Flying Bee at 12:51, 7 August 2021

2021-08-07T12:51:58Z

New page

{{Short description|Indian revolutionary and politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Kalpana Dutta (কল্পনা দত্ত)
| image = Kalpana Dutt.png
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1913|07|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Sripur, [[Boalkhali Upazila]], [[Chittagong District]], [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal Province]], [[British India]] (now [[Bangladesh]])
| death_date = {{death date and age|1995|2|8|1913|7|27|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Calcutta]] (now [[Kolkata]]), [[West Bengal]], India
| nationality = [[India]]n
| party = Indian Republican Army, Chittagong branch<br />
From 1940 onwards, [[Communist Party of India]]
| profession = [[Indian independence movement]] activist, [[revolutionist]]
}}
'''Kalpana Datta''' (27 July 1913 – 8 February 1995) (later '''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.<ref>Chandra, Bipan and others (1998). ''India's Struggle for Independence'', New Delhi: Penguin Books, {{ISBN|0-14-010781-9}}, p.253</ref> Later she joined the [[Communist Party of India]] and married [[Puran Chand Joshi]], then General Secretary of the Communist Party of India in 1943.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/obituaries/kalpana-joshi-81-struggled-for-india.html|title=Kalpana Joshi, 81; Struggled for India|date=26 February 1995|work=[[The New York Times]]|accessdate=19 May 2010}}</ref>

==Early life==
Kalpana Datta (also commonly spelt Dutta) was born in a Baidya family at Sripur,<ref name=Banglapedia>{{citation
|author=Sailesh Kumar Bandyopadhyay
|chapter=Datta, 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}}</ref> a village of [[Chittagong District]] in the [[Bengal Presidency|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 from Chittagong, she went to [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] and joined the [[Bethune College]] for graduation in Science. Soon, she joined the ''Chhatri Sangha'' (Women Students Association), a semi-revolutionary organisation in which [[Bina Das]] and [[Pritilata Waddedar]] were also active member's.<ref>{{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=Vol.3|year=2003|publisher=Kalpaz Publications|location=Delhi|isbn=81-7835-174-9|page=106}}</ref>

==Armed independence movement==
The Chittagong armoury raid was carried out on 18 April 1930. 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. But a week before the attack, she was arrested while carrying out reconnaissance of the area. She went underground after her release on bail. On 16 February 1933 the police encircled their hiding place in Gairala village, and that raid Surya Sen was arrested but Kalpana was able to escape from there.

She was finally arrested on 19 May 1933. In the second supplementary trial of the Chittagong armoury raid case, Kalpana was sentenced to [[Penal transportation|transportation]] for life. She was released in 1939.

== 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 (1947)|Partition of Bengal]].<ref name=mainstream/> 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 Com. P. C. Joshi, a communist leader & her husband as "Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences", published in English in October 1945.<ref>This book was reprinted in English in 1979. Its name in Bengali is চট্টগ্রাম অস্ত্রাগার আক্রমণকারীদের স্মৃতিকথা.</ref> 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 [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] on 8 February 1995.<ref name=mainstream>[[Nikhil Chakravartty]], Kalpana Dutt's obituary in Mainstream, 18 February 1995.</ref>

==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'' (1985). Chand's wife Manini (née Chatterjee) penned a book on the Chattagram armoury raid, titled, ''Do and Die: The Chattagram Uprising 1930-34''.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000205/windows/above.htm|title=This above All|date=5 February 2000|work=[[The Tribune (Chandigarh)|The Tribune]]|accessdate=19 May 2010}}</ref>

==Artistic depictions==
In 2010, [[Deepika Padukone]] starred as Kalpana Datta and [[Abhishek Bachchan]] starred as Suryja Sen, in a [[Hindi]] movie, ''[[Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey]]'', which dealt with the [[Chittagong armoury raid]] and its aftermath.
Another movie, ''[[Chittagong (film)|Chittagong]]'', was released on 12 October 2012, based on the uprising. It was produced and directed by [[Bedabrata Pain]], an ex-NASA scientist.

==Notes and references==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://archive.is/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:Indian revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Communist Party of India politicians from West Bengal]]
[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:Bethune College alumni]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:Women in West Bengal politics]]
[[Category:Women in war 1900–1945]]
[[Category:Indian women of World War II]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women politicians]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian politicians]]
[[Category:Indian independence activists from West Bengal]]
[[Category:Women Indian independence activists]]
[[Category:Female politicians of the Communist Party of India]]

Kalpana Dutta - Revision history

Flying Bee at 12:51, 7 August 2021