The 1966 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY was born in Mangalore on April 3, 1903 to a well-to-do Saraswat family. Her father was District Collector, a high post in the Madras Civil Service, and her mother came from one of the wealthiest families in Karnatak.

In 1910, when KAMALADEVI was only seven years old, her father died without leaving a will for the disposal of his vast property. KAMALADEVI's stepbrother, as the only son of the family, claimed the entire estate except for a small allowance to be allotted to her mother. Her mother, a strong-willed woman, refused such a pittance, and determined to bring up her daughter by herself with the help of her dowry property.

KAMALADEVI's life-long rebellion against tradition and orthodox teachings was evident even as a child. Of those early years she has said, "Our household was organized on a very aristocratic basis, and my mother was deadly class conscious in the sense that she restricted my contacts and associations. . . . But the more I was driven into this exclusiveness, the more I disliked it and wanted to mix with the servants and the poorer people, play with their children, and understand their life."

Class and caste distinctions disturbed her, and she began to question why such social barriers existed. Instinctively she came to identify herself more and more with those she considered unfortunate and who roused her sympathy. She would often deny herself comforts in order to share the experiences of those who could not afford them. In the strictly ordered home in which she was growing up, this often led to tensions and conflicts.

Married while still a schoolgirl, KAMALADEVI was widowed at the age of 16. Orthodoxy prescribed that she discontinue her studies and live a "retired" life, with all the outward marks of sorrow. In spite of severe opposition, however, she insisted on continuing in school and moved to Madras to attend St. Mary's College.

In Madras she came to know the Chattopadhyay sisters and their brother, the talented young poet Harindranath. Within a short time, in 1920, KAMALADEVI once again flouted orthodox tabu—against widows remarrying—by her marriage to Harin.

Speaking of this union, KAMALADEVI says, "I would not call it a marriage in the purely emotional sense. It was much more our common interest in art. We had great dreams of doing things together, and we thought it would be difficult to work together unless we were married. Perhaps, in a way, that was helpful because, in spite of many difficulties, we were able to work together." There were years of fruitful partnership before they agreed to a separation.

Shortly after their marriage Harin set out on his first foreign trip, and KAMALADEVI joined him in London the following year. Soon enrolled in Bedford College, London University, she studied sociology and also attended lectures at the London School of Economics, receiving a diploma in Sociology. During this time she also worked in various institutions and clinics in London's East End. When word of Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement reached England, KAMALADEVI returned to India to join in her country's struggle for freedom.

In 1923 she became active in the Seva Dal volunteer movement and was put in charge of the Women's Section of the Dal to train women as sevikas (voluntary workers). Of her work, one journalist has said: "She swept the country like a hurricane, recruiting, training and organizing girls and women of all ages from seven on."

In 1927, with Mrs. Margaret Cousins, a world-renowned suffragette, she founded the All-India Women's Conference and became the first Organizing Secretary. She built it into a national organization, forming branches all over India. Though started as a body for educational and social reforms, it soon launched into the wider arena of nationalism and broad community welfare. The Conference became the focal point for all women's activities, and played an important part in campaigns for various legislative reforms.

As Secretary of the Women's Conference, KAMALADEVI toured many foreign countries to study social work and social and educational institutions, and was one of the founders of the Lady Irwin College for Home Science in New Delhi, the first of its kind in India.

It was upon her return from one of these trips to Europe that KAMALADEVI became the first Indian woman to seek elective legislative office. Though the election was only a few days away, she was persuaded to stand as a candidate for the Provincial Assembly. In spite of the shortness of time, a limited electoral franchise and massive expenditures by her opponent, KAMALADEVI conducted such an energetic campaign that she lost by only 200 votes.

From the start of the Civil Disobedience Movement (Salt Satyagraha) in 1930 to the end of the Quit India Movement in 1946, KAMALADEVI was in the vanguard of the struggle for freedom. She was Commander in Charge of the Women's Volunteer Corps in the National Struggle. She was the first woman to be arrested, invading the Bombay Stock Exchange where she and a group of women volunteers sold packets of contraband salt. Nine-months of imprisonment followed. She and her volunteers continued to defy the authorities and she was arrested many times in subsequent years. In all she spent a total of five years as a political prisoner, including one year in solitary confinement.

