The Legacy of my Swadeshi Grandparents

By Sushmita Basu Fernandes

Sometime around 5.30 am when the sun rises in winter in Guwahati Assam, that precious time in the morning when all kinds of bird songs fill the air and a vibrant golden glow starts to appear in the north-eastern sky, one other very consistent sound accompanies the birds. It's a steady swish-swish of a broom. It's one of the early memories from my childhood Diwali vacations spent at my grandparent’s place in Assam - a picturesque Railway Colony, a short walking distance away from the banks of Brahmaputra[1], at the start of a wild and untamed hilly area.

The swishing sound was my grandmother clearing in the front yard, leaves shed by the gigantic jackfruit trees. Her daily schedule at the time (given her age and the winter chill) would put any multitasking executive/supermom to shame. She cooked the most fabulous meals for all of us, took care of her chair bound husband, read the newspaper cover to cover and to her husband whose eyesight wasn't what it used to be and found time to watch TV. Every time we visited, she had a new creative project on - she used to hand embroider saris and shawls. Amazing designs conjured up by her, hand drawn on Assam silk and then fabulous multi coloured silk threads deftly woven on the fabric, creating magic.

My mom and aunt still wear their prized handmade custom designed Assam silks to weddings and functions and it's almost always the most beautiful and distinctive sari in the room.

My conversations with my grandmother happened during her art and craft time in the afternoons - she would sew and ask me about my plans for the future, my hobbies and interests. I do not ever remember feeling like a child during those conversations - she addressed me as if I were a young woman with thoughts and ideas of my own. Strange considering I was not yet a teenager then (not so strange considering her background, as I found out). She told me to dream big, progress in life, get a really good education (a very common Bengali trait) and balance it with marriage and children. She told me about her teenage years, when her parents would invite prospective grooms and family for tea and she had to speak a few lines in English and repeat letters in English, to demonstrate her education[2]. All of that ended when my tall and handsome grandfather came to see her and her most exciting life adventure enfolded.

My grandfather was almost not allowed to marry her. Apparently, word reached his parents that although the girl was beautiful, educated and talented, she was slightly dark skinned and his elders couldn't bear the thought of their extremely fair skinned, very handsome boy marrying anyone dark skinned. He retaliated by saying that he wouldn't marry anyone else but this girl, that too without meeting her. Quite a revolt in a traditional Bengali set-up, where his highly respected father (a Judge) at that time ruled over the household. All of this transpired in what is now Bangladesh, at a time when the British ruled over India, somewhere around 1935-38 in all likelihood.

His marriage wasn't his sole act of revolt. As times changed, he joined the Swadeshi movement[3] and was an active member of the movement. It could not have gone down well at home and it must have strained relations all around; but at the same time there must have been a growing sense of pride among others in the family.

My grandparents were extremely attached to one another - not just old age and the necessity to bond as a result of the issues that came up with advancing age, but genuine affection. So, imagine my astonishment when sometimes they had very loud arguments - and no one else in the house blinked. My uncle would say leave them alone - they'll come around eventually and they did. By dinner time they were back to their dignified selves. It seems, they were on opposing political sides - something to do with the politics in Calcutta - a city where they never lived.[4] Not until I pieced together their back story, did I understand why they were so politically aware and involved in something happening somewhere far away from their home.

Their idyllic existence in Bhola Bangladesh,[5]where they lived with their large extended family in a sprawling house respected by the community and the officials in charge, changed irrevocably and literally overnight. One day, there appeared a police posse at their door demanding to know if a certain Swadeshi by the name of Nani Gopal Chakraborty was at home at that moment and if so, they had an arrest warrant for him. The story goes that the family played for time before they let the police in and in that short span of time, Nani Gopal Chakraborty, my very dignified law abiding (to my knowledge) grandfather jumped on to the roof and sort of hopped on and off the roofs and boundary walls of neighboring houses and escaped, never to return to that town. 

