Category Archives: Education

Principal of MP Birla Foundation School dead

Herbert George, who headed the Behala school since 1988, was known as a ‘strict disciplinarian’

Herbert George / File picture / Our Special Correspondent / Calcutta

The principal of MP Birla Foundation Higher Secondary School, Herbert George, died in the city on Monday following a short illness. He was 75.

George had been principal of the Behala school from 1988 and was known as a “strict disciplinarian”. He gave importance  to both academic and co-curricular activities. Before joining MP Birla Foundation, he was associated with Don Bosco Liluah and St Augustine’s Day School, Calcutta.

He is survived by his son and daughter.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Special Correspondent / October 20th, 2020

Bengal woman creates Taj Mahal image with over 3 lakh matchsticks

Saheli Pal an MA English student at Calcutta University, created the image on 6 feet by 4 feet board. She had started her work in mid-August after receiving the guidelines from the Guinness World Records authorities and completed it on September 30

Saheli Pal of Ghurni locality in Krishnanagar seeks to break the Guinness World Record of Iran’s Meysam Rahmani, who had made a UNESCO logo with 1,36,951 matchsticks in 2013. (Photo by Getty Images/Representational)

A 22-year-old woman in West Bengal’s Nadia district has created an image of the Taj Mahal using more than 3 lakh matchsticks.

Saheli Pal of Ghurni locality in Krishnanagar seeks to break the Guinness World Record of Iran’s Meysam Rahmani, who had made a UNESCO logo with 1,36,951 matchsticks in 2013. Pal, an MA English student at Calcutta University, created the image on 6 feet by 4 feet board.

She had started her work in mid-August after receiving the guidelines from the Guinness World Records authorities and completed it on September 30.

A video of her artwork has been made and it will be sent to the Guinness World Records authorities soon.

“I have used matchsticks of two colours to depict Taj Mahal at night,” she said.

Pal had in 2018 created a world record by making the smallest clay sculpture of the face of Goddess Durga, measuring 2.54 cm by 1.93 cm by 0.76 cm and weighing 2.3 gm. Her father Subir Pal and grandfather Biren Pal had won the President’s Awards for their sculptures in 1991 and 1982 respectively.

“I want to carry forward the legacy of my father and grandfather,” she added.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities>Kolkata / by PTI / Krishnanagar / October 03rd, 2020

A Kolkata streetcar for book lovers

Time travel: A tramcar transformed into an air-conditioned service. The route will cover College Street  

A book-laden air-conditioned tram offers a glimpse of the city’s academic corner

The Kolkata tram may be a pale shadow of its glorious days, but it is still an iconic image of the city. College Street happens to be the prestigious address of some of the oldest educational institutions in the country, and also boasts rows of bookshops on either side.

Now, a tram is set to recreate the academic ambience. It is built like a library and will roll down College Street, giving passengers a glimpse of the University of Calcutta, Presidency University and the hundreds of book stalls.

From Thursday, people can ride the tram library, an air-conditioned car converted into a library on wheels. It will make six trips on the recently restored Esplanade-Shyambazar route.

West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC), which oversees India’s only functional tramway, has introduced the service to rekindle the love for trams and reading. The initiative brings together unique aspects of the city’s cultural heritage: trams, which form an intrinsic part of the colonial legacy and its love for books on College Street, which is called ‘Boi Para’ (street of books) by many. While the first trams were launched in 1873, and were electrified in 1900, educational institutions on College Street like the Presidency .

Attracting students

“The idea is to make the tram the mode of choice for Kolkata’s students once again,” said Rajanvir Singh Kapur, MD of WBTC. In addition to the titles housed within, the tram library will provide readers access to online books. There will be no additional charge, the ticket provides passengers access. There will be 25 stops along the 5 km route, five of them on College Street.

The library is just a beginning this winter, says an official. It could be the venue of book launches and book readings this season. Kolkata hosts a number of literary festivals and there is a search on for new venues. There are plans to have a Literary Festival around the tram library in the next two months, in November 2020.

Cyclone Amphan, which battered the city on May 20 severely damaged tram infrastructure. After restoration, four routes have been opened. The library will be on the fifth route.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Other States / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – September 24th, 2020

Two teachers from West Bengal receive National Awards on Teachers’ Day

When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.

Misha Ghosal
Misha Ghosal(HT)

When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.

