PRITILATA WADDEDAR AND KALPANA DATTA IN CHITTAKONG ARMOUR RIOTS 1930 APRIL 18
PRITILATA WADDEDAR AND KALPANA DATTA IN CHITTAKONG ARMOUR RIOTS 1930 APRIL 18 This article is a part of the #IndianWomenInHistory campaign for Women’s History Month to remember the untold legacies of women who shaped India, especially India’s various feminist movements. One Indian woman is profiled each day for the whole of March 2019. In the 1930s, Gandhi was advocating for women to be the face of his nationalist movement because of their propensity for non-violence and passiveness. Revolutionary women who took up arms against the British proved this generalising, reductive statement wrong. In fact, the story of two Bengali women, Pritilata Waddedar and Kalpana Datta, who took part in the dangerous Chittagong armoury raid showed India that gallantry and boldness were not exclusively male attributes. Whether violence was the best way to achieve nationalist goals is still being debated by scholars today. The important ...