Past Imperfect Episode 15: Nico Slate on Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s Art of Freedom
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was one of the most remarkable leaders of twentieth-century India, someone who was unafraid of shattering taboos, speaking her mind, and linking together campaigns for social justice around the world. Nico Slate’s new biography, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom, traces a political career which lasted nearly seven decades. She was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, a socialist firebrand, a global ambassador for India, and a towering personality in the world of Indian handicrafts and arts. Slate’s book investigates Kamaladevi’s multifaceted career, allowing us to better appreciate words she lived by: “Beauty is the soul of freedom.
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00:00:00You're listening to Past Imperfect, a history podcast brought to you by the Center for Wisdom
00:00:06and Leadership at SBJIMR.
00:00:08I'm Dinyam Patel.
00:00:10Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay was someone who has been described as the most important Indian
00:00:14woman leader of the 20th century.
00:00:17Like Jawaharlal Nehru, she saw Indian affairs through a global prism.
00:00:21Like Rabindranath Tagore, she blended politics with culture and art.
00:00:25Today I'm joined by Niko Slate, the author of Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, The Art of Freedom,
00:00:30a new biography of this most extraordinary personality.
00:00:34Kamala Devi's politics was shaped by both gender and youth, but she also transcended
00:00:38these, leaving an imprint on everything from rural handicrafts promotion to the UN Human
00:00:43Rights Commission.
00:00:44Above all, she spoke her mind, unafraid of challenging British colonial rule, other anti-colonial
00:00:50leaders or the government of independent India.
00:00:54Thank you, Niko, for joining us today to talk about your new biography on Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay.
00:01:00Your book does a really incredible job of explaining all the different facets of Kamala
00:01:04Devi's career, someone who's been called the most important Indian woman leader of the
00:01:0820th century, and someone who forged multiple different political agendas, whether it is
00:01:14thinking about India and the world, whether it's thinking about gender, socialism.
00:01:19Her political life began when she was around the age of 16 and continued until her death
00:01:23when she was 85.
00:01:25And she was, in many ways, ahead of her times when we think about ideas like both socialism
00:01:29and feminism.
00:01:31In spite of all of this, it's quite remarkable how so little is known about Kamala Devi and
00:01:36her politics.
00:01:38Why is this so, and why has so little been written about her?
00:01:41Well, first of all, Dinyar, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about Kamala Devi
00:01:45and this book.
00:01:46It was, for me, a deeply personal project because I came to Kamala Devi very early on in my
00:01:53own career as a historian, and pretty much everything I've written from my dissertation
00:01:58onwards was shaped in one way or another by her life and her inspiration.
00:02:02So even though this is the first book I've written about her, I dedicated a previous
00:02:07book to her.
00:02:08I've written on her in almost every other work I've had.
00:02:11It's a very meaningful and very personal project for me.
00:02:14So I'm grateful for the chance to talk about it, and especially to talk about it with you.
00:02:18You ask a great question about why she hasn't been recognized to the degree that she deserves,
00:02:24and I think the answer depends in part on which part of the world we're talking about.
00:02:30I'm in the United States, and here, I think, sadly, many very important Indian figures
00:02:36are understudied and underknown.
00:02:38Kamala Devi is just one of many who deserve to be far better known, right?
00:02:42So that's just American ignorance, and I think to some degree that holds in most other parts
00:02:48of the world outside of India.
00:02:50Within India, I think there's a different story because, of course, within India, there
00:02:54are certain communities that continue to hold Kamala Devi in high esteem.
00:03:00I'm thinking of folks in the craft and arts worlds, for example, for whom Kamala Devi
00:03:06remains a deeply important figure.
00:03:09But I agree with you that even within India, her reputation isn't as wide or as deep as
00:03:15it should be.
00:03:16And I think there's at least a couple reasons for this.
00:03:19One is because of the peculiar trajectory, if you will, of her own career.
00:03:24She was deeply involved in all of the major political episodes of the anti-colonial struggle,
00:03:30but then after independence, became much more focused on art and craft, which she, of course,
00:03:37understood as intimately connected to the political, but many people, I think, saw it
00:03:43as a sideshow, that it was something different from the most important issues of the day.
00:03:50And even those people and activists who were, in many ways, continuing on her trajectory
00:03:55– I'm thinking of many important feminists and women activists in the 70s and 80s – saw
00:04:00Kamala Devi, at the end of her life, as somewhat of a conservative figure, somewhat of a moderate
00:04:07figure.
00:04:08And I think the disconnect between early Kamala Devi, who's this fiery radical who's involved
00:04:13in pretty much everything going on, and the later Kamala Devi, who saw herself as still
00:04:19very involved, and I think she was still very involved in many important issues of politics
00:04:24and economics and development, broadly understood.
00:04:27But there was something different there, that was happening there.
00:04:30She was less connected, less centrally important.
00:04:34And I think that has had a lasting impact on the way that she's been understood and
00:04:38received, even within India.
00:04:40It's important to remember, also, she was active until she died in the year 1988.
00:04:45It's quite remarkable to think.
00:04:47You and I are, I guess, no longer really young, but we remember the year 1988, right?
00:04:53This is something that's within the living memory of people in our generation.
00:04:58Someone who was so intimately involved in the freedom movement in India, and had a lasting
00:05:03global impact, whether it's crafts, whether it is feminism, whether it's socialist ideas.
00:05:07She's a very recent political figure as well.
00:05:09Yes, absolutely.
00:05:10No, you're right.
00:05:12And her life connects the pre-1947 and post-1947 Indias in ways that many historians have failed
00:05:25to do, right?
00:05:27is increasingly being recognized as a problem and being addressed.
00:05:33But for a long time, we had lots of books on the anti-colonial struggle that ended in
00:05:371947, and then very little on the post-independence period.
00:05:41And what was written on post-independence tended to focus on that period.
00:05:44But what Kamala Devi's life allows us to do is to really link what's happening in the
00:05:4920s, 30s, and 40s with what's happening in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s.
00:05:56That's a good point.
00:05:57So Kamala Devi was a pioneer of something called intersectionality, the linking together
00:06:01of so many different causes, especially progressive causes, which we can see today in politics
00:06:07in places like the United States, India, and many other countries.
00:06:11What exactly was Kamala Devi's own brand of intersectionality, and how did that intersectionality
00:06:17evolve over time?
00:06:21This question really cuts to the heart of the book and to the heart of Kamala Devi's
00:06:24life.
00:06:25So I really appreciate it.
00:06:26And I'll try not to talk for three days.
00:06:28Kamala Devi's own personal life was shaped by an interesting mixture of privilege and
00:06:38struggle.
00:06:39In some ways, she's born into a very privileged position as a high caste, relatively affluent
00:06:47member of the Saraswat Raman community.
00:06:50But from a very early age, when her father dies and much of the money goes to a male
00:06:56relative rather than to her mother and her and her sisters, she becomes very aware of
00:07:01gender inequity and the way that's playing out for her.
00:07:04When she's widowed as a child, she has to confront the way in which many widows at that
00:07:10time, especially higher caste, more elite young girls, were forced to seclude themselves
00:07:18from society.
00:07:20She's fortunate enough to be shielded from that, both by her mother and her father-in-law,
00:07:25but she's still keenly aware of the deep inequities that face women in many different contexts
00:07:32of Indian life at that period of time.
00:07:35So she has this interesting mix of economic and, to some degree, social privilege with
00:07:41gender inequity.
00:07:43And I think that from an early age, that shapes her understanding of the way that all of us
00:07:48are bound together across multiple forms of identity.