“Such was the reputation of the school, that not only the students passing out of the institution were facing a bleak future, but I was badly scolded by a senior education officer of the district in my first meeting. On that day, I decided, that I would do something for the school,”

While in 2019, the Nepalipara Hindi High School at Labourhut, with more than 3600 students, was selected as the best school in the state by the West Bengal government, on Saturday Haque, a doctorate in geography, received the National Award.

Today, the school boasts of smart classes, a rooftop kitchen garden with hydroponics, water harvesting, vermicompost and students prepare their own teaching material under the guidance of teachers. From ten classrooms and one toilet in 2010, the school now has 57 classrooms and 24 toilets. Earlier students of classes, five, six and seven used to sit on the floor. Today the school has class 11 and 12 with all streams.

“Developing the school had almost become my addiction. My family supported me throughout. I am happy that I could do it,” said Haque who has received several awards including the Siksha Ratna award from the state government.

Meanwhile, in north Bengal, Misha Ghosal (51), the headmistress of Dhanapati Toto Memorial High School in Alipurduar districts’s Totopara, a home of primitive Toto tribes, had been working tirelessly for 11 years to make the school stand out among others. A postgraduate in Mathematics, she received the National Award on September 5.

“Even though I hail from Alipurduar district I had studied in Kolkata. So when I got selected for the head master’s exam and I was offered the school in the remotest corner, I was a bit afraid. But then, I took up the challenge and thought of doing something for the school and the society,” she said.

When she joined the school in 2009, only one student from the Toto community, having a population of only 1585, was able to cross the Madhyamik (class X board exam) hurdle. This year the success rate is over 80 percent.

Totopara, is a small and remote hamlet by the Indo-Bhutan border and remains marooned during the monsoons. One needs to cross seven rivers to reach the village. She almost single-handedly turned things for the school having 250 students.

“I worked hard to first win the confidence of the community and started two hostels. The school was developed from government-aided to government-sponsored so that it becomes financially sound. Now my aim is to uplift the quality of education in the school so that students can find jobs,” she said.

Rita Toto was the first female graduate from the community in 2010.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Education / by Hindustan Times, Kolkata-Siliguri / September 05th, 2020

The personal and the public coalesce in Isher Judge Ahluwalia’s memoir

In Breaking Through Ahluwalia writes an account of her extraordinary life, career and fight against an implacable disease

n this together: A file photo of Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Isher Judge Ahluwalia at the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. (Photo: PTI)

At almost the end of her long innings, wracked by grade IV glioblastoma, among the toughest of all cancers, Isher Judge Ahluwalia — grace, charm and subtlety personified, and, with widespread connections — took it upon herself to write this book. Courageous as she is, Isher did so in the most trying circumstances, while she was losing the ability to read and write on her own, relying extensively on help from the family to put down her thoughts.

Yet, thank God that she has written this book, for it is a story of grit, love, care and commitment. Grit, because who would have bet that a daughter of simple, traditional Sikh parents — one of 11 siblings — living in a small, rented flat near Purna Cinema, not far from Calcutta’s Kalighat, would reach where she did, entirely on the strength of her efforts and her intense determination to succeed?

Or, that she would in 1962, finish her West Bengal Higher Secondary Board examination from the highly-regarded Shri Shikshayatan Vidyalaya, coming eighth in the state? She writes, “My father had never shown any interest in our education but when I did well in the exams, he would often tell his friends with some pride that I had got the third rank among girls. While I approved of his new interest in education, I objected to the gender differentiation; I would correct him, saying I was eighth, not third.”

Breaking Through: A Memoir by Isher Judge Ahluwalia

Isher then went to Presidency College, Calcutta, to study economics with a scholarship of Rs 35 per month, which paid for her college fees and the tram ride from home and back. After the Presidency, she joined the Delhi School of Economics for her Master’s degree. “My family would never have let me go to Delhi to live in a hostel. At this point, I had a lucky break. In 1964, my brother decided to move to the capital with his family to start a business and my parents agreed to my going to live with them, attending DSE as a day student.”

As was the case with many of us, DSE was Isher’s road to Damascus — a point of revelation when she was determined to study further and apply for a PhD. Armed with a high first division in a year when seven of the eight ‘first-divers’ were women, Isher applied to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was accepted with a fellowship. Thus began her journey in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a passage that took a bit longer than necessary because of an interlude in Washington, DC.

