸ்ட் 9 அன்று பாலிக்குடாவுக்கு அருகே நாிலோ கிராமத்தில் பிறந்தார். அப்போது வங்காள மாகாணத்தின் ஒரிசா பிாிவு (இப்போது ஒடிசாவில் உள்ள ஜாக்சிங்ஷ்பூர் மாவட்டத்தில்) சமீந்தார் குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர். அவரது தந்தை பசுதேவ் கனுங்கோ மற்றும் அவரது தாயார் பத்மாவதி தேவி ஆவார்.[1][2][3][4][5][6] அவரது தந்தையின் மூத்த சகோதரரான பாலமுகுந்த கனுங்கோ, துணைக் கலெக்டரால் வளா்க்கப்பட்டார். சரளாதேவி தனது தொடக்கக்கல்வியை பங்கிவில் பெற்றார். அந்த நேரத்தில் உயா்கல்விக்கு பெண்களுக்கு எந்த அணுகலும் இல்லை. அதனால் அவளுைடய மாமா ஒரு ஆசிரியரை வீட்டுக்கு வரவழைத்து அவளுக்கு பயிற்றுவித்தார். சரளாதேவி வங்காளம், சமற்கிருதம், ஒடியா ஆகிய மொழிகளைப் பயின்றார். வங்கியில் பணியாற்றிய போது சரளாதேவி விடுதலை இயக்கத்தில் சேர பங்கி என்ற இடத்தின் ராணியாகிய சுகாதேவியின் கதைகளால் ஈர்க்கப்பட்டார்.[7]

1917ல் பகவதி மகாபத்ராவை மணந்தாா். 1918 ஆம் ஆண்டில் இந்திய தேசிய காங்கிரசில் சேர்ந்தார். மகாத்மா காந்தியின் ஒரிசா முதல் பயணத்தைத் தொடா்ந்து 1921ல் காங்கிரஸ் கட்சியில் சோ்ந்தார்.[8] 1943 முதல் 1946 வரை கட்டாக்கில் உள்ள உட்கால் சாஉறிதி சமாஜின் செயலாளராக பணியாற்றினார். சரளாதேவி 30 புத்தகங்களையும் 300 கட்டுரைகளையும் எழுதியுள்ளார்.[9][10]


பல்வேறு சிறப்புகளும் பன்முகத்தன்மையும் படைத்த ஆளுமையாக விளங்கிய சரளாதேவி, வரலாற்றின் பக்கங்களில் போதுமான அளவு கொண்டாடப்படவில்லை என்பது வேதனையான உண்மை.

ஒடிசா மாநிலத்தின் சட்டமன்றத்துக்குத் தேர்வுசெய்யப்பட்ட முதல் பெண், சரளாதேவி. காந்தியின் ஒத்துழையாமை இயக்கத்தில் ஒடிசாவிலிருந்து சேர்ந்த முதல் பெண்; ஒடிசா சட்டமன்றத்தின் முதல் பெண் சபாநாயகர்; கட்டாக் கூட்டுறவு வங்கியின் முதல் பெண் இயக்குநர்; உட்கல் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தின் முதல் பெண் செனட் உறுப்பினர்... இப்படிப் பல பெருமைகளுடன் இந்திய வரலாற்றில் கம்பீரமாக நிற்பவர், சரளாதேவி.

உட்கல் பல்கலைக்கழகத்தின் செனட் உறுப்பினராக இருந்தபோது, கல்வித் துறையில் அவர் கொண்டுவந்த மாற்றங்கள் மகத்தானவை. இன்றைய தேதிவரை நம் தேசத்தில் பெண்களுக்கான கல்வி மற்றும் வேலை வாய்ப்பு குறித்த விழிப்புஉணர்வு முழுமையாக ஏற்படவில்லை. தமிழகம் போன்ற நன்கு வளர்ந்த மாநிலங்களிலும் பெண்களைப் படிக்கவும் வேலைக்கு அனுப்பவும் மறுக்கும் குடும்பங்கள் இருக்கவே செய்கின்றன. ஆனால், போன நூற்றாண்டிலேயே பெண்களின் கல்விக்காக யூஜிசி வரை சென்று போராடியவர் சரளாதேவி. அனைவருக்கும் கல்வி எனும் கோரிக்கையுடன் பெண்களை உடல்ரீதியாகவும் மனரீதியாகவும் திடப்படுத்தும் கல்வி முறை தேவை என்பது அவருடைய கருத்து. அதில் தன்னால் முடிந்த பங்கை வாழ்நாள் முழுக்க ஆற்றிவிட்டுச் சென்றவர் சரளாதேவி.

