Nico Slate begins his book ‘Coloured Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India‘ with the following paragraph:
In the spring of 1941, in the midst of the Second World War, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya sat down in the “whites only” section of a segregated train traveling through the American South. Just across the Louisiana border, the ticket collector ordered her to move. She asked him why. “That is the rule,” he replied, “and you better obey it or you will regret it”. She did not move. He walked away angrily but soon returned—subdued, it seemed, by something he had learned. He asked her where she was from, making clear he realized she was not African American. “New York,” she said, evasively. “I mean which land do you hail from,” he clarified. At this point, she could have proudly explained that she was a distinguished visitor from India, a colleague of Mahatma Gandhi, and a champion of Indian independence and the rights of Indian women, and that she had only a few months before had tea with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Instead, when prompted to tell the man “from which land she came,” Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya replied, “It makes no difference. I am a coloured woman obviously and it is unnecessary for you to disturb me for I have no intention of moving from here”. The ticket collector muttered, “You are an Asian,” but he did not bother her again.
It is interesting to note that this story precedes the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The arrest of Parks led to widespread protests, which eventually led to Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
In 1941, by refusing to move from her seat and identifying herself as ‘coloured’, Kamaladevi is suggesting two things clearly: Firstly, her will and determination to resist discrimination and marginalisation in any form; secondly, expressing her solidarity with African Americans recognising their importance in the fight against imperialism. Kamaladevi stands among very few freedom fighters who imagined ‘Freedom’ in transnational terms meaning to end exploitation everywhere. She espoused an expansive idea that will contribute to individual as well as collective growth and evolution.
Very few Indians could match her in terms of her travels to countries across the world (England, Germany, Denmark, China, Japan, United States, Srilanka, etc) and the relations she forged with leaders worldwide (perhaps the only other Indian is Nehru). In terms of the multiple fields she straddled (nationalist politics, socialist politics, women’s movement, education, refugee rehabilitation, theatre, cinema, renewal of handicrafts), she can be compared only with Tagore.
In this episode, I am in conversation with Nico Slate to talk about his recent biography ‘Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom’.
The episode is available on:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Qb8K1JF6OUImFoyk5GceV?si=b7e197067c114aa0
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/the-multiple-careers-of-kamaladevi-chattopadhyay/id1701246699?i=1000667964625
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/Dy9YjnKbAgI?si=XPFbMjAB8yhJfAjl
- Youtube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy9YjnKbAgI&si=MbsmIczt1iXlfY-9
- Website: https://reddyrishvanth.wordpress.com/navigating-india/
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