In the summer of 1970, Isher applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a summer internship. Instead of the usual three months, she got a special six-month break from MIT. With that came to love. Soon after moving to DC, she had a date with a super-bright young man, the clever, erudite English-speaking debater from St Stephen’s and winner of a congratulatory first in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, one Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who had joined the World Bank as a part of its Young Professionals Program.


Montek impressed Isher sufficiently enough — lunch in the Bank’s Executive Dining Room, films, dinners, walks and drives. “It was during one of those drives, while we were picnicking off some bread and cheese and a glass of wine, that I decided that Montek was the man for me.” Soon, Isher secured a full-time job at the IMF; and, in 1971, she and Montek married in Washington.

Four years passed in setting up home in Georgetown, going with IMF delegations for Article IV consultations in the Caribbean, and working long hours at the Fund. Suddenly, it dawned upon her that she had left her PhD programme behind. So Isher applied for a fellowship at Brookings and completed her MIT thesis from there in 1976 — which was published in 1979 by Macmillan, titled Behaviour of Prices and Outputs in India: A Macro-Econometric Approach.

Then came care. Of parenting two boys — first Pavan, who was born in November 1977; and, then, Aman in October 1979, after the three of them had returned to India for good. Of taking charge of what was an immaculate home and hearth; of looking after a growing family that eventually extended to daughters-in-law and grandchildren; of being a partner to Montek, who would return late at night with stacks of government files.

Then, there was a commitment to her profession. “Being a mother is a full-time job. Being a working mother is two full-time jobs.” Even so, Isher completed two major books: Industrial Growth in India: Stagnation Since the Mid-Sixties (1989, Oxford University Press) and Productivity and Growth in Indian Manufacturing (1991, OUP).

She worked at the Centre for Policy Research, then took over as the head of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), an institution which she strengthened by attracting excellent full-time fellows and garnering some very serious grants from abroad and the Indian corporate world, that made ICRIER financially comfortable. If these were not enough, Isher got into urbanisation and published two books on the subject.

Breaking Through is a beautiful read because it is so honestly written, so touching in content — a wonderful mélange of the personal and the public. It is, in effect, a signing off. Of a great life. Of struggles. Of success. Of love and caring. Of building families, values and institutions. And, of Montek.

Thank you, Isher.

The author is the founder and chairperson of CERG Advisory Private Limited

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Books and Literature / by Omkar Goswami / August 30th, 2020

Darjeeling remembers St Teresa of Calcutta on her 110th birth anniversary

Darjeeling:

Along with the rest of the world, the Queen of the Hills commemorated the 110th birth anniversary of St Teresa of Calcutta popular as Mother Teresa. Darjeeling occupied a special place and was a turning point in the life of the Saint.

“We had Mass (prayer service) in the Houses in Darjeeling, Tukdah, Tindharia, Kalimpong, Siliguri and Sikkim on Wednesday to commemorate her birth anniversary” stated Sister Marjelle of the Missionaries of Charity.

Agnes, who later became Saint Teresa of Calcutta had arrived in India in 1929. She had then joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling.

She took her first religious vows as a Nun on May 24, 1931 in Darjeeling and made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937 in Kolkata, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While in Darjeeling she used to teach at St Teresa’s school under the Loreto Convent.

The school was founded in 1921.

On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling during annual retreat in between Siliguri and Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the “call within a call,” which prompted her to start the Missionaries of Charity. Thus she had stepped out of the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling into the slums of Kolkata. She was canonized on September 4, 2016 as St Teresa of Calcutta.

The Cathedral of Immaculate Conception located at the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling also houses an Oratory (a place of worship) in her name. On December 3, 2016, Darjeeling had named a road after St Teresa of Calcutta. The road connecting Gandhi Road to Dr. Zakir Hussain Road (TV Tower) has been named the “Saint (Mother) Teresa Road.” The Missionaries of Charity House of Darjeeling is located on this street.

“People of her stature cannot be confined to any religion, color, caste or creed. She was a world citizen. She inspired people to become better human beings, to love and serve others. Let us strive hard to continue her legacy” stated Reverend Stephen Lepcha, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Darjeeling.

source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Amitava Banerjee / August 27th, 2020

Medieval traditions unite Bengal and Scotland

Kings and priestly classes developed a way of recording transfer of property ownership in strikingly parallel terms

While the copper plates had the Sanskrit word “danam” inscribed in them, the parchment charters bear the word “donum” in Latin. / Both Telegraph picture

In the medieval societies of Bengal and Scotland, kings and priestly classes developed a way of recording transfer of property ownership in strikingly parallel terms using related vocabulary and philosophical concepts.