``கடவுள் என்பவர் பெண்களுக்கானவர் அல்ல; அவர் முழுவதும் ஆண்களின் சொத்தாகவே இருந்துவருகிறார். அதனால்தான், மதமும் அதன் சம்பிரதாயங்களும் எனக்குள் கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சமாக அவநம்பிக்கையை ஏற்படுத்திவிட்டன” எனத் துணிச்சலுடன் ஒரு நூற்றாண்டுக்கு முன்பே சொன்னவர் சரளாதேவி. `என் புரட்சிகரமான வாழ்க்கை’ (The Story Of My Revolutionary Life) எனும் தலைப்பிலான கட்டுரையில், தன் பால்யம் குறித்து எழுதும்போது இவ்வாறு தெரிவித்திருக்கிறார். அன்றைய சுதந்திரப் போராட்டங்களில் கலந்துகொண்ட பல செல்வ செழிப்பான தலைவர்கள்போல சரளாதேவி வசதியானவர் இல்லை. ஆனாலும், சிறு வயதிலிருந்தே கல்வி மீது தீராத காதலுடன், இருபதாம் நூற்றாண்டின் சிறந்த பெண்ணியச் செயற்பாட்டாளராக தன்னை வளர்த்துக்கொண்டார்.

இந்திய தேசிய காங்கிரஸின் 35-வது ஆண்டு விழாவில் கலந்துகொண்டது அவரது வாழ்க்கையில் மிக முக்கியமான திருப்புமுனை. நாக்பூரில் நடந்த அந்த மாநாட்டில் பங்கேற்றுவிட்டு சொந்த ஊர் திரும்பியதுமே தன் செயல்பாடுகளைத் தொடங்கிவிட்டார். அதன் தொடர்ச்சியாக, உட்கல் பிரதேச காங்கிரஸ் கமிட்டியைத் தொடங்குவதில் அளப்பரிய பங்காற்றினார். 1921-ம் ஆண்டு, மகாத்மா காந்தி முதல் முறையாக ஒடிசாவுக்கு வருகை தந்தபோது, அவருடன் உரையாடும் வாய்ப்பு சரளாதேவிக்குக் கிடைத்தது. அந்தச் சந்திப்புக்குப் பிறகு, பிரிட்டிஷ் அரசுக்கு எதிரான ஒத்துழையாமை இயக்கத்திலும், சுதந்திரப் போராட்டத்திலும் தன்னை முழுமையாக ஈடுபடுத்திக்கொண்டார்.

சுதந்திரப் போராட்டங்களில் மட்டுமன்றி, மார்க்சிய செயல்பாடுகளிலும் குறிப்பிடதக்க வகையில் பங்காற்றியவர் சரளாதேவி. `சம்யவாதி கார்மி சங்கா’ எனும் இயக்கத்துடன் இணைந்து, விவசாயிகளை வஞ்சிக்கும் ஜமீன்தார்களுக்கு எதிராகப் போராடினார். இத்தனைக்கும் சரளாதேவியின் கணவரான பாகிரதி மகாபத்ரா, ஒரு ஜமீன் குடும்பத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர். ஆனாலும், பாகிரதி நாட்டுப்பற்றும் சமூக அக்கறையும் மிகுந்தவராக விளங்கி, சரளாதேவியின் செயல்பாடுகளுக்குத் துணையாக நின்றார்.


