Kalpana Datta
{{Short description|Indian revolutionary and politician (1913–1995)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Kalpana Dutta (কল্পনা দত্ত)
| image = Woman revolutionary, Kalpana Dutt.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1913|07|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Boalkhali, Bengal Province, British India (now Chittagong, Bangladesh)
| death_date = {{death date and age|1995|2|8|1913|7|27|df=y}}
| death_place = Kolkata, West Bengal, India
| party = Communist Party of India
| profession = Indian independence movement activist, revolutionist
| spouse = Puran Chand Joshi
}}
Kalpana Datta (27 July 1913 – 8 February 1995), also Kalpana Joshi, was an Indian independence movement activist and a member of the armed independence movement led by Surya Sen, which carried out the Chittagong armoury raid in 1930.{{cite book |last1=Chandra |first1=Bipan |author1-link=Bipan Chandra |last2=Mukherjee |first2=Mridula |author2-link=Mridula Mukherjee |last3=Mukherjee |first3=Aditya |last4=Mahajan |first4=Sucheta |last5=Panikkar |first5=K.N. |author5-link=K. N. Panikkar |year=2016 |orig-year=First published 1987 |title=India's Struggle for Independence |edition=Revised and updated |publisher=Penguin Books |page=253 |isbn=978-0-14-010781-4}} Later she joined the Communist Party of India and married Puran Chand Joshi, the general secretary of the party in 1943.{{cite news|date=26 February 1995|title=Kalpana Joshi, 81; Struggled for India|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/obituaries/kalpana-joshi-81-struggled-for-india.html|url-status=live|access-date=19 May 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101210044042/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/obituaries/kalpana-joshi-81-struggled-for-india.html|archive-date=2010-12-10}}
Early life
Kalpana Datta (also commonly spelled Dutta) was born at Sripur,{{citation
|author=Sailesh Kumar Bandyopadhyay
|chapter=Dutta, Kalpana
|chapter-url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Datta,_Kalpana
|title=Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh |editor=Sirajul Islam and Ahmed A. Jamal |publisher=Asiatic Society of Bangladesh |year=2012 |edition=Second}} a village of Chittagong District in the Bengal Province of British India (Sripur is now located in Boalkhali Upazila in Bangladesh). Her father Binod Behari Dattagupta was a government employee. After passing her matriculation examination in 1929 in Chittagong, she went to Calcutta and joined the Bethune College to study science. Soon, she joined the Chhatri Sangha (Women Students Association), a semi-revolutionary organization in which Bina Das and Pritilata Waddedar were also active members.{{cite book|last=Jain|first=Simmi|title=Encyclopaedia of Indian Women through the Ages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-vDiqxmuQmIC&pg=PA106|volume=3|year=2003|publisher=Kalpaz Publications|location=Delhi|isbn=81-7835-174-9|page=106}}
Armed independence movement
The Chittagong armoury raid was carried out on 18 April 1930.{{cite book |last1=Chandra |first1=Bipan |author1-link=Bipan Chandra |last2=Mukherjee |first2=Mridula |author2-link=Mridula Mukherjee |last3=Mukherjee |first3=Aditya |last4=Mahajan |first4=Sucheta |last5=Panikkar |first5=K.N. |author5-link=K. N. Panikkar |year=2016 |orig-year=First published 1987 |title=India's Struggle for Independence |edition=Revised and updated |publisher=Penguin Books |page=252 |isbn=978-0-14-010781-4}} Kalpana joined the "Indian Republican Army, Chattagram branch," the armed resistance group led by Surya Sen, in May 1931. In September 1931 Surya Sen entrusted her along with Pritilata Waddedar to attack the European Club in Chittagong. A week before the attack, she was arrested while carrying out reconnaissance of the area. She went into hiding after her release on bail. On 16 February 1933, the police encircled their hiding place in Gairala village. During this raid, Surya Sen was arrested but Kalpana managed to escape. To free Surya she tried to bomb the jail but failed.{{Cite news|date=1933-06-23|title=Surya Sen Trial: Revolvers Identified|page=22|work=The Indian Express|agency=Free Press Of India|publication-place=Calcutta|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=94g-AAAAIBAJ&dq=kalpana+dutt&pg=PA22|access-date=2022-01-07}}