From childhood KAMALADEVI had been attracted to the cause of the downtrodden and the exploited hence, when the Congress Socialist Party was founded in 1934, she plunged with zest into its activities. The following year she presided over the All-India Conference of the Party at Meerut, a dramatic symbol of the new status of women in Indian public life.

The outbreak of World War II found her in London. Distressed by the British one-sided presentation of India's case for freedom, particularly in the United States, she set out on a lecture tour of North America. From October 1939 to March 1941 she traveled from New York to San Francisco and Boston to Mexico City, bringing the facts about India's fight for freedom to public audiences and influential personalities.

Traveling next to the Far East, she drew an audience of 15,000 at her first meeting in Japan. Always the champion of freedom, she openly condemned Japanese aggression in China. On her way to China she was arrested by the British in Hong Kong; only the intervention of the Chinese government brought about her release. She visited both Free China and the occupied territory, and met the heads of both governments. She later wrote two books about her impressions of this Far Eastern journey: In War-Torn China and Japan: Its Weakness and Strength.

In 1944 KAMALADEVI was elected President of the All-India Women's Conference which needed reorientation to meet the new responsibilities which were coming to women in an independent India. Of her leadership during this crucial period a compatriot has written: "Her work as President of the All-India Women's Conference during 1944-46 will remain memorable in the history of that august body. From a respectable gathering of society ladies it was transformed into the premier women's institution in the country, not only in name but in fact," KAMALADEVI continued to be active in the political movement and in 1946 she became a member of the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, the body which carried out the negotiations for the transfer of power from Britain to India. Nominated to the Constituent Assembly after independence, however, she declined the seat. Her interest in poll tics had been only in winning independence for her country. Now she wished to concentrate on the fields of social service and arts and crafts which had been her main interests from girlhood.

Partition in 1947 brought the opportunity to put into practice some of the ideals and ideas she had long been cherishing. To help rehabilitate the refugees coming from Pakistan she founded the Indian Cooperative Union. The current General Secretary, Lakshmi Jain, says of the Union's founder, "She was the only one who asked with real concern about the future of the refugees. She thought of the cooperative scheme, drafted it and showed it to Gandhi. Then she got this group of 10 to 12 individuals around her and, with her inspiration and guidance, the Union grew. This is her special ability—to get people together, start the idea, and little by little withdraw."

The Indian Cooperative Union that is today a complex of cooperatives—from farming to department stores—began with the simple function of helping refugees help themselves. When the Union undertook a rehabilitation program for refugees, it found that not all of them could be settled on agricultural land. Some had to be helped to establish small industries or businesses. Those who were settled in villages needed seeds, fertilizers, loans, livestock and a market outlet. Likewise the craftsmen needed a market for their products, help in merchandising, and help in creating new designs.

While legal requirements of cooperatives had to be complied with, emphasis on government aid was minimized. The Union gave out loans to individual farmers even if such farmers had not joined a cooperative, and it sold the products of craftsmen without demanding that they first become cooperative members. It provided aid without conditions as long as the individuals could demonstrate that they were helping themselves according to their own capacities.

The Union came into national prominence when it was invited to participate in the construction of the refugee town of Faridabad to help rehabilitate 30,000 Pathans from the Northwest Frontier. People who had never before toiled with their hands started to work on the land to build their own homes. There were many hardships but eventually the town was transformed into something like a city. Faridabad paved the way for a new achievement in community undertaking and is considered by many to have been the beginning of the community development program.

Some of the earliest experiments in cooperative farming were made through the Union. The first refugee cooperative farm, formed at Chattarpur some 12 miles from Delhi, marked the beginning of this new era. These farm cooperatives brought farmers together to work in a common endeavor. Union assistance included providing tubewells, tractors, and pumping sets and help in securing loans and grants. In addition to giving material assistance, the Union dealt with the emotional problems which plagued these communities. Community centers were established, and education, health and recreation programs were developed.