1936-ம் ஆண்டு, ஒடிசாவில் சட்டமன்றம் அமைக்கப்பட்டது. அதன் முதல் பெண் உறுப்பினராக சரளாதேவி தேர்வுசெய்யப்பட்டார். ஒடிசா சட்டமன்றத்தில் குழந்தைத் திருமணங்களுக்கும் வரதட்சணை கொடுமைகளுக்கும் எதிராகச் சட்டங்கள் நிறைவேறுவதற்கு காரணமாக இருந்தார். பெண்கள் வீட்டைவிட்டு வெளியே செல்லவே அனுமதிக்கப்படாத காலகட்டத்தில், சட்டமன்றத்தில் பெண்களுக்கான குரலாக சரளாதேவியின் குரல் ஒலித்தது, வரலாற்றில் என்றென்றும் நிலைத்திருக்கும். சட்டமன்ற உறுப்பினராக இல்லாத காலத்திலும், பெண்களின் உரிமைகளுக்காகக் குரல் கொடுப்பதையும் போராடுவதையும் நிறுத்தவே இல்லை.

பொதுத்தளத்தில் மட்டுமன்றி, இலக்கியத்திலும் முன்னோடியாகத் திகழ்ந்தவர், சரளாதேவி. அவருக்கு முன்பு எழுதிக்கொண்டிருந்த பெண் எழுத்தாளர்கள், ஆன்மிகம், காதல், இயற்கை போன்ற தலைப்புகளில்தாம் எழுதிவந்தனர். ஆனால், ஒடிசாவில் அரசியல் பார்வைகளை இலக்கியத்துக்குள் கொண்டுவந்த முதல் பெண் படைப்பாளி, சரளாதேவி. கவிதை, புனைவு, நாடகம் எனப் பரந்துபட்ட எழுத்துத் துறைகளில் ஆர்வம் செலுத்தினார். அவரது சிறந்த எழுத்தாற்றல் வெளிப்பட்டது, கட்டுரைகளில்தாம். எந்த வடிவத்தில் எழுதினாலும், ஆழமான பார்வையும் சமரசமற்ற கருத்துகளும் அவரது எழுத்தில் இருக்கும்.


இத்தனை சிறப்புகளும் பன்முகத்தன்மையும் படைத்த ஆளுமையாக விளங்கிய சரளாதேவி, வரலாற்றின் பக்கங்களில் போதுமான அளவு கொண்டாடப்படவில்லை என்பது வேதனையான உண்மை. இருபதாம் நூற்றாண்டில் நம் நாட்டில் வெளிப்பட்ட பெண்ணியத்துக்கான முக்கியக் குரலாக விளங்கிய சரளாதேவியை, அவரது பிறந்தநாளான இன்று (9.08.18) நினைவுகூர்வோம்!

“You are mine in the purest sense. You ask for a reward of your great surrender, well, it is its own reward.”
—Gandhi in a letter to Saraladebi Chowdhurani


It was a life-changing year for Mahatma Gandhi. In March 1919, the British passed the draconian Rowlatt Act to crack down on political protests. In April, General Dwyer’s men opened fire on crowds protesting against the Act in Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh, resulting in a horrific massacre.  In October, Mahatma Gandhi fell in love. He was then fifty and the woman, Saraladebi, was forty-seven. She happened to be the niece of Rabindranath Tagore. Though Gandhi had met her earlier, it was not until he stayed in her home in Lahore while her husband, a prominent freedom fighter from Punjab, was in jail that they really became close. So close that it almost broke Gandhi’s marriage to Kasturba.

Saraladebi was a striking woman with independent views and was highly intelligent. Gifted, well-informed, dynamic and driven, she was twenty-nine when Gandhi first saw her, in 1901, conducting an orchestra as it played a piece she had composed for the Congress party convention. By his own admission, he was enamoured of Saraladebi. She was the daughter of Janakinath Ghosal and Swarnakumari, Tagore’s elder sister. Gandhi and Saraladebi met again in 1919 in Lahore, when they soon became one of the most talked-about couples because of their closeness, even in public. Neither Gandhi nor Saraladebi mention much in their respective autobiographies about their relationship, though at one place she parts with a stray revelatory anecdote: “When I was in grave political trouble, Mahatma Gandhi told me ‘your laughter is a national asset. Laugh away’.”