Kalpana was finally arrested on 19 May 1933.{{Cite news|date=1933-05-19|title=Kalpana Dutt Caught At Last|page=6|work=The Indian Express|publisher=Free Press Of India|publication-place=Chittagong|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6NE-AAAAIBAJ&dq=%22Surya%20Sen%22&pg=PA6|access-date=2022-01-07}} In the second supplementary trial of the Chittagong armoury raid case, Kalpana was sentenced to transportation for life. She was released in 1939.{{citation needed|date= August 2022}}
Later life
Kalpana Datta graduated from the Calcutta University in 1940 and joined the Communist Party of India. She served as a relief worker during the 1943 Bengal famine and during the Partition of Bengal. She wrote an autobiographical book in Bengali "চট্টগ্রাম অস্ত্রাগার আক্রমণকারীদের স্মৃতিকথা"
which was translated into English by Arun Bose & Nikhil Chakraborty with a preface by her husband Com. P. C. Joshi, a communist leader, as "Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences," published in English in October 1945.{{Cite book|last=Dutt|first=Kalpana|script-title=bn:চট্টগ্রাম অস্ত্রাগার আক্রমণকারীদের স্মৃতিকথা|isbn=8185459657|language=bn|oclc=882444567}}{{Cite book|last=Dutt|first=Kalpana|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wcoBAAAAMAAJ|title=Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences|date=1979|publisher=Peoples̕ Publishing House|language=en|oclc=831737120}} In 1946, she contested in the elections for the Bengal Legislative Assembly as a Communist Party of India candidate from Chittagong but could not win.
Later, she joined the Indian Statistical Institute where she worked until her retirement. She died in Calcutta on 8 February 1995.Nikhil Chakravartty, Kalpana Dutt's obituary in Mainstream, 18 February 1995.
Personal life
In 1943, she married the then general secretary of the Communist Party of India, Puran Chand Joshi. They had two sons: Chand and Suraj. Chand Joshi (1946–2000) was a noted journalist, who worked for the Hindustan Times. He was also known for his work, Bhindranwale: Myth and Reality (1984). Chand's wife Manini (née Chatterjee) penned a book on the Chattagram armoury raid, titled, Do and Die: The Chattagram Uprising 1930-34.{{cite news|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000205/windows/above.htm|title=This above All|date=5 February 2000|work=The Tribune|access-date=19 May 2010}}
{{Anushilan Samiti}}
Artistic depictions
In 2010, Deepika Padukone starred as Kalpana Datta and Abhishek Bachchan starred as Surya Sen, in a Hindi movie, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, which dealt with the Chittagong armoury raid and its aftermath.{{citation needed|date= August 2022}}
Another movie, Chittagong, was released on 12 October 2012, based on the uprising. It was produced and directed by Bedabrata Pain, an ex-NASA scientist.{{citation needed|date= August 2022}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://archive.today/20121211103113/http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/pipermail/margins-to-centre/2005-September/000597.html Women in India and Pakistan: The Struggle for Independence from British Rule (Part 3)]
{{Indian Revolutionary Movement}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Datta, Kalpana}}
Category:Anti-British establishment revolutionaries from East Bengal
Category:People from Chittagong District
Category:Indian revolutionaries
Category:Communist Party of India politicians from West Bengal
Category:Bethune College alumni
Category:University of Calcutta alumni
Category:Women in West Bengal politics
Category:Women in war 1900–1945
Category:Indian women in World War II
Category:20th-century Indian women politicians
Category:20th-century Indian politicians
Category:Indian independence activists from Bengal
Category:Women Indian independence activists