One century, two countries and three forgotten heroic women (twentieth century South Asia)

• Main Author: Basu, Nirban
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DS Asia
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/14481/1/35.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/14481/; http://www.iaha2014.uum.edu.my/

Santisudha Ghosh (1907-1922) , Manikuntala Sen (1911-1987) and Phulrenu Guha(1911-2006) feminist,nationalist, social activist and humanist in different senses and varying degrees were three very illustrious and exceptional women. All of them who were born in undivided Indian subcontinent, were near contemporaries and had more or less great longevity lived and worked in the 20th century the first half of which was the colonial era and the second half was the growing years of a newly liberated nation.They all were born in Barisal, a riverine district of Eastern Bengal in the Bengal Presidency under the British rule which later became part of Pakistan(1947) after partition of the country and finally of Bangladesh(1971).All the three women soon after partition left their motherland in their middle age and settled in West Bengal, India. These three women had important points of similarities and dissimilarities.They all belonged to middle class English-educated upper caste Hindu families and themselves were highly educated.They were swayed by the nationalist fervor of the day, joined the militant revolutionary groups at very early age but quite after sometime questions arose in their minds about the efficacy of the socalled terrorist tactics and they were attracted to mainstream politics.From this point of time, the lives of Santisuda,Manikuntala and Phulrenu who grew up in close proximity in Barisal, took three different turns.