For a year from October 1919, the relationship really blosso­med (before ending in some embitterment by December 1920). Gandhi could not stop quoting her in his public speeches, his writings in Young India and other journals, almost on a daily basis. Gandhi published a song by Saraladebi on the front page of Navajivan, and often endorsed her poems with his appreciative comments. She travelled with him all over India and they wrote to each other frequently when they were apart. In May 1920, Gandhi wrote to her: “...you will continue to haunt me in my sleep. No wonder Panditji (her husband Pandit Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhary) calls you the greatest shakti. You may cast that spell over him. You are performing the same trick over me.” In August 1920, Mahadev Desai, Gandhi’s closest aide, recorded that “almost seven or eight letters were received from Saraladebi during the Madras tour”. By her own admission, Saraladebi once wrote as many as twelve letters to Gandhi over a period of six days. Replying to one of her letters on August 23, 1920, Gandhi wrote: “...you are mine in the purest sense. You ask for a reward of your great surrender, well, it is its own reward.”

Saraladebi’s father Janakinath Ghosal was a contemporary of Allan Octavian Hume, the legendary Scotsman who founded the Congress. Ghosal was a magistrate when he married Swarnakumari and spent a fair amount of time in London while Saraladebi was growing up in Jorasanko, the Tagore family home in Calcutta. Swarnakumari, though overshadowed by her illustrious brother, was equally accomplished in literature and the arts. She wrote novels, plays and poetry which were printed and reprinted in India and England, leading to some measure of sibling rivalry. It was no surprise that Saraladebi grew up influenced more by her mother’s family. She deeply admired her ‘Rabimama’, the first Asian to get the Nobel Prize, and at times they composed opera and music together.  Being as talented and enterprising as anyone else in Jorasanko, she too resented to a degree the idea of being known merely as Rabindranath Tagore’s niece, just as her mother resented being identified more as his sister. As Martin Green points out in his biography of Gandhi, “There was something of a court around Rabindranath, and Saraladebi found herself in the position of competing for his favour; and, because she felt herself to be really more rival than courtier, she was a less comfortable companion for him than her competitors.” In many ways Saraladebi was a rebel, much ahead of the times than most Indian women, who were quite happy listening to music rather than composing it or performing in public. She edited Bharati, a journal which was started by her other uncle, Jyotirindranath Tagore, the elder brother of Rabindranath. No wonder Gandhi found Saraladebi more ‘endearing’ and intellectually stimulating than his wife Kasturba, who had ‘aged’ considerably (being a year older than Gandhi) and was an ‘illiterate’.

Gandhi wrote to his close friend Hermann Kallenbach in 1920 about his ‘indefinable relationship’ with his ‘spiritual wife’.
Saraladebi was certainly better educated than most of her contemporaries. She studied physics, a subject not generally chosen by women during that time, particularly a woman from the Tagore household. She also had a degree in English and expanded her linguistic accomplishments by studying Persian, French and Sanskrit. She had completed her Bachelor of Arts from the well-known Bethune College, and, in Bengal, acquired the reputation of a progressive, educated woman who did not hesitate to speak her mind publicly. Her autobiography often talked derisively about the effeminate Bengali man: “Dogs have teeth, cats have claws, even insects bite back if they are attacked; was it only Bengalis who kept quiet even in the face of vicious threats and assault? Was there such a lack of manhood?” A few years after she graduated, she decided to leave her ‘domestic cage’ and move south to Mysore to teach. Her parents refused permission and the rest of Tagore’s family was aghast at such a suggestion. Little is known why she chose Mysore or how she got permission but biographers have pointed out that the liberal, independent girl—who had earlier refused an invitation from Swami Vivekananda to travel with him to the West—wanted to break away to avoid the constant pressure to get married and to further challenge her own ambitions. Swami Vivekananda was so fond of her that he gave her a copy of all his writings, including Rajjog, each inscribed ‘Given with love’. On returning from his world tour, Swami Vivekananda introduced her to cuisine from France, America, Norway and other countries, often doing the cooking himself.

It is also gently suggested that because of her liberal lifestyle, her mother’s family did not want any potential scandals involving Saraladebi in Calcutta, and, despite opposition from a few family members, agreed that she could settle in faraway Mysore. But she was too much of a rebel to be restricted to one place. After teaching for a year in Mysore, she returned to Calcutta, partly because she fell sick and partly because the son of a rich local contractor was so attracted to her that he broke into her house, despite the presence of guards and servants. Even for Saraladebi, this was too much, and it hastened her return to Calcutta.