In Bengal, land gifts were recorded in Sanskrit etched in copper plates and stone inscriptions. In Scotland, it was recorded in charter parchments in Latin. In both societies, it was the king who made the donations of land to the priestly class.

John Reuben Davies, a research scholar at Glasgow University, came to Calcutta in 2011 and was surprised to find in Asiatic Society copper plates from the Pala era in Bengal (10th to 12th century CE) that had close similarities with parchment charters from Scotland belonging to the same period. Charters are written records of transfer of property.

While the copper plates had the Sanskrit word “danam” inscribed in them, the parchment charters bear the word “donum” in Latin. Both of giving as a gift is ‘danam’. Latin, the same Indo-European root, provides the noun ‘donum’, a gift, indicate a gift of land from the king to the priestly class for eternity.

“In Sanskrit, the word for the method and the verb ‘dono’, I give as a gift,” said Davies.

“The concept of transferring ownership of property by giving as a gift is at the heart of property records both from Bengal and Scotland. And both in Bengal and Scotland, a word that has the same origin in Sanskrit and Latin was used to describe the transaction and give it legal force. So in two early medieval societies, 6,000 miles apart with no known contemporary connections or influences, had evolved an almost exactly similar way of recording transfer of property in strikingly parallel terms and using directly related vocabulary and philosophical concepts.”

Davies made the statement during a recent online lecture as part of the Stories of World Culture, an Indian Museum’s virtual initiative during the pandemic.

Davies and retired Calcutta University professor Swapna Bhattacharya, who has worked on Indian copper plates and European charters, collaborated and co-edited a book on these findings, Copper, Parchment and Stone: Studies in the Sources of Land Holding and Lordship in Early Medieval Bengal and Medieval Scotland, published by the Centre of Scottish and Celtic Studies of Glasgow University.

Glasgow University has decided to include the findings of Davies and Bhattacharya in the first-year undergraduate and postgraduate syllabus. Classes on the topic will start next year.

Regarding its inclusion in the history course, Joanna Tucker, a history lecturer at Glasgow University, said in a WhatsApp message to Metro: “The digitisation of texts and the surge in availability of digital resources have partly (and paradoxically) led to a new appreciation of the ‘physicality’ of our manuscript sources…. One recent publication (Davies, 2019) compares Indian and Scottish gifts of property in parchment charters and in copper and stone inscriptions. This provides a way to show our students that recent work in the field of medieval Scottish history has been taking a global perspective….”

Davies found further similarities like properties could be owned outright forever. A very similar conceptual, linguistic and textual framework evolved to guarantee the conveyance and ownership of property. The king was the supreme authenticating authority, provided he is the legitimate heir proved by the publication of his genealogy in copper, stone or parchments that he could govern and guarantee the rights of his subjects.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / Calcutta

Kolkata’s 171-yr-old Bethune College: A revolutionary institution that spawned many revolutionary women

The list of alumnae who played a significant, if less acknowledged role, in India’s freedom struggle is a lengthy one, and includes those who took up arms in their war against British rule and oppression.

The Bethune college played a pivotal role in shaping women who fought for freedom from British rule. (Wikimedia Commons/ edited by Gargi Singh)

Bina Das was only 21 when she opened fire on Bengal Governor Stanley Jackson at Calcutta University in 1932. But in Calcutta’s Bethune College, women like her were not rare. In fact, the institution played a pivotal role in shaping women like her, especially those who called undivided Bengal their home, who fought for freedom from British rule.

The list of alumnae who played a significant, if less acknowledged role, in India’s freedom struggle is a lengthy one, and includes names like Kamala Das Gupta, Kalpana Dutta and Pritilata Waddedar who took up arms in their war against British rule and oppression. There are also women like Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Bose, who did not pick up weapons, but urged literacy and education for girls and championed women’s rights and protections, paving the way for several reforms for girls and women in pre-Independence India — a war of a different kind.

In her memoir, Das recalls how the library at Bethune College in Calcutta shaped her life by allowing her access to books on the theories of revolution and freedom, and encouraged her ideas and hopes for a nation independent from British rule. In addition to churning out women who went on to become revolutionaries, the institution was remarkable for several other reasons, the foremost being that when it was turned into a college in 1879, it became the only institution for higher education for women in Asia.