00:07:53We're not just defined by our nationality or by our religion or by our class status
00:07:59or by our gender or by our race.
00:08:02All of these things intersect and overlap, and our societies are made up of these overlapping
00:08:08forms of hierarchy and privilege.
00:08:12And so from an early age, Kamla-Ravi recognized that and, to her credit, fought not just against
00:08:18the forms of inequity that directly impacted her, so in this case sexism, but also fought
00:08:23against forms of inequity that impacted other people, particularly class and issues of race
00:08:30and racial inequity.
00:08:32If and when we have time, we can talk more about the more complicated ones, religion
00:08:36and caste are more complicated for Kamla-Ravi, but certainly she's become an extremely important
00:08:41and outspoken critic of gender inequity, class inequity, and somewhat unusually, racial inequity.
00:08:49She becomes a very important and outspoken critic of racism across the globe.
00:08:55Now, that I think comes out of her own personal life, but it's also about the incredibly wide
00:09:03view that Kamla-Ravi has of the world.
00:09:06She's a voracious reader, so she learns a lot from reading, and then from fairly early
00:09:10on in her life, she starts to travel.
00:09:12She goes to Europe, and then later ends up traveling pretty much all across the world.
00:09:17And I think her voracious reading habits and her travel also contribute to her understanding
00:09:23of intersectionality, because she comes to see very directly the way that different forms
00:09:29of injustice and inequity impact people in different parts of the world.
00:09:33So when she's in India, she's very focused on issues of gender and class, but when she
00:09:39comes to the United States, she speaks out very openly about issues of race, because
00:09:44that was the primary form of inequity at that time and place.
00:09:50So she's learning from her own experience.
00:09:53She's learning from her readings.
00:09:55She's learning from her travels.
00:09:57And what she comes to is, I think, one of the most profound intersectional visions of
00:10:05a truly just world, of a truly democratic world, one that continues to have deep resonance
00:10:11not just in India, but in the United States and throughout the world.
00:10:15So you've spoken about gender, and clearly so much of her politics was derived from her
00:10:21interest in women's affairs.
00:10:24Reading your book, the other thing that really strikes me is her youth and the fact that
00:10:29during so much of her active political career in the Congress Party, she was incredibly
00:10:35young.
00:10:36I mean, she was under the age of 30 when she already had become a prominent national figure.
00:10:42And so many of her political activities in the 1920s and 1930s are with youth organizations
00:10:48or youth movements.
00:10:49So I want to ask you, how do both youth and gender define her politics, and how does she
00:10:54also try to transcend these?
00:10:55I know you spoke a little bit about how race and class were other elements of a political
00:11:01thought.
00:11:02I really appreciate this question, Daniela, because it's something that I myself was surprised
00:11:08by as I dug into her archive.
00:11:12Again and again and again, she's going to speak at youth conferences, youth rallies,
00:11:16youth movements of various sorts.
00:11:19And it was just a blind spot in my own historical knowledge.
00:11:22I wasn't aware of how important generational solidarities and conceptions of youth were
00:11:29to the anti-colonial struggle in the 1920s, 30s, and into the 40s.
00:11:35And it really did shape Kamala Devi and her vision of the world.
00:11:39She understood herself, as did many of her peers, as being part of a turning tide of
00:11:46a new generation that was going to not just win India's freedom, but redefine what freedom
00:11:52meant.
00:11:53And I think it directly fed into her radicalism, the degree to which she didn't just want to
00:11:59get rid of the British, but keep the essence of British rule.
00:12:03She wanted to fundamentally transform Indian society.
00:12:06And she fought tooth and nail against many of the older, more established, more conservative
00:12:11figures within the Congress movement, even while maintaining overall amicable relationships
00:12:18with them.
00:12:19And that's one of, I think, the remarkable stories, not just of Kamala Devi, but really
00:12:22of the Indian freedom movement, is that you have a movement that contains a tremendous
00:12:27range of different viewpoints and different political strategies and visions.
00:12:32And yet, in the end of the day, many of these figures are able to find their way back together.
00:12:36So Kamala Devi's relationship with Gandhi, of course, is the most intriguing, I think,
00:12:41and rich one.
00:12:42But similarly with Patel, many other key older Congress figures, Kamala Devi's often a thorn
00:12:51in their side, a gadfly, someone who's pressuring them to take more radical stances on land
00:13:00redistribution, on the movement in the princely states, on issues of gender and sexuality.
00:13:08And sometimes this can lead to outright arguments that spill out into the press, it can become
00:13:14a very public affair.
00:13:15Sometimes it's about internal debates.
00:13:19But Kamala Devi is definitely advancing what she sees and many others see as a younger
00:13:25generation's view of the Indian freedom movement.
00:13:29You ask about the relationship between youth and gender, and there too, I think it's actually
00:13:35important to recognize that within the Indian women's movement, Kamala Devi is, at least
00:13:40for the first two decades of her political life, one of the youngest figures to have
00:13:45importance on the national stage.
00:13:49And there too, she combines her youth with a sense of radicalism to push the Indian women's
00:13:56movement towards having a more radical stance, not just on sexism and patriarchy, but also
00:14:03on colonialism and British rule.
00:14:06There are many figures within the Indian women's movement in those years who feel like it should
00:14:13be a single focus movement, that they should just focus on gaining greater rights for women
00:14:19and not confuse things by taking on issues of colonialism or socialism or other issues.
00:14:28Of course, there's this long complicated dynamic in which the British themselves used issues
00:14:37of gender to try to assert their own importance, in order to try to suggest that they were
00:14:43there to help advance India's society.
00:14:47It's complicated for someone like Kamala Devi, who wants to fight against sexism and patriarchy,
00:14:52but doesn't want to provide fuel for the British in order to prolong their rule.
00:14:58And I think it's important to see her stance as something of a youth stance.
00:15:02The younger members of the movement are those saying, look, if we really want to end sexism
00:15:09and patriarchy, we have to end colonialism too, and we have to end class inequity, and
00:15:15we have to fight against racial inequity.
00:15:17We have to do all of these things at the same time.
00:15:20And I've always found it striking, actually, Kamala Devi is almost always the odd one out.
00:15:25In women's movements, she's the radical socialist who's fighting for anti-colonialism.
00:15:30In Congress meetings, she's often one of the lone powerful female voices.
00:15:36Even among the socialists, she's one of the few women who's trying to fight to bring gender
00:15:41and issues of gender inequity into focus.
00:15:44So she's always swimming against the tide in some ways.
00:15:47And I think it's one of the things I admire about her, but I also do associate that to
00:15:51some degree with just the fact that she sees herself as part of this younger generation.
00:15:56In that sense, I think it's kind of appropriate she was born in the 20th century, right?
00:16:00In the sense that she's one of the few people in the 20s and 30s in the Congress who actually
00:16:05was born in the century that they were waging their political campaign.
00:16:10So on the topic of youth, I want to turn to Kamala Devi's childhood and adolescence.
00:16:17There seemed to be two key turning points in her life, both which seemed to shatter
00:16:21a lot of taboos.
00:16:23At the age of 11, you write in your book, she was married in her hometown of Bangalore,
00:16:27but her husband passed away within a year.
00:16:30But her family nevertheless was insistent that Kamala Devi not live the rest of her
00:16:34life as a widow in solitude, which was still, of course, very commonly practiced in that
00:16:39era, and instead pursue her education.
00:16:42And that, I guess, really sends shockwaves both within the community, the Saraswat Brahmin
00:16:48community, and also sets herself up on a life of breaking certain taboos.
00:16:55Yes, absolutely.