Unequal allies? Gandhi with Kasturba

The fact that Saraladebi was thi­rty-three and yet unmarried was a great source of worry for the family, especially her sisters, who were happily married and well-settled. Saraladebi was by then living in Vivekananda’s ashram in the Himalayas, studying the Vedas and the Bhagwad Gita. Her mother and her sister were further alarmed when they heard from the Englishwoman Mrs Sevier, who was in charge of the ashram, that Saraladebi was planning to go on a long pilgrimage with a young Maharashtrian man to Kailash Mansarovar and Tibet. This only added an urgency to their efforts to find her a suitable groom. It led to deception and emotional blackmail. She was called by her elder sister, who claimed that their mother was quite sick and may not live long: “Mother’s wish is to see you married and settled down. Come and at least meet him...don’t reject him from the beginning; this would hurt our mother deeply.” The letter forced her to quit her life in the Himalayas and she travelled to Calcutta via Baidyanath, the temple complex in Deoghar, where her mother was convalescing. En route in Lucknow, she found out from acquaintances that the man her family wanted her to marry was a good-looking, educated Punjabi. He was, however, a widower who had married twice and was an Arya Samaj activist. Rambhuj Dutt Chowdhari was a Mohyal Brahmin. (Mohyals are a breed unto themselves: Brahmin by birth but martial in character. The late actor-Congress MP Sunil Dutt, Bollywood character actor Om Prakash and lyricist Anand Bakshi, the Mohans of Mohan Meakins—makers of famed Old Monk rum—and the well-known historian Prof V.N. Datta are some of the better-known Mohyals of contemporary times.) Having obtained details of his background and his political and religious leanings, Saraladebi was prepared to meet the man but she was certainly not prepared for what awaited her at home in Calcutta. Writes Saraladebi in her autobiography: “Even before I had arrived at Baidyanath, Didi had conspired to make all arrangements for the wedding in Calcutta. She had left me with no way out. When I arrived at the station in Calcutta, I realised I was a bride. I stepped from the train into my bridal palanquin.... Didi had put up members of the bridegroom’s party at a rented house. Invitations had been sent out.... I had no room to protest. The next day was the turmeric ceremony (a pre-nuptial ceremony). The house was filled with my relatives. The music of shehnai could be heard in celebration...in the afternoon , for a brief moment, the bride laid eyes on the groom. She was dazzled....the wedding was to be held next evening. There was no escape.” Saraladebi was married to Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhary according to Arya Samaj rites. She became ‘Chowdhurani’, spelt the Bengali way.

Gandhi and Saraladebi travelled together, propagating khadi and protesting British policies not just in Punjab, but all over India.
Shortly after his arrival in Lahore, Gandhi wrote to his close follower, Anasuyabehn Sarabhai, a friend of Saraladebi: “Sar­ala’s company is very endearing. She looks after me very well”. This was Gandhi’s first trip to Lahore. He had come with Motilal Nehru, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, and C.F. Andrews soon after the British government had announced the Hunter Commission to inquire into the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Dissatisfied with the terms of the Commission and not expecting the government to conduct a free and fair inquiry, the Congress had decided to conduct its own inquiry. There was also a massive protest against the Rowlatt Act with the slogan: ‘Na Vakil, Na Appeal, Na Daleel (no lawyer, no appeal, no argument)’. Gandhi himself travelled across Punjab for many months, meeting those affected by the massacre. He also took this opportunity to propagate khadi, Khilafat, and the concept of the non-cooperation movement. He arrived in Lahore on October 24, 1919, and accepted Saraladebi’s offer to be her guest. The intimacy between Saraladebi and Gandhi reached a stage where he began to refer to her as his ‘spiritual wife’. Writes Rajmohan, Gandhi’s grandson and biographer, “Gandhi had not only overcome his caution regarding exclusive relationship but even thought of a ‘spiritual marriage’, whatever that may have meant”, with Saraladebi. They travelled together, popularising khadi and protesting against British policies, not just in Punjab, but all over India. They travelled to Benares, Ahmedabad, Bombay, Bareilly, Jhelum, Sinhgarh, Hyderabad (Sind), Jhansi, Calcutta and many more cities. In his ‘Punjab Letters’, written as a report of his Punjab tour and published in Young India and Navajivan, Gandhi provided some clues to their remarkable closeness and intimacy.