Refugees from cities were relocated by the Union in the urban areas of Delhi and were helped in establishing industrial cooperatives. Displaced women who had no family support were organized into women's cooperatives engaging in such work as embroidery, tailoring, and making condiments and fruit preserves. As the work of resettlement came to an end the Union branched out into consumer cooperatives, and into handloom cooperatives which were to record the most striking success.

In 1951 the Union organized an exhibition of the different products available in India through the existing handicraft cooperatives to gain insight into the problems facing craftsmen. It was found that handicraft cooperatives were few, and even these were having difficulty surviving. The Government of India, recognizing the rich heritage rooted in the traditional crafts, heeded the Union's advice that programs were needed to insure fuller and more stable employment for craftsmen and weavers. In 1952 the Government set up the All-India Handicrafts Board to organize and stimulate further development of Indian handicrafts and KAMALADEVI was made Chairman.

One of her principal concerns was that India's artisans still worked in traditional, out-dated ways which were so time-consuming that units produced were few and the return small. Through the Handicrafts Board she set about developing ways to provide artisans with new techniques, new designs, loans to facilitate buying raw materials and assistance in marketing their products.

Development centers were established to exhibit and sell small machines and modern tools, to experiment with new tools, and to evolve new techniques. Design centers were set up in different regions to develop new designs and to find new uses for India's centuries old craft items. Traditional sleeping mat covers, for example, were adapted to such modern uses as table and sofa covers, handbags and curtains. One of the most important functions of the Board was to establish quality standards and to sponsor handicraft exhibitions of both traditional work and new designs from the various design centers.

Another (Government action of major importance to the revival of Indian handicrafts was turning over in 1952 to the Indian Cooperative Union—of which KAMALADEVI was still also President—the management of the Central Cottage Industries Emporium in New Delhi, which had been established to promote and develop a market for all Indian handicrafts. The Emporium became the central domestic outlet for the wide variety of handicrafts produced in the country. It was the only shop of its kind where handicraft goods and handloom fabrics from all over the country were displayed and sold. Trained buyers personally went around the country ordering the stocks from more than 700 cooperatives, private dealers and individual producers. The profits of the store did not accrue to shareholders of the Union but were either put into improvements or given to the craftsmen.

The Export Department of the Union was staffed to handle bulk foreign orders, and a separate division handled specialized orders. The Packaging Service supervised sending customers' purchases anywhere in the world, by sea or air.

The Union created its own Planning and Promotion Department to serve foreign and domestic outlets. It consisted of groups of designers, craftsmen and promoters who introduced a series of designs, fusing tradition and utility with the latest trends and tastes. The designers worked in textiles, metalware, ivory, clothes, accessories, costume jewelry, toys and dolls and were supervised by a consultant who was one of India's foremost authorities in design and esthetics. Approved designs were released to handloom and handicrafts cooperatives affiliated with the Union, individual producers or to the Union's own Production Department.

An essential service which the Union provided was market research, studying the domestic retail market of both Indian and foreign consumers and keeping an eye on the export market and consumers' choices abroad. The Publications Division handled all advertising, printing, publications and public relations for the Marketing Division. It organized promotional crafts exhibitions sponsored by the Emporium. It also helped other voluntary agencies by advising them on publication matters. Through this division the Union made its studies and experiences in the handicraft field available to other stores throughout the country.

By March 1962, the beginning of the tenth year of Union operation, sales by the Emporium had reached a record figure equivalent to US$400,000. While sales to tourists and exports to foreign countries accounted for nearly 35 per cent of the total, the increase in domestic purchases showed that domestic buyers, too, appreciated the improved handicrafts. This expansion in sales provided direct and much needed economic help to the craftsmen. They were employed year round and their annual earnings had doubled. They had acquired a sense of employment security and had greater assurance in the survival of their traditional vocation.