00:16:59And I give both her mother and her former husband, the boy that she's married to, his
00:17:07father, are both very progressive members of that community.
00:17:11And they both speak out for her and defend her right to continue her education.
00:17:18And it does, as you said, shape her in at least two ways.
00:17:20One is that it early on brands her as something of a rebel.
00:17:25And it also provides her the means to continue to advance her own education and her own development.
00:17:31And that, of course, then leads directly to the next big taboo breaking moment, which
00:17:36I expect you're going to ask about in a minute.
00:17:38But her education takes her from Mangalore, which is a city, but a relatively sleepy city,
00:17:44to the great city of Madras, right now, Chennai.
00:17:48And it's there that she meets her next husband and breaks those taboos again.
00:17:53So if you could talk a bit about that, I mean, you know, the man she meets obviously comes
00:17:57from a different community, a very different milieu.
00:17:59Yes, yes.
00:18:00So the Chattopadhyay's are amongst India's most dynamic and storied families at that
00:18:09moment of time, deeply enmeshed in cultural production of various sorts, deeply involved
00:18:17in the avant-garde in various contexts.
00:18:21And Harindranath is already at that point fairly well known as a poet and an actor and
00:18:27someone who is seen as a very dynamic figure.
00:18:31He and Kamaladevi meet in the upper class world of Madras.
00:18:37Kamaladevi is friends with several of his sisters and they fall in love.
00:18:44Now, from very early on, I think it's something of a one-sided relationship in the degree
00:18:51that Harindranath is never one to hone in on one romantic partner.
00:18:59From very early on, he's known as a philanderer who's having multiple relationships at the
00:19:05same time.
00:19:06I think Kamaladevi does very sincerely fall in love with him, at least at the outset.
00:19:13But I think she's also attracted to some degree to the larger world that he's a part of.
00:19:18By marrying Harindranath, she marries not just this very dynamic young man, but she
00:19:23also marries into a world of art parties and cultural events.
00:19:32And she fights to be fully a part of that world.
00:19:35One of my favorite details of her life, really, in the grand scheme of things, but it was
00:19:41very important, is that when she marries Harindranath, not long thereafter, she learns that he's
00:19:47made plans to go study in the UK and that it's expected that she'll remain behind in
00:19:52India and she'll have nothing to do with that plan.
00:19:56She rejects the idea of staying in India and instead travels herself to the UK in order
00:20:02to pursue her own studies.
00:20:04She fights to be fully a part of his life and of the opportunities that that offers
00:20:10for her.
00:20:13From just the very fact that she remarries and remarries across the lines of community
00:20:18to the fact that she is willing to travel to the UK to pursue her own education, she's
00:20:25breaking boundaries one half to the other.
00:20:28And it's the kind of boundary breaking that then creates for her the hunger to do it again.
00:20:34This is part of the power of refusing to be bounded as a young person, is that she then
00:20:41learns more.
00:20:42She's introduced to greater and more interesting worlds, including meeting Harindranath's older
00:20:47brother, most often known as Chato, the famous radical.
00:20:55Whereas Harindranath is engaged with politics, but I think is more of a poet and an actor
00:21:00than anything else.
00:21:02His family is deeply involved in the freedom struggle and deeply involved in certain socialist
00:21:08radical politics in ways that have a huge impact on Kamala Devi.
00:21:13So she breaks these boundaries and then is radicalized in the process of breaking them
00:21:19and her world becomes increasingly, for her, exciting.
00:21:23And she becomes increasingly important to that world.
00:21:27You talk about in your book about how by marrying into the Chattopadhyay family, she expands
00:21:32her boundaries in an incredible way.
00:21:34She gets a sister-in-law, Sarojini Naidu, who knows Gandhi, works with people like
00:21:39Mohammad Ali Jinnah, knew Gokhale very well, so automatically in the first rung of the
00:21:44nationalist leadership of the time.
00:21:46You talked about Chato, Virendra Chattopadhyay, who was a Europe-based radical who eventually
00:21:52is killed during Stalinist purges.
00:21:54So you have people who are really on the frontiers of political developments, not just in India
00:22:02and abroad.
00:22:04But at the same time, this family could seem to be quite domineering and could have almost
00:22:09like a suffocating influence upon Kamala Devi and her career and her personal life as well.
00:22:14Yes, no, that's true.
00:22:16And that will remain a challenge for her throughout much of her life.
00:22:20I think it's a testament to her that she's strong enough to not be fully controlled by
00:22:26the Chattopadhyay family.
00:22:28But it's not easy, because they are extremely powerful figures with a strong sense of what
00:22:36Harindranath's wife should be like.
00:22:39And so Kamala Devi has to fight back against that.
00:22:41And she fights back early on in deciding that she's going to go to the UK to study.
00:22:48And then she fights it again when she has their child, their son, Ram, in deciding that
00:22:56she's going to continue to stay actively involved in politics of various sorts.
00:23:01Now, Harindranath could easily be a villainous figure because of his affairs.
00:23:07He has problems with alcohol.
00:23:08In many ways, he's a terrible husband and a terrible father.
00:23:12But Kamala Devi never saw him as entirely a villain.
00:23:14And I think it's important to recognize why, you know, even later in life, they maintain
00:23:19something of an amicable relationship.
00:23:21And I don't want to defend him in the least.
00:23:23He doesn't deserve a lot of defense.
00:23:26But I will say that he is, especially early on in their relationship, an important figure
00:23:34in defending her political activism, her involvement in the movement.
00:23:40He's not the kind of husband who's going to tell her, you have to stay home with our child.
00:23:45He's actually very excited to collaborate with her.
00:23:47They perform on the stage, travel around India, doing shows that aim to stir up social consciousness.
00:23:55So there is a certain partnership, and I find it interesting, actually, that although she
00:24:00barely mentions him at all in her memoir, it's a very interesting choice, when she does
00:24:05mention him, she mentions him as a colleague, as a partner on the stage and in politics.
00:24:11And I think that was an important element of their relationship.
00:24:15So the Chattopadhyay family on the whole is very complicated for, as you said, it empowers
00:24:20her to have suddenly all these doors open.
00:24:24And a figure like Sarojini Naidu is both a tremendous supporter at many key junctions
00:24:29in her life.
00:24:30I mean, Sarojini Naidu plays a very important role in bringing Kamala Devi into a position
00:24:35of leadership in the All India Women's Conference, the most important organization for Kamala
00:24:39Devi for much of her early life.
00:24:42Sarojini Naidu is a very important supporter, but then also plays a much more complicated
00:24:48role when it comes time for Kamala Devi and Haran to separate.
00:24:54When Kamala Devi files for divorce, this is something Sarojini Naidu strongly opposes,
00:25:00and there's a lot of tension at that point.
00:25:02So Sarojini Naidu is a complicated figure.
00:25:04The other sisters are also complicated figures, and Haran himself is deeply, deeply complicated
00:25:10for Kamala Devi.
00:25:12But I think early on, he plays a supporting role that helps her find her own independent
00:25:18role in their relationship and within the family.
00:25:22And I think that that gives her enough strength that then later on, she's too powerful and
00:25:29too strong to be controlled, once she finds her full footing, which doesn't take long.
00:25:35At that point, even the most powerful family out there wouldn't be able to really box her
00:25:40in.
00:25:41Nobody could, Dinyar.
00:25:42I mean, this is one of the things I just love about Kamala Devi.
00:25:44She refuses to be boxed in.
00:25:45She refuses to be bounded.
00:25:49She has too strong a sense of her own willpower and too strong a sense of her own curiosity
00:25:55about the world and her interests in exploring and being all of who she can be.