‘I had a premonition’ Saraladebi writes to her ‘Dear Law-Giver’, in October 1920, anticipating the slow waning of feelings. (Courtesy: Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust)
Barely a month into his stay at her home, Gandhi writes: “In Lahore I am a guest of Smt Saraladebi and have been bathing in her deep affection.” To Maganlal Gandhi, his close associate, he wrote: “Saraladebi has been showering her love on me in every possible way.” He was clearly infatuated. On May 3, 1920, at the height of his crusading for the non-cooperation movement, Gandhi sent Saraladebi sermons from the Bhagwad Gita which hinted at their spiritual liaison, whatever that may have meant. He wrote to her, quoting the Gita: “It is strange that even a man abiding in the supreme oneness and set on attaining Moksha should get distraught with Passion, yielding to its overmastering urge through experience of the pleasure it brings (III6)”. Then this: “It is strange that a man who knows for certain that the desire which has possessed him is an enemy of knowledge should yet long for pleasure even though extremely enfeebled and nearing death (III7)”. On July 21, 1920, Gandhi congratulated Saraladebi in Navajivan for persuading Indian royalty to take up spinning, des­cribing her as ‘Indian nobility’, a reference to her Tagore connection. According to Bombay Secret Abstracts (1920, P1143), dated July 25,  1920, Gandhi said at a speech at a citizen’s meeting in Hyderabad that he “was taking Sarala­debi all over India with him as she better understood his swadeshi principles than his wife”, though he did complain that she too did not practice the use of swadeshi cloth to his entire satisfaction. In other public speeches, Gandhi made mention of their closeness and how he thought her to be ideologically and intellectually closer to him than Kasturba.
On more than one occasion he described a dream he had in which she had come to travel with him, leaving behind her husband. Gandhi even brought her to the Sabarmati Ashram as an honoured guest. Their relationship was so close that people often considered them a couple deeply involved with each other. The relationship was also so public that those in Gandhi’s closest circle became extremely concerned. Eminent lawyer and political activist C. Rajagopalachari, the first governor-general of independent India, was so disturbed that he wrote a strong letter to Gandhi, describing the difference between Saraladebi and Kasturba “as a kerosene oil lamp and the morning sun”. Despite this, Gandhi said he missed her when they were not together, and when she came to the Sabarmati Ashram they had their meals, contrary to ashram rules, in a separate room sitting on mattress bed rather than in the main dining area. This resulted in much resentment amongst his close followers at the ashram, who openly complained about it. To his closest friend and co-founder of the Tolstoy Farm in South Africa, Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi wrote in August 1920: “I have come in closest touch with a lady (Saraladebi) who often travels with me. Our relationship is indefinable. I call her my spiritual wife. A friend has called it intellectual wedding. I want you to see her. It was under her roof that I passed several months at Lahore in Punjab.” On another occasion, years later, Gandhi admitted to having ‘fal­len’. In his famous interview with Margaret Sanger, the American birth control activist and sex educator, he admitted that he had arguments about polygamy with a “woman with whom I almost fell....” Talking further about Saraladebi tho­ugh without specifically taking her name, Gandhi said, “...it is so personal I did not put it in my autobiography. We had considered if there can be this spiritual companionship.... I came in contact with an illiterate woman (referring to his wife Kasturba). Then I met a woman with a broad, cultural education...and I nearly slipped. But I was saved...I don’t know how...by the youngsters who warned me. I saw that if I was doomed, they were also doomed.” There is also a clear reference to this relationship in Gandhi’s diary during 1947, where he writes that he would not look for the company of women purely for physical reasons “with one exception”, and from all accounts, that had to be Saraladebi Cho­wdhurani. Incidentally, Saraladebi had once asked Gandhi to arrange for her son Deepak’s marriage to Indira Gandhi, then a highly eligible lady. Gandhi even wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru sug­gesting the alliance, but the proposal was politely declined by him.

