Manikuntala Sen: Building A Women’s Movement Within The Indian Left | #IndianWomenInHistory
The memoir of Manikuntala Sen, In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey, is pivotal as it documents the work of women activists in West Bengal. It is an erudite account from an activist and women’s leader who had worked relentlessly to create a first-of-its-kind grassroots movement in India.
Manikuntala Sen was born in 1910 (exact date of birth is unknown) in Barisal (now in Bangladesh). Her upbringing was in a conservative, spiritual household, but she was one of the few women educated in her society. Students at that time were influenced by the freedom struggle and revolutionary politics brewing in the country. Manikuntala was no exception. Despite her apprehensions, she began reading books on revolutionaries and communism in secret, eventually joining the freedom movement and then the Communist Party of India. She went on to become a pioneering women’s leader and activist who played a critical role in mobilising women at the grassroots, especially during the most turbulent times of the Bengal famine in 1943 and the Tebhaga struggle in 1946.
Her attachment to her hometown is evident throughout her memoir. In reminiscing about her childhood in Barisal, one can almost feel both her love and longing for the place. She was never able to reconcile with the idea of partition and the way the town changed. This was her biggest regret as she says, “How can I share the pain I felt at the partition of the country, how can I explain how it tore me apart?“
Organising at the grassroots
Manikuntala Sen came to Calcutta in 1936 to pursue her Master’s, where she first connected with the Communist Party of India. She delves into her ambivalent stance at the beginning: “What was the relationship of the Communist Party with the freedom movement that was led by Congress?” She soon realised that while the two remained in alliance, there was a dissonance between them on the trajectory of the freedom movement. She began organising women at the grassroots, alongside peasants and workers. Although it began with a clarion call for the release of prisoners and the freedom struggle, they also used these forums to discuss the emerging communist movement globally and its ideology. These forums were truly intersectional with women from different classes and caste backgrounds as their members. This was different from the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) membership, which lacked representation from the working classes.
When communist women leaders like Manikuntala Sen began building the movement, their primary focus was on establishing village-level samitis. The membership fees for these samitis were kept low (three annas) to ensure it remains accessible to women across caste and class. The main work of the samitis was to open fair price shops and establish large-scale canteens to provide khichdi to the people. These groups also carried out relief work, organising food for the people, providing educational facilities for children, and setting up a milk booth. This work was initiated during the Second World War, when Bengal was hit by one of the worst famines. The movement built from the grassroots proved to be a lifeline during those turbulent times, which led to the death of millions of people in Bengal.
The samitis were first formed at the village level across Bengal. They finally culminated in the formation of Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (MARS) in 1942 in Calcutta. The work undertaken by these women through the Samitis and canteens gained immense popularity across Bengal. The movement soon spread, and samitis were formed in each district and then within villages as well. The movement to ensure food for the starving people was critical at a time when women were selling their bodies to buy a meal for their families.
Sen’s work discusses in detail the challenges women leaders face in mobilising women into groups. She talks about fundraising, ensuring women attend meetings, and sustaining engagement within the movement. Starting the kitchens was a difficult job as it required putting pressure on government machinery to supply food. They also faced challenges due to the patriarchal bias towards their work. For instance, significant marches and protests they organised against food shortages and pilferage received little to no coverage in the newspapers. They also received lacklustre responses from men within the communist party in support of their work.
Even when Manikuntala voiced her concerns during a party meeting, no heed was paid. Sen’s work, similar to Kondapalli’s memoir The Sharp Knife of Memory, alludes to the apathy of the communist party leaders towards the struggles of the grassroots activists. They suffered from a lack of food and basic amenities, which impacted their health. Sen recalls an incident when she became a full-time worker in the party, with a salary of Rs. 20. She says, “At first, I had demurred a little, apprehensive about whether I would be able to live on this amount, which brought forth a rebuke from a leader, ‘Why, are you a princess that you won’t be able to do it?’ No further protestations came from me.” This culture of belittling its members’ concerns was paternalistic and demotivating for female activists, many of whom had joined the movement at the cost of distancing themselves from their families and society.
During a peasant conference in 1944, senior leadership rebuked the women organisers for not being “inclusive” in their approach to women from the peasant movement. This was far from the truth in Sen’s opinion. This scathing public insult was very demotivating for several women workers who had worked relentlessly to build the movement amidst such hostile conditions. Women leaders like Kanak Mukherjee, who played a pivotal role in building the girl student movement in Bengal, resigned from her full-time position within the party. This public humiliation by a male leader also shows a lack of sensitivity to understanding the issues and challenges that the women cadre may face while working at the grassroots, for instance, the challenge of mobilising women who have otherwise been relegated to the domestic sphere
Reconciling political ideology with on-ground reality
The memoir reflects on the dilemmas women face in negotiating the political culture and the distribution of power. During the Quit India Movement, the CPI had a vacillating stance. They first decided to support the Congress’s demand that they not support the British war effort unless freedom from colonial rule was ensured. However, after Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Russia, the party reversed its stance and characterised the war as a “People’s War” against fascism, urging support for the British. Manikuntala Sen candidly articulates, “Getting down to implement the party line was no less difficult for us. We truly floundered when explaining to the common people the international situation and our stance. When just the day before we had claimed, ‘Not a single life or paisa for this war’, how were we to explain today that this is a People’s War!” This issue was faced by other grassroots activists as well, as they were regarded as “dalals” of the colonial empire. They were met with harsh words and even had garbage thrown at them. Yet, despite such antagonism, they mobilised over 20,000 women—an extraordinary achievement.
Another unresolved tension concerned atheism in communist ideology. Raised in a spiritual household, Sen struggled internally with this contradiction. Her mother’s reassurance—that serving people was itself a form of religion—offered some reconciliation. Sen later reflected that aggressively distancing communism from religion alienated many potential supporters. She rightly points out, “If at the very beginning of our campaign, we ask middle-class families to get rid of their household deities, don’t we alienate them by hurting the most sensitive spot in their hearts?” This would pose many challenges, especially in mobilising women, as they are expected to uphold tradition and religious practices within the household. By framing the relationship as antagonistic, it became even more difficult to encourage women’s participation without exposing them to the disapproval or wrath of their families.
Contextualising Sen’s memoir in contemporary times
Manikuntala Sen’s work offers invaluable insight into the making of a women’s movement and the everyday challenges and dilemmas faced by an activist. For contemporary feminists, understanding the historical foundations of women’s mobilisation in India is essential. Her narrative is not merely autobiographical; it is a chronicle of political formation. Many issues foregrounded in her work are relevant even today for the women’s movement. An Unfinished Journey feels prophetic as we continue to strive for economic, social, legal, and political equality and challenge patriarchal structures and the glass ceiling even today. By bringing forth aspects of emotional and physical labour and ideological contradictions, she provides a candid account of how movement formation is also fraught with challenges and hardships, both internal and external.
References
- Chakravartty, Renu. Communists in Indian Women’s Movement, 1940-1950. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1980.
- Kondapalli Koteswaramma, The Sharp Knife of Memory: A Memoir, trans. V. B. Sowmya (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2015).
- Loomba, Ania. Revolutionary Desires: Women, Communism, and Feminism in India. London and New York: Routledge, 2019.
- Sen, Manikuntala. In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey. Calcutta: Stree, 2001.