As the Emporium continued to grow, it became apparent to the Union that the management arrangement was not conducive to the best interests of the employees, suppliers and financiers. Therefore on June 20, 1964 the Union turned back the management of the Emporium to the Government of India on the express agreement that a new body specifically devoted to running the Emporium would be created. The Central Cottage Industries Association was set up for this task.

During the 12 years of the Union's stewardship the Emporium grew from a tiny shop to a dynamic sales center for the country, and gained an international reputation for merchandise and service. It also had a strong impact on private entrepreneurs, influencing their entry into the marketing of handicrafts both at home and abroad.

The Union continues to be a member of the Council of the Central Cottage Industries Association and to promote the marketing of products of the handloom cooperatives in the Delhi area, of which there are currently over 45. These cooperative societies provide work to about 900 weavers and 250 auxiliary workers engaged in handloom weaving.

As both Chairman of the Indian Handicrafts Board and President of the Indian Cooperative Union, KAMALADEVI has been a strong supporter of government efforts to promote cottage and village industries as a contribution to the economic development of India. "Where there is abundant labor but little easy capital for investment, particular care has to be taken to employ limited funds in such a way as to obtain maximum productivity and profit. In small industries the capital cost per unit of production is generally low and the ratio of productivity per unit of capital higher. Small amounts for investment are easier to raise. Moreover, in a predominantly rural economy where capital formation is slow and laborious and saving is mostly sunk in agriculture and investment is still calculated in terms of land, people are generally not ready to risk their meager, hard-earned savings in what seems a gamble. But they are more willing to join a local industry that they can see and understand and above all has an assured place in their everyday life and the village economy."

KAMALADEVI believes that women have played a major part in helping to restore to crafts their important role in the economy of India: "Being essentially creative, women have traditionally contributed directly and distinctively to all the arts, including handicrafts. As homemakers, women are keenly interested in the esthetics of the most humble and mundane things. They seek to revive and keep alive beauty in utility which has been an integral part of the Indian heritage."

Speaking on "The Role of Women in Rural Development" to the Far East Regional Workshop held in Manila in June 1963, she pointed out that, "as disbursing officer of the home, who has control of the family's needs, the housewife patronizes the local industry by buying and using the products." The success of India's cottage craft industries results from the "deliberate and definite response" of the people who patronize them, and "the women's response," she said, "has been the greatest."

The traditional crafts of India, KAMALADEVI has often stated, are an integral part of the history of India. In her book, Indian Handicrafts, published in 1963, she stresses the pivotal role which, from time immemorial, village and cottage crafts have played in the social and economic life of the Indian people. While busy metropolitan commercial centers existed in India as early as 2,000 years before Christ, these cities, she says, were possible because of the existence of an extensive circle of numerous village communities producing the surplus for the accumulation and exchange of goods on which the cities thrived.

The continued existence of cottage industries contributed appreciably, she believes, to the decentralization of social and economic power and the creation of an institutional plurality which effectively stood between the ordinary citizen and a powerful state. "Besides providing employment to the rural folk, the cottage industries played an important role in the process of decentralization of economic power on the rural level. The ability of the village to fulfill its own manufacturing needs gave it a remarkable social cohesion which could not be loosened in any significant way by even the most devastating war. . . . It made the village society self-contained, a characteristic of India through the long ages and which later inspired in Gandhiji the dream of sarvodaya—a self-supporting community which stood for the good of all."

In India, she explains, handicraft is not an industry as the word is commonly described. While the various pieces of handicrafts—whether metalware, pottery, mats or woodwork—were made to serve a need in the daily life of the people, they also served as a vehicle of self-expression for the community. "In the peace and quiet seclusion of the countryside, the village community evolved a culture of its own out of the steady flow of its own life and of the nature around it. The community acted as a single personality because of the common integrated pattern of life, in responding to the common joys and burdens of life, to the common occasions and landmarks that stood out in the flux of time and the change of the seasons. Out of a million colored strands of tradition filled with song and verse, legends, myths, native romances and episodes, from the substance of the everyday life of the community, and out of nature's own rich storehouse, was woven a rich, creative and forcefull art."