Kadimbini Ganguly, one of the first two women graduates in the subcontinent. (Wikimedia Commons)

Uttara Chakravorty, a former teacher of history at Bethune College, who spent approximately five years conducting research on the history of the institution, believes that the college library particularly played an important role in shaping the lives of the women who passed through its gates. “We didn’t find records of teachers imparting revolutionary views, but the library was good and the girls read newspapers,” she tells indianexpress.com . The college itself had no role to play in the formation of revolutionary views, but it was the diverse peer group to which women had access in the institution that fostered an exchange of ideas, believes Chakravorty. “The peer group consisted of girls who came from undivided Bengal. There were Jewish girls, Afghan girls, Anglo-Indians. The cosmopolitan nature of the environment shaped their views, along with the (college’s) architecture. The library had books of all kinds.”

When Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu graduated from Bethune College in 1881, they became the first two women graduates in the subcontinent. “This was the most revolutionary thing at that time,” says Chakravorty. Ganguly’s achievements were particularly extraordinary for a woman back then. Not only was she one of the first two women graduates, but she was also the first South Asian woman physician, with training in western medicine.

Chandramukhi Basu, who graduated with Kadambini Ganguly in 1881 as the first two female graduates in the subcontinent. (Wikimedia Commons)

After John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune arrived in India in 1848, as a Legal Member of the Governor-General’s Council, he was appointed president of the Council of Education. Bethune’s posting allowed him to meet members of the Bhramo Samaj, who like him were also proponents of education for girls and women. In one of his meetings in the city, zamindar Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee gifted Bethune five and a half bighas of land for building a school that opened as ‘Calcutta Female School’ in May 1849 with 21 girls on the roll, an institution that became the predecessor of the Bethune School.

According to Kalidas Naga’s writings in ‘Bethune School And College Centenary Volume 1849’ published in 1949, “none but the girls of respectable Hindus would be admitted”. A school carriage was arranged to transport the girls who lived at a distance to and fro from school.

John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune, who founded the Bethune college. (Wikimedia Commons)

It was the first public institution for girls’ education, and was government-run. Although the school’s administration experienced some success in finding families interested in educating their daughters, the conservatives in Indian society rose up in protest against the school, discouraging their neighbours and relatives from sending their girls to study there. Families who succumbed to the social pressure withdrew their girls, till the number of students dwindled to just seven. The scenario changed by the end of the year, writes Naga, because some girls came back, increasing the number of students on the roll to 34.

Bethune’s initiative appears to have inspired philanthropic Indians to engage in similar endeavours. For instance, Raja Radhakanta Deb soon started a school for girls inside his large rajbari in Sovabazar, 15 days after Bethune’s institute started operations. After opening the Calcutta Female School, Bethune then purchased a new plot of land belonging to the Government of Bengal in Cornwallis Square, adjacent to the Calcutta Female School, and established another educational institution for girls, called the ‘Hindu Female School’ in 1849 with significant financial support from Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee.

Zamindar Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee gifted Bethune five and a half bighas of land for building a school, that later turned into Bethune college. (Wikimedia Commons)

In December 1850, Bethune appointed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as secretary to the school, in what proved to be a masterstroke. Naga writes that Vidyasagar’s biographer Sambhu Chandra Vidyaratna acknowledged in the biography that this appointment encouraged many Hindu families to send their girls to Bethune’s school.

In December 1850, Bethune appointed Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar as secretary to the school, in what proved to be a masterstroke. (Wikimedia Commons)

Thirty years after its founding, the school became a college, named after its founder. Chakravorty believes that the architecture of the building deeply impacted the students who enrolled in the institution, more than one realises. “It is a one-storey building with an open courtyard. There are Corinthian columns with a supporting pediment and a sculptured balustrade,” she explains. Built in the neoclassical style, the design included an open terrace and wooden french windows, a lot of which can still be seen on the building’s exterior.

“The openness of the layout was attractive to the girls, who were till then confined in their homes. Many of the girls wrote about (the architecture) in their memoirs. It did have an impact on their lives,” says Chakravorty. Chameli Basu, a gifted student who later went on to teach Physics at her alma mater, and passed out in the same year as Bina Das, specifically mentions the architecture of the institution. “She came from a conservative family and the openness of the space was overwhelming for her.”

