Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the intersectional feminist we should all know about
▻http://www.warscapes.com/reviews/kamaladevi-chattopadhyay-intersectional-feminist-we-should-all-know-about
History records that when Mahatma Gandhi raised a handful of salt in 1930, he shook the mighty British Empire. But history, as we know it, has a way of overlooking revolutionary women. One such woman was Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (1903-1988). Not many know that women were not supposed to have a role on the frontlines of the salt march. A “flabbergasted” Kamaladevi, who had “built up a whole edifice of hopes of involving women in this great adventure,” eventually persuaded Gandhiji to call upon women to march with him in defiance of the British salt tax. What happened next is well-known. The Dandi march sparked a massive civil disobedience movement that turned ordinary men and women into freedom fighters.
There’s a lot to learn about, and from the life of, Kamaladevi from the new book A Passionate Life, published by the feminist Indian press Zubaan Academic. The book contains Kamaladevi‘s long-forgotten writings as well as essays by scholars eager to revive her life and legacy. Reading about Kamaladevi, it strikes me that today she would be known for intersectional feminism, someone who naturally connected women’s rights with other movements for political freedoms and social justice.