Indian handicrafts, KAMALADEVI affirms, "express a great national heritage. While esthetically fine, they were, nevertheless, essentially articles of utility. From the humble water-pot of clay to the curved knife to cut vegetables, from the cloth which covered the human form to the fabric flung on the bullock's back, every piece was a work of art, enriched by beautiful lines, vivid color and alluring designs. Nothing was created to be kept as a dead piece in a glass case to be merely looked at or to trumpet the affluence of its owner. Beauty was not an isolated item, it was an integral part of one's intimate life. Whatever the article in use, no matter how mundane, it had to be beautiful. Decoration was not an end in itself, it had to serve a social purpose."

Just as handicrafts speak to KAMALADEVI of the struggles and aspirations of society, so too do all other art forms. "Culture," she says, "is an imaginative reflection of life . . . the creative force takes shape with the clicking of two currents, the individual trends and the social." It follows that she would also be deeply involved in the renaissance of music, dance, theater and films, and that her cultural activities would be interwoven with her concerns for the social welfare of her countrymen. As she says, "All aspects of art expression must embrace and portray vitally the ambitions, hopes and struggles of humanity."

Theater arts have had an abiding interest for KAMALADEVI. She has been associated with the theater ever since she and her husband, Harin, organized a dramatic troupe and toured India. She was the first woman of her education and social class to appear on the public stage. So unthinkable was it for a woman to appear on the stage that at one of her first performances, the actor who portrayed her husband in the play was actually abducted by the townspeople.

Upon her release from political imprisonment in 1945 KAMALADEVI founded the Indian National Theater (INT) and became its President. The INT ballets, "Discovery of India" (based on Nehru's book) and "By 1951" have been called "living monuments to her artistic genius and organizing ability." When the National Academy for Dance, Drama, Film and Music (Sangeet Natak Akadami) was established in 1953, she became Vice Chairman. One of the Academy's principal activities was organization of annual seminars on films, drama, music and dance, bringing together outstanding exponents of the art forms in each. She was also a founder of the Asian Theater Institute, an UNESCO-aided institution run under the auspices of the National Academy.

In May 1954, at the invitation of the Soviet Society of Cultural Relations, she led an Indian cultural delegation of 16 members on a month's visit to the Soviet Union. In addition to visiting museums and the theater, she also looked into day care centers for working mothers, services to the elderly, educational opportunities for the young, farm development programs, and employment of women. In September of the following year she went to Germany at the invitation of the West German Government to attend the inauguration of the grand opera festival. In 1956 as president of the Indo-Arab Society she led an official cultural delegation on a 10-week visit to the Middle East, the Sudan and Libya.

In October of that year she organized the first World Theater Conference and was elected its President. Held in Bombay, the Conference was attended by over 50 delegates from Europe and Asia. She is a founder and President of the All-India Federation of Theater Groups which is affiliated to the International Theater Unit of UNESCO. The Federation has two main objectives: the development of theaters, both by government and private theater groups, and the opening of academies to provide training in such subjects as acting, production, stage set design and construction, and makeup.

One of her principal interests as Federation President has been to bring modern plays to the common people. She developed a plan to offer eight performances, spread over a year, in different parts of the country. Because she wanted not only to provide entertainment to the people but also to encourage their active participation in the venture, only four of the eight performances would be from existing shows; the other four were to be arranged with the cooperation of the people of the area. Plays and skits would be invited from amateur writers, and residents of the locality would be asked to act in them; admission was not to exceed Rs.1. As a further extension of her efforts to bring theater to the people, she devised a movable stage made of folding wooden boards and metal pipes that could be pitched on any available patch of ground in a few hours.

She is also a member of the National Advisory Comittee for music and general programs, All-India Radio; the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO; and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

One newspaper article expressed a generally held opinion: "More than any other single person, she is 'the' important figure in the cultural field. . . . In India, where 'prestige' is so important, she is the one person a group engaged in cultural activity would be well advised to have as chairman or president. . . . This prestige comes from a lifetime of work in the cultural field and also from early participation in the independence movement."