While many teachers of Bethune College were Indian, the heads of the institution for the longest time remained English. In texts that Chakravorty found in the college library during her research, records of one particular incident stands out, she says. “The first mention of the student’s political consciousness can be found in a text in the college library from 1915. Anne Louis Janeau, the principal of Bethune, wrote that the students once wanted to go to a religious meeting but she suspected it was a political gathering.” It is one of the earliest records that indicate that although the institution was established for the education of Indian girls, there was little tolerance for ideas and initiatives that could be perceived to be anti-British in nature.

One of the most significant incidents in the history of Bethune College occurred when the Simon Commission arrived in 1928. This incident finds mention in Bina Das’ memoir where she recalls how she along with a group of fellow students, organised their first student protest against the Commission and faced threats from the college administration and Mrs. Wright, the English principal, if they did not apologise. Wright and the Director of Public Information collectively warned the students that if they didn’t return to their classes, they would be expelled and their scholarships would be withdrawn.

Bina Das in her memoir recalls how she along with a group of fellow students, organised their first student protest against the Simon Commission in 1928. (Wikimedia Commons)

Led by Das, the students refused to comply and the agitation became so strong that it spread outside the college. Das recalls in her memoir that Wright, “the overbearing Englishwoman”, was forced to resign from service and was compelled to leave the institution. This protest was one of the most important occurrences in the history of the institution and the college has an entire file on the subject in its archives today. “It wasn’t just a struggle, but an active choice to get involved,” says Chakravorty of this protest.

The 1930s were turbulent times with more students becoming actively involved in the freedom struggle. “The girls were inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution. Kamala Das Gupta wrote in her memoir that most of the girls read banned books that were hidden under their textbooks; books like Pather Dabi, Maxim Gorky’s Mother,” says Chakravorty.

Chakravorty recalls the writings of Malati Guha Ray, an exceptional student at Bethune, who wrote in her memoirs of an incident when British police descended upon Bethune College in search of Kalpana Dutta, a member of the underground group Chhtari Sangha, who had left the institution to engage more fully in revolutionary activities. “Guha Ray wrote about how the principal was unhappy that students were participating in revolutionary activities and banned groups.”

By the 20th century, other educational institutions for women started opening up in Calcutta, like Loreto College, a morning section at Ashutosh College only for women and Victoria College. “When Presidency (College, now named University), started taking in women in 1944, Bethune began losing out on bright students who were more attracted to Presidency,” says Chakravorty.

The former students of Bethune haven’t mentioned teachers as inspiration in their struggle for India’s freedom, says Chakravorty, but the role of the institution cannot be discounted for the opportunities that it provided to women at a time when they were so few in number. Over 171 years after it first began as the ‘Calcutta Female School’, the only pathway for formal education for women in Asia, Bethune College’s own role as a revolutionary institution can perhaps only be fully understood in a re-reading of the memoirs of the lives of the women it shaped and altered over the decades.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Research / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – August 14th, 2020

Pritilata Waddedar, the 21-year-old who chose to die than be caught by the British

Women’s Day Special: Inspired by Surya Sen, the 21-year-old led the raid on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong.

In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons; Designed by Gargi Singh)

Born in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, Waddedar was a promising student, having spent her school years in her hometown. While a student at Eden College in Dhaka, Wadderdar’s anti-British sentiments began to take a more form as she slowly developed connections with other women who were spearheading semi-revolutionary groups. One such was with Leela Nag, a student at Dhaka University and an associate of Subhash Chandra Bose, who established the Deepali Sangha, a revolutionary group that provided combat training to women.

Waddedar came to Calcutta for higher education and enrolled as a student of Philosophy at Bethune College under the University of Calcutta. In the city, Waddedar was introduced to revolutionary leader Surya Sen, affectionately called ‘Master da’ by associates. Inspired by Sen, Waddedar soon joined his underground group. According to various accounts from the 1930s, members of Sen’s group initially objected to her membership, but appear to have eventually relented when they discovered her devotion to the cause for the motherland’s freedom, as well as her abilities to carry out assignments undetected by the police.

During the Chittagong Armory Raid of April 1930, 20-year-old Waddedar, along with Surya Sen, Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, Ambika Chakrabarty, Anand Prasad Gupta, Tripura Sen, Bidhubhusan Bhattacharya, Kalpana Dutta, Himangshu Sen, Binod Bihari Chowdhury, Subodh Roy, Monoranjan Bhattacharya among a others in a group of at least 65 people, devised plans to raid the armoury of the British forces and destroy telegraph and telephone lines. Although the group did not manage to locate the armory, they succeeded in ruining the telegraph and telephone lines. Many members in the group were very young at that time, Subodh Roy being the youngest at just 14.