Towards the end of 1920, the relationship came under strain and they drifted apart. Saraladebi was getting too possessive.
Towards the end of 1920, the relationship came under strain and Gandhi and Saraladebi started to drift apart. She was getting more and more possessive of his time, and Gandhi was too much of a public person to let that happen. She had become demanding and jealous of those around him. On August 23, 1920, Gandhi wrote to her from Bejwada (now Vijayawada): ...your letters have your usual self. Some of them decidedly despondent and sceptical and suspicious”. Referring to close friends and followers, he says to her: “I and (if you are mine in the purest sense of the term) you must give everything to retain or deserve their love and affection.” Disagreements between the “spiritual husband and wife” became quarrelsome. In the middle of October, Saraladebi, in two successive letters of the few that survived, says: “I had a premonition there would be a relapse and harsh thoughts from you today and was uneasy the whole morning unable to attend to any work”. She goes on to talk about how her anger was foolish but accuses Gandhi of bru­tal anger inlaid with pride. She pla­inly tells Gandhi: “...tell me in Mahadevian (referring to the clear, articulate writing of Mahadev Desai) simple touching language, you are mis­sing me daily”. Again, two days later on October 16, she writes to Gan­dhi, “You are adding a new sin to my many old ones...that of jealousy...do you mean to say I am jealous of you? I can only laugh at this charge and wonder at your biased reading of me....”

By now, Gandhi’s youngest son, Devdas, his shadow secretary Maha­dev Desai, and a few of his closest companions were greatly dis­turbed by this relationship. C. Raja­gop­alachari, whose daughter Laks­hmi later married Gandhi’s son Dev­das and the person Gandhi once descr­ibed as “the keeper of my conscience”, had subtly warned Gandhi against the relationship. In a letter, he wrote to Gandhi saying: “Come back and give us life...pray disengage yourself at once completely”.

On December 4, 1920, Gandhi wrote to Saraladebi: “I shall not deliberately omit to write to you. But you must cultivate patie­nce and trust. You may not accuse me of sainthood and dignify yourself as sinner. Among lovers and friends there is neither sinner not saint.” Again on December 11, Gandhi, clearly getting irritated at her possessiveness, wrote to her while travelling  from Motihari to Bhagalpur in Bihar: “I had two letters from you, one a scrap, the other a longish letter which shows you do not understand my language or my thoughts.... You are hugging your defect even when they are pointed out by a friend.... I do not want to quarrel with you. In you I have an enigma to solve.”

In 1933, Gandhi, while talking to Father William Lash (Bishop of Bombay 1947-61) and E. Stanley Jones (winner of the Gan­dhi Peace award in 1963), said that he was saved by the youngsters Mahadev Desai, his grandnephew Mathuradas Trikumji, and his son Devdas. It was their love, he admitted, which chained him so tightly and prevented him from “rushing into hell fire”.


Saraladebi turned ascetic in her last years

Saraladebi could well see the end coming. She complained that she had made the mistake to “put in one pan all the joys and pleasures of the world, and in the other Bapu and his laws, and committed the folly of choosing the latter”. Finally, on Dec­ember 17, 1920, Gandhi wrote a farewell letter, one that Saraladebi had been expecting. It said: “I love you more for loving me less for any hate you may see in me.... I have been analysing my love for you. I have rea­ched a definite mea­ning of spi­ritual wife. It is a par­tnership between two persons of the opposite sex where the physical is wholly abs­ent. It is therefore possible between brother and sister, father and daughter.... I have felt drawn to you because I have recognised in you an identity of ideals and aspirations and a complete self-surrender. You have been a wife because you have recognised in me a fuller fruition of the common ideal than in yourself...this partnership can take place whilst either party is physically married to another, but only if they are living as celibates. Spiritual partnership is possible even between husband and wife. It transcends physical relations and persists beyond the grave...are you spiritual wife to me of that description?...for me I can answer plainly that it is only an inspiration. I am unworthy to have that companionship with you.... I am too physically attached to you to be worthy of enjoying that sacred association with you. By phy­sical attachment I here mean I am too much affected by your weaknesses. I must not be a tea­cher to you, if I am your spiritual husband, if coincidence or merging is felt.... I must plead gently like a brother ever taking care to use the right word even as I do to my oldest sister. I must not be father, husband, fri­end, teacher, all rolled in one. This is the big letter I promised. With dearest love I still subscribe myself, Yours, Law-Giver.”