00:26:04So not long after her marriage, I mean, we think about when you mentioned about not being
00:26:09boxed in.
00:26:10I mean, she gets another huge opportunity opened up to herself in the sense that she
00:26:14is introduced to Gandhian politics, right?
00:26:16And she participates in some Gandhian activities.
00:26:20And she has a relationship with Gandhi from that moment up until Gandhi's assassination
00:26:26in 1948.
00:26:28But as you mentioned in your book, and as I think you mentioned a short while ago, it
00:26:32was very complex, right?
00:26:33In the sense that she was not afraid to oppose Gandhi or let him know of her disagreements.
00:26:42And your book has a very telling quote where Kamala Devi remarks that she was, quote, not
00:26:47one of those Bapu-worshipping females who lull comfortably in their armchairs, end quote.
00:26:53Where did Kamala Devi's ideas converge and diverge from Gandhi's?
00:26:58What wonderful questions you're asking me, Dinyar.
00:27:02So, as you know, I am something of a Gandhi devotee myself, if you will.
00:27:09I recognize the complexities of the man, but I find him endlessly fascinating.
00:27:13And there's so many things I learned from him.
00:27:16And so this is one of the dynamics that was most fun for me personally, is to be able
00:27:22to look at Gandhi through the lens of Kamala Devi, someone who knew him intimately well,
00:27:26worked with him very closely.
00:27:28And one could argue, and I actually to some degree make this argument, that in the post-independence
00:27:35period, Kamala Devi is one of the most important Gandhians.
00:27:38She's advancing his ideas in a variety of really important ways.
00:27:43And yet, she's never a disciple.
00:27:47She never hues entirely to a Gandhian worldview, and she's never shy about voicing her disagreements
00:27:55with him directly.
00:27:57So you ask, where do they align and where do they not align?
00:28:01Maybe I'll start with where they don't align.
00:28:04And that shifts over time, because, and I give him credit for this, Gandhi changes his
00:28:09own views in important ways over time and becomes more aligned with Kamala Devi, both
00:28:16on issues of class to some degree, certainly on issues of gender.
00:28:23The most famous flashpoint in the book is when Kamala Devi challenges him on his limited
00:28:31vision of women's participation in the Salt Satyagraha.
00:28:34He wants women to be involved, but he doesn't want them on the salt march.
00:28:37He doesn't want them directly confronting the police in any form of direct nonviolence,
00:28:43so disobedience.
00:28:44He wants them picketing liquor shops and et cetera.
00:28:46So he has a vision for women's role, but it's a limited one.
00:28:50Kamala Devi, along with several other women, directly challenged him on this, and he is
00:28:55convinced and changes his viewpoint and opens the Salt Satyagraha fully to all women's participation.
00:29:03And Kamala Devi herself then becomes a key figure in the movement, particularly in Mumbai,
00:29:08and is eventually arrested.
00:29:10So on gender, I'd say they start off in different viewpoints, but she pulls him towards a more
00:29:16progressive view.
00:29:17Never as far as she is, but she pulls him in, I think, the right direction.
00:29:22Similarly on issues of class and issues of the princely states, he's much more cautious
00:29:27and conservative.
00:29:28Kamala Devi is one of the most outspoken figures, along with Lohia and a few others.
00:29:32She really makes it one of her key causes to fight against the authoritarianism and
00:29:39the inequities of the princely states, and challenges Gandhi very directly on that, and
00:29:44eventually pulls him in her direction.
00:29:47So there's a lot of key differences where Kamala Devi is pulling him in the right way,
00:29:52I'd say, or at least towards her more progressive dimension.
00:29:57But there are also some key similarities.
00:29:59So one of them is that from very early on, Kamala Devi is deeply moved by the way in
00:30:07which Gandhi embodies his politics, and it has a vision for India's economic development
00:30:16that is based on local forms of handmade products, Kadi cloth being the most famous example.
00:30:27This deeply resonates with Kamala Devi, which I find it's quite interesting because it sets
00:30:32her apart from any of her socialist colleagues, not all of them, but many of them.
00:30:37She's less interested in huge industrial development, and is much more focused on small-scale community-based
00:30:43forms of economic growth, really steeped for her in the arts and crafts movement, which
00:30:48she sees both as an aesthetic good, but also as a very important social and economic good.
00:30:56And so Gandhi's view of small-scale village-based development is one that Kamala Devi becomes
00:31:05an extremely important proponent of, and they come together on that, even before his death.
00:31:12They're also aligned in their view of partition.
00:31:15Kamala Devi is one of the most outspoken opponents of partition, as of course was Gandhi, and
00:31:22really pushes him, tries to get him to be an even more fierce critic, to do even more
00:31:29to try to oppose partition.
00:31:32So there's a lot of similarities, especially towards the end of Gandhi's life.
00:31:35I think Kamala Devi has become one of the closest key figures to how he envisions India's future.
00:31:45And after his death, she's going to continue to advance those causes.
00:31:49Maybe with one important exception, which I find interesting and personally I find fun
00:31:54to think about where we should all end up on this, which is Kamala Devi doesn't have
00:32:00much of Gandhi's aesthetic strain.
00:32:03Although she's very interested in small-scale development and handwork of various sorts,
00:32:14she doesn't believe in wearing white kadhi cloth all the time.
00:32:17She loves colorful saris.
00:32:19She loves jewelry.
00:32:20She loves delicious food.
00:32:22She's not going to fast in the way that Gandhi would.
00:32:25So that aesthetic strain never touches her.
00:32:28And actually, in that way, she's much more inspired by Tagore.
00:32:31She's more inspired by that legacy of embracing the full richness of beauty within Indian
00:32:39culture in terms of art and dress and food, et cetera.
00:32:43So that, I think, is a nice balancing point to the Gandhi-Tagore spectrum, if you will.
00:32:52I think Kamala Devi adds a nice balancing point where she draws in some ways from one
00:32:57figure and in some ways from the other.
00:33:01In reading what you had written about Kamala Devi's relationship with Gandhi, I was reminded
00:33:05a lot of another woman leader who I've done a little bit of research on, which was Kushid
00:33:09bin Naroji.
00:33:10You mentioned in your book that Kushid bin Naroji was, first of all, the granddaughter
00:33:15of Dadabhai Naroji, and she also became a Gandhian leader.
00:33:19And she also kind of rejected some of these aesthetic qualities of Gandhi's political
00:33:27philosophy and economic philosophy.
00:33:29She and her sisters, for example, when they were in charge of weaving Kadi cloth and such,
00:33:34they made sure to have embroidered patterns, things that would appeal to elite Bombay residents
00:33:39and such.
00:33:40And at the same time, she was deeply critical of Gandhi at some times.
00:33:44She wrote these scathing, scathing letters to Gandhi around the time of, just before
00:33:48the Quit India movement.
00:33:49I mean, unlike Kamala Devi, she didn't make this public.
00:33:53And I think Kamala Devi, in many ways, pushed the envelope much more with Gandhi than Kushid
00:33:58bin Naroji did.
00:33:59But nevertheless, it's reflective of, I think, something important you've identified here,
00:34:02which is the fact that Gandhi was influenced and pushed by so many women leaders throughout
00:34:09his career, and many of his political stances were based on pressures and influences of
00:34:17women colleagues.
00:34:18Yes.
00:34:19Absolutely.
00:34:20Oh, absolutely.
00:34:21Which is, first and foremost, testament to the importance of those women leaders and
00:34:26urges us to try to remedy their relative exclusion from the historical narrative.