The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom. (Express photo by Shashi Ghosh)

While some members of the group were captured and arrested, Waddedar and a few others managed to escape and regroup over the next few months. In 1932, the group, following Surya Sen’s original plans to attack the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, assigned Waddedar as the leader for this assignment. The social club for Europeans had been specifically targeted because of its racist and discriminatory practises towards Indians, especially its use of the signboard that read “Dogs and Indians not allowed”.

Under Waddedar’s leadership, a group of 10 was trained in the use of arms and taught how to consume potassium cyanide if the need arose. They attacked the club on the night of September 23, 1932. Several members of the club were injured, while the group was shot at by the police guarding the club. Waddedar sustained a bullet wound that prevented her from escaping with her group. In those circumstances, she consumed potassium cyanide to evade arrest and ended her life. Waddedar was only 21.

Like her contemporary, Bina Das, Waddedar too had been denied her graduation degree by the British authorities of Bethune College under Calcutta University. In March 2012, almost eight decades after her death, the University of Calcutta posthumously awarded Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with Distinction for the year 1932. On her graduation certificate, Waddedar’s name is mentioned with a misspelling, ‘Pritilata Waddar’, perhaps an indication of how her name was recorded in university records.

In March 2012, Calcutta University posthumously awarded Pritilata Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction for the year 1932, that the British administrative authorities had withheld from her. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)

Dr Soumitra Sarkar, Librarian of Calcutta University, who oversees university archives told indianexpress.com  that he did not have much information concerning why this may have occurred. A copy of Waddedar’s graduation certificate and marksheets were provided to the Birkanya Pritilata Trust in May 2018, based in Waddedar’s native village, Dhalghat, Patiya, Chittagong, established in her memory.

Calcutta University provided indianexpress.com a copy of Pritilata Waddedar’s marksheets for the year 1932, a detailed document that indicates that Waddedar was a student at Bethune College, reproduced by university authorities in 2018 for archival purposes. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)

The large expanse of the Maidan area in the heart of Kolkata, is dotted with statues of individuals associated with the freedom struggle. Between 1947 and 1983, the West Bengal government replaced statues of British officials and East India Company employees with those of revolutionaries, men and women who had devoted their lives to the freedom of the nation.

One such statue is that of Pritilata Waddedar, the only commemorative structure dedicated to her in the country. The monument does not have an address; to find it, one would have to walk down the long stretch of Indira Gandhi Sarani in the Maidan. The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom.

In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Arts & Culture / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – March 08th, 2020

Former JU professor passes away

He had been admitted to a private hospital for a procedure and later his Covid test report came positive.

Manabendra Bandyopadhyay / sourced by The Telegraph

Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, a former professor of comparative literature at Jadavpur University, passed away on Tuesday. He was 82 and is survived by daughter Kaushalya.

Bandyopadhyay was among the five students of the first batch of the comparative literature department at JU, which was launched by poet Buddhadev Bose in 1956. 

He had been admitted to a private hospital for a procedure, said a professor of the department. “The procedure went fine and he was supposed to go home. But he had some complications. His Covid test report came on Tuesday afternoon and it was positive,” the professor said. 

Bandyopadhyay was widely known for translating Latin American literature into Bengali.

Ipshita Chanda, a JU teacher who did her PhD under him, said: “Death does not diminish professor Manabendra Bandyopadhyay’s presence as the scholar, translator and ‘rasika’ who introduced the Bengali reader to literatures of the ‘third world’ as well as to literatures in other Indian languages. Not only did he translate prolifically, he also, on principle, produced scholarly  and creative work in Bangla, inspiring and encouraging his students to do the same. He was not only a PhD supervisor but a mentor, a guide and above all an understanding and humorous friend.”

Another teacher said he introduced Gabriel García Márquez in the syllabus of the department before the Latin American author won the Nobel prize. 

“He was the one who translated Jules Verne in Bengali. Dev Sahitya Kutir would publish the abridged version initially. Later, as his expertise grew, he started coming up with unabridged versions,” said a teacher of the department.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Special Correspondent / August 05th, 2020