The government of India has called on KAMALADEVI for a variety of leadership positions. She is a member of the National Advisory Council for Industries and President of the National Committee in the Ministry of Education responsible for giving financial assistance to educational institutions of national importance doing original and experimental work. On January 26, 1955, in recognition of her many services she was awarded the distinction of Padma Bhushan by the President of India.

In 1958 she attended the Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Conference on Community Services in Tokyo as leader of the Indian delegation. She has represented India at international women's conferences in the major capitals of Europe and Asia and has been the Government of India's delegate to UNESCO and the Human Rights Commission. She is a member of the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and is a Permanent Trustee of the India International Center.

Endowed with a mind that is forever alert and moving, her travel is always purposeful, whether undertaken on her own initiative or to represent her government or one of the many private organizations of which she is a member. She carries a typewriter when she travels, "much to the exasperation of her friends." Whenever she has a spare moment, even in a crowded third-class railway compartment, she works on her writing. In addition to her two books on China and Japan she has authored: Towards a National Theatre, Awakening of Indian Womanhood, America-the Land of Superlatives, Society and Socialism, At the Crossroads, Uncle Sam's Empire, Indian Handicrafts, and Indian Carpets and Floor Coverings. She also contributes to magazines and scholarly journals in India and abroad.

For KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY art in all its forms is inseparable from life. In the "awe-inspiring beauty" of India's traditional craft products she sees "the long passage of history, and the infinite soul of a people." But she is not a sentimentalist about tradition. "Every stage of social change," she says, "calls for a cultural form that expresses its own needs. . . . To frown upon the aeroplane and sing of the creaking country cart is not even poetic justice. It is sheer conservative sectarianism. The plough was as outlandish an innovation once as the tractor is today. To ignore man's inexhaustible genius for forging new implements is to ignore the very laws of social change, and no true artist can afford to do that."

KAMALADEVI has always been in the forefront of social change, indeed, she has often been instrumental in bringing about that change and in blazing a trail for others to follow. She deplores what she has called the "false image" of leadership, as a personality away from a crowd. "Service," she has said, "is an obligation, not a reward, for I owe it to others to share with them what I may have and they have not. . . . In Indian tradition this is defined as self-realization because one can really find oneself only by serving one's fellow beings."

August 1966 Manila

REFERENCES:

Annual Reports of the Indian Cooperative Union. New Delhi. 1960-66.

"The Bang of Bandung,. Bandung Conference," Bharat Jyoti. Bombay. May 1, 1955.

Chattopadhyay, Kamaladevi. At the Crossroads. Bombay: The National Information and Pub. Ltd. 1947.

______. Indian Handicrafts. New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations, 1963.

______. "Women in India," Indian Foreign Review. Vol. 5, no. 21, August 15, 1968.

"Democratization of Co-op Movement," National Herald. New Delhi. August 1, 1960.

"Handicraft Board of India Organizes, Assists Artisans," Manila Times. June 19, 1963.

"Handicrafts," Second Five Year Plan. New Delhi: Planning Commission. Undated.

Hindustan Standard. Calcutta. June 4, 8, 1954; March 30, 1958; April 1, 1959; August 1, 1960.

Hindustan Times. New Delhi. May 30, 1954; October 1, November 26, 1955; February 1, March 18, 1959.

Indian Express. New Delhi. September 2, 1955; February 9, 1959; August 1, 1960.

"India's Women Play Big Role In Boosting Cottage Crafts," Manila Bulletin. June 6, 1963.

"Kamaladevi Chattopadbyay," Indian News Chronicle. New Delhi. October 28, 1949.

"Kamaladevi: A Great Man," Bharat Jyoti. Bombay. December 4, 1949.

"Personalities."Illustrated Weekly of India. Bombay.July 10, 1955.

Statesman. New Delhi. May 31, 1954; February 9, April 29, 1959; August 1, 1960.

Times of India. Bombay. July 26, October 21, 1954; March 26, 1955; October 21, 1956; November 23, 1958; March 18, 1959; August 1, December 8, 1960.

Interviews with and letters from persons acquainted with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and her work.