00:34:32I think it is vital for future scholars and for the broader public to recognize more of
00:34:41these women and their importance to the story of India's freedom and India's development.
00:34:47And it also reminds us to give some respect and appreciation for Gandhi, because although
00:34:54he had complicated views, and there's certainly patriarchal strains in him, if you look at
00:34:59his relationship with his own wife, it's very complicated.
00:35:03But he grows and changes over time.
00:35:06And he is also, in many ways, very keen to empower women as important agents.
00:35:15So this is a topic that's been written on.
00:35:17The Gandhian side of it has been written on by many, many smart and important people.
00:35:21But I still find it fascinating.
00:35:23But I think in bringing more of those key women into the main narrative is a very important
00:35:28thing.
00:35:31So you talked a little bit about her role in convincing Gandhi to allow women into more
00:35:37avenues of work during the Salt Satyagraha.
00:35:40The civil disobedience movement and the Salt Satyagraha movement was, in many ways, where
00:35:45she really was pushed into the front rank of Congress leaders.
00:35:51As you talk about in your book, she was involved in leading raids on saltworks, such as the
00:35:56Wadala saltworks.
00:35:57I'm living not far away from where those saltworks are.
00:36:00She was involved in a lot of nitty-gritty work as well, whether it was selling packets
00:36:06of contraband salt in places like the Bombay High Court or the Share Bazaar.
00:36:11How did Kamala Devi leave her own particular stamp on the civil disobedience movement?
00:36:16And how, in turn, did the civil disobedience movement change Kamala Devi?
00:36:21The first part of your question, how did she leave her stamp, leads us back to the key
00:36:27role of intersectionality in Kamala Devi's life.
00:36:29I think her main contribution to the movement, and she certainly wasn't alone in this, but
00:36:33she was one of the most important figures who was fighting to create a broad-based movement.
00:36:40And that meant, first and foremost, trying to bring working-class people and labor unions
00:36:45more firmly into the Congress fold and more firmly on the side of the struggle.
00:36:51And she's working in Mumbai, then Bombay, one of the key industrial centers in the country,
00:36:57one with a very strong left orientation, very fierce labor unions.
00:37:03And she's trying to make the case that it's in the best interests of workers to fight
00:37:09with the Congress to gain India's independence, and at the same time to push the Congress
00:37:15towards having a more radical stance on capitalist inequity.
00:37:21So that's her main contribution.
00:37:23She's also, like many others at the time, focused on fighting against religious extremism,
00:37:33trying to bridge the divide between Hindus and Muslims in particular, but also other
00:37:38religious communities.
00:37:39She's, of course, as we talked about earlier, demonstrating in her own person and also fighting
00:37:46for the rights of women to be active leaders in the movement.
00:37:50So she's trying to build an intersectional movement.
00:37:52She's trying to build a salt struggle and a freedom struggle that involves everyone
00:37:57across lines of class, caste, religion, gender, et cetera, and in the service of a vision
00:38:04of Indian freedom that will be similarly inclusive.
00:38:07That's her contribution.
00:38:10In terms of the impact on her, I'd say a couple of things.
00:38:17So first of all, this is the moment in time in her life when she really, I think, is forced
00:38:25to realize that she has to sacrifice very deeply and personally her own family life
00:38:34for the struggle.
00:38:35She's made sacrifices already in her life earlier.
00:38:38She's gone to jail already earlier, for example.
00:38:42But at this point, her son is older, at an age where it's much harder for her to be gone.
00:38:51He's not a baby anymore, and she has to go through very painful episodes of having to
00:38:58say goodbye to her son and then being whisked off to jail, not knowing how long she'll be
00:39:02in jail.
00:39:04So there's a lot of uncertainty about how the movement will play out for her personally.
00:39:14And that uncertainty is, it would be hard for anyone, of course, but it's especially
00:39:19hard for someone who is in many ways a single mother.
00:39:22Harin is out of the country, gallivanting about with another woman at this point.
00:39:28He's never been a good father.
00:39:30So Kamala Devi knows that she's taken out of the picture.
00:39:33Her son is not going to have either parent around.
00:39:36There are, of course, other family members who will and do help raise him.
00:39:40But that's a deeply difficult decision for her to make.
00:39:44But it's one that she makes.
00:39:45She knows that she has to make those sacrifices because she's called to dedicate her life
00:39:51to this struggle.
00:39:54You mentioned Harin, and that's precisely what I wanted to talk about next.
00:39:58Because while she's doing this, while she's courting arrest in Bombay, and later while
00:40:02she's in prison and suffering some pretty terrible treatment in prison, her husband,
00:40:08Harin, is abroad in the United States and embarks upon an affair with an American woman
00:40:14who actually identified as an Indian, Ragini Devi, a famous dancer, who herself is also
00:40:19married.
00:40:21And we knew that Harin was not the best of husbands.
00:40:26I mean, you had talked about his many indiscretions.
00:40:29But over here, he runs off with a married woman, and this woman becomes pregnant.
00:40:34And it splashed all over the news, thanks to Ragini Devi's husband, and it embroiled
00:40:39Kamala Devi in a great deal of controversy.
00:40:41And she ultimately takes the momentous decision at this moment to divorce.
00:40:46And divorce worldwide at this point, right, in the early 1930s, is not very lightly indulged
00:40:52in, and in a country like India, even more so.
00:40:56So how was her decision to divorce Harin, in keeping with her political principles and
00:41:01her ideas of gender equality?
00:41:06This is one of the most dramatic moments in her life.
00:41:09And I think her decision to divorce Harin is bound up with her fight for the freedom,
00:41:19not just of India as a country, but the fight for the freedom and independence of Indian
00:41:24women.
00:41:25And Kamala Devi sees this marriage as increasingly a shackle, as increasingly a form of colonial
00:41:40rule, if you will, in which she's being confined and constrained and really mistreated by this
00:41:47man who is having serial affairs in ways, as you just noted, that were deeply public,
00:41:56who's also in many ways abandoning their son, and when he does show up, can play a very
00:42:02divisive role with the son.
00:42:04So there's a strong tie for Kamala Devi between her decision to divorce Harin and her fight
00:42:14for the freedom and independence of Indian women.
00:42:17They're both acts of principled resistance to forms of inequity and injustice.
00:42:24It's not an easy decision.
00:42:25It's actually a very difficult decision for her.
00:42:27And some of it is her worries about how it will impact her son.
00:42:31Some of it is her worries about how it will impact her own political career, because there's
00:42:35fierce resistance.
00:42:36You know, as I mentioned early, Sarojini Naidu is deeply opposed to the divorce, goes directly
00:42:43to Gandhi and, you know, spreads rumors that already exist about how Kamala Devi wants
00:42:49to divorce Harin because she wants to have her own affairs.
00:42:52There's all sorts of rumors at play here.
00:42:57And she's imprisoned at the time.
00:43:00You know, it's amazing.
00:43:01She has to be transported from one jail all the way across India to participate in the
00:43:07divorce proceedings before being transported back.
00:43:10And as you noted, that is one of the hardest periods of her jail going.
00:43:14She's in solitary confinement in very difficult conditions.
00:43:18This was in Vellore, right?
00:43:21In Vellore, exactly, yes.
00:43:23But it's a decision that she never regrets, to my knowledge.
00:43:28I didn't find any record.
00:43:31Of course, she's very private, so there isn't much about her marriage in the record anyway.
00:43:36But there's very little evidence that she regretted the decision to divorce.
00:43:39I think it was one that she struggled with, decided upon, and then embarked upon.