Saraladebi once asked Gandhi to arrange for her son Deepak’s marriage to Indira Nehru. Jawaharlal politely declined the offer.
As recently as January 2013, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, referred to the relationship in a lecture he gave at the University of Calcutta. “While at school, at age thirteen I think, I chanced upon a set of letters retrieved from their sources and kept carefully by my father in a trunk in our home. These were written by Saraladebi Chowdhurani. Wholly emotional, they were addressed to one she called ‘Law-Giver’ (Mahatma Gandhi). In the bunch there were letters written by the Law-Giver to her as well, in green ink, addressing her as ‘Pearl’.... I was consumed by a desire to learn more about Saraladebi and took the bunch of letters to my recently widowed mother, who knew about them but had not really read them. Tears flooding her eyes, she re-read them and said (in Hindi), “Jaise rishi muniyon ki pariksha hoti thi. Apsaraon ko bheja jata thaa. Us hi tarah hamare Bapuji ki bhi pariksha hui. Aur Bapuji us agni pariksha mein vijayi hue.... Saraladebi se humein koi shikayat nahin. Ve pariksha ki maatr ma­dhyam thi bas. (Just like rishis and munis were tested by apsaras being sent to them. In the same way Bapuji was put on test and Bapu stood victorious in that test by fire. We have no complaint with Saraladebi. She mer­ely became a medium of the test and trial).” Gandhi’s letters to Saraladebi could be understood better if her own lett­ers to Gandhi were available for pub­lic view. As mentioned by Gopal­krishna Gandhi, after Gandhi’s assassination they were in the cust­ody of his youngest son Devdas, who kept them as the family’s personal possession. After Devdas’s death, they were unavailable and perhaps lost forever. Their existence would have cer­tainly put an end to the speculation as to the real nature of Gandhi’s relationship with the woman who almost broke his marriage.

Post Script: Saraladebi’s husband Rambhuj Dutt Chowdhari died in 1923. She bid farewell to Lahore soon after and moved to Calcutta. In 1935, she became a recluse and a sanyasin and found her peace in the Himalayas. She died in 1945, aged 73. She was survived by her son Deepak, who got married to Maganlal Gandhi’s daughter Radha (Gandhi’s grand-­­niece), after both Gandhi and Saraladebi had passed away.

(My Experiment With Gandhi by Pramod Kapoor will be published in 2015.)







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Chaudhurani, Saraladevi
বাংলা

Saraladevi Chaudhurani
Chaudhurani, Saraladevi (1872-1945) writer, social worker and nationalist, was born on 9 September 1872 at Jorasanko in Kolkata. Her father, Janakinath Ghosal, was a founder member of the indian national congress and her mother was swarna kumari devi. At bethune COLLEGE, kamini roy and Lady Abala Bose were among her classmates. Saraladevi stood first in the Entrance examination (1886), and passed BA with honours in English (1890). She was proficient in French, sanskrit and persian. She was married in 1905 to Rambhuj Dutta Chaudhuri, lawyer, leader of the Punjab Arya Samaj and editor of the journal Hindustan (Lahore). She taught at the Maharani Girls' School in Mysore. She was involved in a variety of ways with the nationalist movement of the times. She sang Vande mataram at a conference of the indian national congress, altering the 'seven crores' in the text to 'thirty crores'. She helped Jatindranath Bandyopadhyay to form a revolutionary group, and she took active part in the swadeshi movement, founding Laksmir Bhandar (1904), which propagated the use of hand-woven textiles. She took the initiative to spread education among Punjabi women in purda. The Bharat-Stri-Mahamandal was founded through her efforts.

In Kolkata, Saraladevi founded the Bharat-Stri-Shiksa-Sadan and introduced games with swords and batons among women. Her involvement in nationalist politics brought her in contact with Lala Lajpat Ray, Gopal Krishna Gokhle, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Gandhi. Though she had founded the Theosophical Society, in later years she turned religious, becoming a disciple of Guru Bijoy Krishna Dev Sharma.

Apart from writing, Saraladevi also edited a number of journals. When her husband was in jail, she edited the Hindustan and launched its English edition. For a long time she helped edit the bharati. She wrote hundred number of nationalistic song compiled as a Shatagan which published in 1900. Among her important publications are Nababarser Svapna, Jibaner Jharapata, Babgalir Pitrdhan (1903), Bharat Stri Mahamandal (1911). Saraladevi died on 18 August 1945. [Badiuzzaman]

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