Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Anti-Imperialist and Women's Rights Activist, 1939-41

Title:	Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, Anti-Imperialist and Women's Rights Activist, 1939-41
Author:	Barbieri, Julie Laut
Description:	This paper utilizes biographies, correspondence, and newspapers to document and analyze the Indian socialist and women's rights activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya's (1903-1986) June 1939-November 1941 world tour. Kamaladevi's radical stance on the nationalist cause, birth control, and women's rights led Gandhi to block her ascension within the Indian National Congress leadership, partially contributing to her decision to leave in 1939. In Europe to attend several international women's conferences, Kamaladevi then spent eighteen months in the U.S. visiting luminaries such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger, lecturing on politics in India, and observing numerous social reform programs. This paper argues that Kamaladevi's experience within Congress throughout the 1930s demonstrates the importance of gender in Indian nationalist politics; that her critique of Western "international" women's organizations must be acknowledged as a precursor to the politics of modern third world feminism; and finally, that Kamaladevi is one of the twentieth century's truly global historical agents.
Permanent Link:	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1218456911 http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/108506
Date:	2008

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