00:43:48But as I said earlier, you know, she maintains somewhat warm relationships with Harin.
00:43:54She's a very forgiving person.
00:43:56And you mentioned Rajini Devi.
00:43:58You know, that is one of my favorite episodes of the book, where this, you know, American
00:44:03woman who's passing as an Indian dancer, shows up in India, pregnant, has the child.
00:44:09Word of this comes to Kamala Devi, she's in jail.
00:44:12You know, there's this American woman, she's having an affair with her husband.
00:44:15She's had a child.
00:44:16The husband, you know, it could be your husband's child, we don't know.
00:44:20And Kamala Devi's instinct is to use her networks to get support to this woman and her child,
00:44:27to find ways to make sure they're taken care of.
00:44:31Because she sees this woman as another human being.
00:44:36And she also has a sense of female solidarity.
00:44:39Here's another woman who's been mistreated by a man, and I'm not going to hold that against
00:44:45her.
00:44:46I'm going to find a way to support her and help her.
00:44:48So in many ways, it's one of the moments, I think, where Kamala Devi's at her best.
00:44:53She's willing to take the principled stance to initiate the divorce, but at the same
00:44:58time to not hold any sort of deep, lasting grudge.
00:45:02I'm sure she was deeply angry, but she maintains a relationship with Haran, and she finds support
00:45:08for this woman, Rajni Devi.
00:45:10So it's a remarkable moment in Kamala Devi's life that I think shows her courage, her independence,
00:45:17and also the depth of her empathy for other people.
00:45:20So after she's unshackled, at least officially from this marriage, she embarks upon a two-year-long
00:45:27tour of the world.
00:45:29And I think one of the most striking things of Kamala Devi's career that you bring out
00:45:33in this book is her global mindedness.
00:45:34I mean, she was someone who was always writing or thinking about things beyond India and
00:45:39interconnections with India.
00:45:41But for this particular tour, she really, in many ways, does an incredible thing.
00:45:47I mean, she travels around the world just as World War II is breaking out.
00:45:51She travels to Japan, and then in Japan tells people, I'm going to Nationalist China, to
00:45:55the capital of Nationalist China, to Chongqing, and obviously annoys a lot of her Japanese
00:45:59hosts for speaking out firstly against Japanese imperialism and then telling them that she's
00:46:04traveling onwards to the other side of the battle and meeting people like Chiang Kai-shek
00:46:10and his wife.
00:46:12But she spends a great deal of time, most of those two years, in the United States.
00:46:16And I know in your first book, obviously, Colored Cosmopolitanism, you begin with an
00:46:21episode from this time when she's in the United States traveling in Louisiana and is told
00:46:28to vacate a whites-only part of the train.
00:46:31And she refuses.
00:46:32And that, in many ways, is a symbolic marker for where her sympathies lie.
00:46:38But she develops ties with all sorts of people there.
00:46:40She develops ties with feminists.
00:46:41You talk about her ties with socialists, African-American leaders.
00:46:45What were Kamala Devi's overall impressions of America, and how did she establish commonalities
00:46:50between Indian anti-colonialism and the various American progressive movements that she encountered?
00:46:55I realize this is another question which you could probably take three days again to talk
00:46:58about, if you could give us a nutshell idea of what this dynamic was like.
00:47:03Yes, of course.
00:47:04Well, as you noted, this is really how I became introduced to Kamala Devi originally.
00:47:11I was drawn to her because she was one of the most outspoken Indian critics of American
00:47:18racism and one of the figures from South Asia who formed the strongest ties with African-American
00:47:23activists.
00:47:24And that's where my own historical research began.
00:47:28Let me take your second question first, which is just how does she forge these ties with
00:47:32different progressive activists in the U.S.?
00:47:36I give her credit, first and foremost, because she could easily have come to the U.S. solely
00:47:43as a representative of India's freedom struggle and could have focused on talking about British
00:47:48imperialism.
00:47:49And in some ways, that's the easy and safest route.
00:47:53When you're going to a country and you're trying to gain that country's support for
00:47:56your struggle, it doesn't usually behoove you to criticize the country you're visiting,
00:48:02right?
00:48:03I mean, that can defeat the whole purpose.
00:48:05And yet she does.
00:48:06She speaks out.
00:48:08And some of that is just her own fierce willingness to speak out against any injustice that she
00:48:15comes across.
00:48:16But it's made easier by the fact that there are strong networks of solidarity and support
00:48:21that she's a part of, right?
00:48:23So a figure like Nehru, who's another very important and interesting figure in her life,
00:48:28has his own strong ties with progressive Americans of many sorts, African-Americans.
00:48:33Many of the same characters, right?
00:48:35Many of the same characters.
00:48:36Exactly.
00:48:37So there are these interlocking networks of support that Tamla Devi just slots right into
00:48:43and then helps to expand and build and amplify.
00:48:47And the people, the Americans who are critical of British rule also tend to be the Americans
00:48:53who are critical of American racism, critical of imperialism more broadly, supportive of
00:48:57women's rights.
00:49:00Some people are more strongly supportive of one cause or the other, but there's a lot
00:49:04of overlap in these sorts of communities and Tamla Devi sort of fits neatly into them.
00:49:10And to come back to your first question just about her overall views of the United States,
00:49:14this strongly shapes her views of the United States.
00:49:17And I think she ends up having a view which accords with many American progressives of
00:49:23that day, which is that the United States is a deeply divided country that has tremendous
00:49:28potential as a source of freedom dreams of many kinds, as a place where there is real
00:49:38hope for true democracy, but also as a place that is very far from living up to its own
00:49:43ideals.
00:49:44So Tamla Devi is keenly aware of the failings of American democracy, of American imperialism
00:49:49abroad, and doesn't hesitate to speak out about it.
00:49:55Now, as you noted, she doesn't hesitate to speak out against Japanese imperialism either,
00:50:00and she is relatively open in her criticism of the Soviet Union.
00:50:09That's another key global player that Tamla Devi visits several times, and although she's
00:50:14on the left and is very interested in some forms of Soviet socialist politics, land redistribution,
00:50:23et cetera, she's also keenly aware of the dangers of authoritarianism, of the crushing
00:50:30of free speech.
00:50:31So she's someone who's willing to be basically critical of everyone's failings.
00:50:35She's critical of American failings, critical of the Japanese, critical of the Soviets,
00:50:40critical of the British, critical of India and its failings.
00:50:43And this is, I think, one of the marks of someone who is a true Democrat, with a lower
00:50:50case D, someone who's deeply concerned about advancing the cause of freedom, and is willing
00:50:58to speak out against the failings of any country when that country is not able to live up to
00:51:06its own democratic aspirations.
00:51:10And her travels reinforce, I think, that awareness that Tamla Devi has that freedom is a concept,
00:51:20it's a constant struggle, that it's not as if there's any country in the world that has
00:51:26figured it all out.
00:51:27Tamla Devi's aware of the fact that there are real achievements in different places,
00:51:32but that doesn't stop her from fighting against the inequities and injustices in those places.
00:51:38So one thing that is quite apparent from your book is that there is a major rupture after
00:51:44independence.
00:51:47As late as 1947, she's continuing to talk about worldwide events, right?
00:51:53She's talking about French imperialism in Vietnam.
00:51:56She's talking about the beverage plan in the United Kingdom, the National Health Service.
00:52:01She's talking about a variety of different things, and she's involved in refugee resettlement.
00:52:06She's involved in thinking about health insurance, fraternity rights.
00:52:10And yet, I think, as you point out in your book, especially after she tries and fails
00:52:16to enter the Lok Sabha in 1951, she, in her own words, leaves the highway of politics
00:52:22to step into the side lane of constructive work, and she narrows her work considerably
00:52:26to handicrafts, theater, work with organizations in India that do a lot to generate employment.
00:52:36But she doesn't seem to have that same critical edge to her politics that she did prior to
00:52:441947.
00:52:46What happened precisely?
00:52:47I mean, is it wrong to see a major disjuncture, or is it just simply a new phase of her political
00:52:52activism after 47 and 51?
00:52:55This is a question I struggled with, Dinyar, and I continue to struggle with.
00:53:01And the easy answer is to say it's both.
00:53:04There is a disjuncture, but there's also a lot of continuity.
00:53:08The hard part is figuring out where exactly the continuity lies, where the disjuncture
00:53:14was, and what caused it.
00:53:15Because certainly the second half of her career is profoundly different from the first half.
00:53:23She's, as you said, almost entirely focused on issues of handicrafts and the arts broadly
00:53:31understood.
00:53:32So it's not just handicrafts.
00:53:33It's also she's very involved in the performing arts, and in drama, in creating a robust
00:53:43arts world that she hopes will be strongly supported by the Indian state, but not controlled
00:53:48by the Indian state.
00:53:50So she plays a very important role in that.
00:53:53And she continues to write about and speak out about other issues, issues of gender in
00:54:00particular, but to some degree also issues of socialism and class inequity.
00:54:07With time, she becomes less ferocious in her critiques, both domestically and I think even
00:54:15more dramatically abroad.
00:54:16I mean, this is one of the things that really struck me.
00:54:19And me also reading your book, I mean, I was amazed that she didn't speak out against oppression
00:54:25in Iran or Mexico, America.
00:54:29That's right.
00:54:30Yes.
00:54:31The fire that she brought with her to her travels in the 30s and especially during the
00:54:39Second World War, that is not there when she travels later in life.
00:54:45Now, she is critical of the World Crafts Council, the organization that she plays an important
00:54:52role in founding and plays a key role in for many, many years.
00:54:56She is critical of its failures to fully include artists from Asia and Africa.
00:55:04And there is some fire there still in her criticisms of that organization and its failings.
00:55:09But in terms of speaking out against national governments, speaking out against inequities
00:55:14in many of the countries that she's visiting, and she visits so many of them, I mean, she
00:55:18just travels hugely, you know, well into the last decade of her life.
00:55:25She's much more muted.
00:55:26And some of that, I think, is age.
00:55:28Some of that is just that she has a lot of health problems.
00:55:32She has to focus more on her own world just by necessity.
00:55:38So she ends up with less bandwidth to speak out about other things.
00:55:41And she chooses to use her energy to speak out within the world of handicrafts and arts.
00:55:51But some of it, I think, is also just a certain shift in her conception of her role in the
00:55:58world.
00:55:59And it's not a complete shift.
00:56:01You know, there's a couple examples in the last chapter of the book that I find deeply
00:56:05moving where she does go out of her way to speak up in order to intervene.
00:56:11For example, when the two young boys, the shepherds, wander into Pakistan, you know,
00:56:16Kamala Devi quickly intervenes to bring them back home.
00:56:22You know, when a young woman is a victim of an acid attack, she speaks out and quickly
00:56:29finds support for that young woman.
00:56:32So she still intervenes, and she still has some of that sense that when there's an injustice,
00:56:39she will speak out and remedy it.
00:56:43Another example is the imprisonment of women and children in the wake of the storming of
00:56:50the Golden Temple, right, in Amritsar.
00:56:52So she plays a key role in that as well.
00:56:55So these are all things happening in the 80s near the end of her life that she takes an
00:56:59active stance on.
00:57:00But certainly it's not the Kamala Devi of the 30s and 40s.
00:57:04Now, I mean, how many of us are going to be the same when we're in our 80s?
00:57:09You know, it's a high bar to say that someone as fiery and radical as Kamala Devi should
00:57:14be expected to remain that way throughout the full course of their life.
00:57:18So for me as a biographer, I tried not to, you know, hold her to an unreasonable bar.
00:57:26But I also didn't want to gloss over the changes, right, because there are changes there, and
00:57:30it's important to recognize them and be honest about them, even while appreciating the many
00:57:34ways that she remains a very important figure, even in the later parts of her life.
00:57:40And you know, the arts and crafts work that she did, I ended up being deeply moved by.
00:57:45And that's not a part of her world that I knew much about when I came to this project.
00:57:50I came, as we mentioned briefly earlier, through the politics of the 30s and 40s, her fierce
00:57:57opposition to American racism.
00:57:59That was the part of Kamala Devi that I knew going into the project.
00:58:03And I really had to educate myself about the world of arts and crafts.
00:58:07And I came to really appreciate the deep meaning that Kamala Devi had and continues to have
00:58:13for many artists and handicrafts communities throughout India and even beyond.
00:58:21She's still seen as a heroic figure who fought in order to empower people to have a form
00:58:27of life that they could earn money for their families, but also that they could produce
00:58:32their art and share it with the world.
00:58:35So you know, that second half of the book, it is to some degree one of a disjuncture
00:58:40and to some degree of Kamala Devi's increasing moderation on the political front.
00:58:46But there's still a lot of fire in her and there's still a lot of really important and
00:58:49beautiful work that she does in those years.
00:58:52And in many ways it's, you know, I mean, for us sitting here in the year 2024, we might
00:58:57tend to look on handicrafts work as a bit of a niche area of focus.
00:59:02But in that era, as many people have written, I mean, you know, that was kind of considered
00:59:08a major source of jobs generation.
00:59:10Joblessness, of course, as today, back in her era, was a major crisis facing India.
00:59:17And, you know, she did provide a lot of people, especially very poor people in the countryside,
00:59:22with jobs and with a modicum of respect as well.
00:59:26That's right.
00:59:27And she would have seen it both as a matter of economic development and as a matter of
00:59:33cultural growth.
00:59:34I mean, for Kamala Devi, these are vital cultural traditions that need to be protected and preserved
00:59:39and expanded and elaborated upon.
00:59:41And this is another part of her life we haven't touched upon that I think is quite remarkable,
00:59:46that you know, within the arts and crafts movement, there tend to be traditionalists
00:59:50who want to preserve cultural forms.
00:59:52And then there are sort of avant-garde, you know, radicals who are creating new forms
00:59:56and experimenting.
00:59:57And Kamala Devi manages to bridge that divide.
01:00:00She's someone who's very interested in preserving and protecting cultural traditions, but also
01:00:05someone who believes that in order to preserve a tradition, you have to be willing to innovate
01:00:09and expand and create new forms.
01:00:12And that's another form of her legacy that I think is important to recognize.
01:00:17There's one last disjuncture I want to ask you about, which is her relationship with
01:00:21the women's movement and particularly the idea of feminism.
01:00:24So you mentioned earlier that Kamala Devi's views on things like religion and caste could
01:00:30sometimes be a little, you know, naive, and this is something that you bring up a bit
01:00:35in the book.
01:00:36But with regards to feminism and women's rights, this is something that she really, really
01:00:41is a pioneer in, in the early 20th century, even though she doesn't like the word feminism.
01:00:48As many feminist scholars, you know, have mentioned in the book, and as you mentioned
01:00:52in the book as well, she basically is a feminist, even though she rejects that label.
01:00:56Nevertheless, by the end of her life, there seems to be, you know, growing opposition
01:01:04towards Kamala Devi's views amongst Indian feminists.
01:01:07She was savagely criticized for being too conservative, as I think you mentioned earlier
01:01:11on.
01:01:12How did her relationship with the women's rights movement evolve over time?
01:01:16Was it a fact that her ideas and views didn't age well, or was something more going on over
01:01:21here?
01:01:22This is a really rich question.
01:01:26I think I should start just for our listeners by clarifying why she didn't like the term
01:01:33feminism, because this remains relevant.
01:01:35So her concern with the word feminism was, in essence, that she worried that it communicated
01:01:43a certain narrowness that was anti-male rather than anti-patriarchy, and that tended to prop
01:01:53up issues of gender inequity above all other concerns or causes.
01:01:59And Kamala Devi's view was always that women's rights were bound up with a larger struggle
01:02:05for freedom and justice.
01:02:08And because of that, that women should forge bonds with men who would together fight against
01:02:15sexism and patriarchy, but also against class inequity, caste, other forms of injustice.
01:02:20So her vision for the women's movement is that it's deeply bound up with a range of
01:02:25other struggles.
01:02:26And she worries that the term feminism, which she sees as a Western import, is too narrow
01:02:30and exclusionary and is going to divide women off from this larger progressive struggle.
01:02:37And that remains her concern with the Indian women's movement in the 60s, 70s, and 80s,
01:02:50is that she comes to feel that many younger feminists are sort of hiding themselves off
01:02:57and separating themselves from this larger struggle, and also not recognizing the degree
01:03:05to which Indian women had made certain strides or gains.
01:03:09And here's where, as a biographer, I tried to be fair to her, but also recognize where
01:03:16my own personal views might not align with hers.
01:03:18My own sense is that Kamala Devi, in her later years, does become too rosy a viewer of the
01:03:27state of gender equity in India.
01:03:30And I think-
01:03:31It certainly seems so, from what I understand.
01:03:33Yeah.
01:03:34And it's understandable to some degree, right?
01:03:35I mean, I think when you're deeply enmeshed in a struggle and you see a lot of gains,
01:03:40it's easy to amplify them too much and to celebrate them too much and to not recognize
01:03:49what still remains to be done.
01:03:52But there are certainly some examples in Kamala Devi's writings in those later years where
01:03:56she'll say things that just didn't seem to be true, where she exaggerates the success
01:04:01of the movement in ways that a younger Kamala Devi wouldn't.
01:04:07And so for me, as a biographer, I try to recognize why she had that viewpoint, where it came
01:04:13from, but also acknowledge its limitations.
01:04:16But I also think that there are, even in those years, there are real important differences
01:04:21that aren't easily resolved between those who want to say, and this cuts across issues
01:04:27of gender to pretty much any cause.
01:04:29When do you say, we need to fight for this cause now and forget forging solidarities
01:04:37or forget forging bridges because we need to stay focused on this one issue?
01:04:43And when do you say, no, we need to build these broader coalitions, but that might force
01:04:48us to water down some of the fire that we're bringing to this one cause in order to bring
01:04:52others in?
01:04:53That's a real difficult struggle.
01:04:55I think Kamala Devi, in her approach to feminism, especially in the end of her life, is really
01:05:02strongly on the side of, let's forge these bridges, let's forge these larger solidarities,
01:05:07let's see the women's movement bound up with all these other struggles.
01:05:10And there are advantages and disadvantages to that way of approaching issues of injustice.
01:05:17So there are a lot more things that we could talk about with regard to Kamala Devi.
01:05:20We just don't have time to talk about things like her involvement with princely states,
01:05:24her views on things like Goa, more of her activism with regard to, say, socialism in
01:05:30the 1930s and 1940s in India.
01:05:34The last question I want to ask you is back to our subject of biography and addresses
01:05:40you as a biographer.
01:05:43As you note in your book, towards the end of your book, I mean, there've been an increased
01:05:49number of biographies about Indian figures over the past few years, but for women, Indian
01:05:55women, the number still remains stunningly, stunningly low.
01:06:00From your own research of Kamala Devi, what other women leaders did you encounter who
01:06:05you believe need biographical treatment or at least some sort of further scholarly or
01:06:10popular re-examination?
01:06:12What other people in Kamala Devi's life really kind of stood out to you in terms of their
01:06:17importance and the need to be re-examined?
01:06:19Oh, there are so many.
01:06:24So, I mean, maybe I'll start by just saying that, you know, there are a couple of
01:06:32biographies that are either out or in the works that I think are important.
01:06:37The books are important, the figures are important.
01:06:39So, you know, Manu Bhagwan's book on Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who was a very important
01:06:46figure for Kamala Devi, you know, Pandit and Kamala Devi didn't work super closely
01:06:58together, but their lives overlapped at many key junctures.
01:07:01And Pandit was, like Kamala Devi, a profoundly global figure.
01:07:07Of course.
01:07:08So anyway, that's a book that's already out there that I'm glad exists.
01:07:12It's an important one.
01:07:14Rohit De is working on a biography.
01:07:17I don't think it's out yet.
01:07:18I should have Googled this, but I think it's still in the works of a biography of
01:07:22Sarojini Naidu, that it will also be published in the Indian Live series that my
01:07:28biography came out on that's edited by Ramachandra Guha, as you know.
01:07:33So obviously, Sarojini Naidu, if I had to choose one other female figure that had a
01:07:38profound impact on Kamala Devi, it would be Sarojini Naidu.
01:07:43And it was a complicated relationship, as we've discussed, but also a really important
01:07:48one. And then, oh, my goodness, you know, where to start?
01:07:57So Aruna Asaf Ali is a fascinating figure who Kamala Devi had some deep animosity with
01:08:05that I never fully understood.
01:08:07I know some of the story there, but I think some of it might be that they were too
01:08:14similar in some ways.
01:08:15There's just too much overlap.
01:08:17So they were fighting.
01:08:19You know, I think that's a possibility where even, you know, someone like going further in
01:08:29Kamala Devi's life, someone like a like a Pupul Jayakar, you know, who is often held up
01:08:36as a sort of the alternative to Kamala Devi or the rival, if you will, within the world of
01:08:42Indian handicrafts.
01:08:44If you look at any moment in India's history, you'll find so many remarkable women who
01:08:52are deeply involved in the struggles of that particular moment or that particular day
01:08:58whose lives we should better understand.
01:09:01And, you know, I'll say I'm really excited because I think that there's so many younger
01:09:11historians right now who are at work on different facets of this.
01:09:14And sometimes it'll show up in the form of a biography.
01:09:18But, you know, as you know, well, biography is a genre that has its own demands and it has
01:09:25its own benefits, but it isn't for everyone.
01:09:27And so even having there's a lot of great books that have come out or are coming out
01:09:33about the Indian freedom struggle in which women play key figures, even if it's not a
01:09:39biography, it's still an opportunity for us to better understand the role that these
01:09:44various women played.
01:09:46So I think that there's it's an exciting moment to be a historian who's interested in the
01:09:51role that women played in the Indian freedom struggle because there's a lot to be done,
01:09:54but there's also a lot that's already being done.
01:09:57I agree entirely.
01:09:59I'm really happy with the way that the field, so to speak, has developed in terms of, you
01:10:04know, much more interest in these characters who, you know, have for so many years been
01:10:10left out of the limelight.
01:10:11So, Nico, I'd really like to thank you for joining me today.
01:10:14And your book does a really remarkable job of illuminating a life which more not just
01:10:20Indians, but I think people around the world should know about just in terms of our
01:10:23importance, not just to the Indian freedom movement, but to ideas of global importance.
01:10:28So thanks again for joining us.
01:10:29Thank you, Dinyar. It's been a pleasure.