He ran away with his Swadeshi friends, leaving behind his young bride and didn't stop running till he reached probably Calcutta and from there went to Guwahati Assam. After a long time when things cooled off, he sent for Bela Chakraborty his young bride, to join him in his new life without the security of a job, the protection of the influential family and absolutely no other relatives or acquaintances.

Nani Gopal and Bela Chakraborty with teachers and students

I never actually asked them how they survived, what did they do, so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been. The burning passion to do something for the country, the Swadeshi spirit, finally found a new way of expressing itself. Within a few years, they started a venture, a school for the Deaf and Dumb called BDS Deaf and Dumb School in the heart of Guwahati city in 1949. He was the Founder and Principal and she was a teacher and one who managed all administrative work. They trained themselves and then other teachers over time. There are stories my mother told us of grandfather playing football and all the other active games during school sports days, a very involved and hands-on Principal even by today's standards. My grandmother kept an eye on the teacher training and financial side of things and her growing family (three children and a home). Those years must have shaped her lifelong habit of being in charge, being a leader and innovator. I was not just her grandchild when she told me about her life, but a young life that needed to be inspired.

The high point of one of my vacations was finding a treasure trove of old photographs, stored carefully in old trunks. Imagine my shock and surprise one afternoon, when I found myself looking at my grandparents and all the teachers sitting next to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his young daughter Indira[6]. Apparently, the school had garnered so much interest that it was on the Assam itinerary of the Prime Minister of India!

Time passed on. They retired from active school duty, and eventually from this life as well, but the school still lives on, in a new location with almost the same name. It's now called Govt. B.D.S Deaf and Dumb School. For a long time, it was the only school for the Deaf and Dumb in Assam. Here's a picture of the school gate as it is now.

The school gate

I wonder if anyone there knows how this school began its life. Do they know that a certain Marwari[7] investor donated money to the school and in return asked that the school be named after his mother Bhawree Devi Saraogi, hence the BDS in the name of the school? Do they know about the two passionate founders of the school who are not named anywhere?

Sushmita Basu Fernandes lives in Dubai.

[1] Brahmaputra, one of the longest rivers of Asia, runs through China, India and Bangladesh. It is the chief river of the province of Assam. 

[2] The manner in marriages were arranged in India. Members of the groom’s family came to ‘see’ the prospective bride and approve. 

[3] The non-violent Swadeshi movement which was part of the freedom struggle in India, began in 1905 and aimed at striking at the British economic power by boycotting British goods especially cloth and using everything produced by Indians in their country. 

[4] More than 1000 kilometres south of Guwahati, Assam 

[5] An administrative unit in south-central Bangladesh within the division of Barisal 

[6] Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of independent India and Indira Gandhi, his daughter became the third Prime Minister. 

[7] Member of a business community in India

Adventures of An Able Seaman

By A.F.Rodd

I joined the British Navy at the age of 17 in 1944. I had lived with my parents in Markyate, a village between St. Albans and Dunstable off the A5, where I completed school and started work at 14. I soon got bored of it and signed up for the military at the age of 16. I got the call a year later to join the Royal Navy. 

I received instructions on HMS Ganges, the training ship that served as the establishment for coaching boys for a career in the navy. In addition to normal training, I was given special lessons on the maintenance of torpedoes and explosives, dealing with high and low powers. Training completed, I got 10 days leave to go home, with the briefing that I was to join HMS Milne which was part of the Arctic convoy. The gear sanctioned for the assignment were intended for winter. Just about a week later, I received a telegram that I must report to the barracks immediately. As soon as I reached there, I was asked to collect tropical gear. The same night, we boarded a train and travelled all night and we finished up in the morning in Liverpool from where we boarded a troop ship heading for an unknown destination. We didn’t get off the ship till 4 weeks later when we landed in Sydney. We were a few thousand men from Britain. 

From the Sydney harbour, we were carried in a lorry to Warwick Farm Racecourse which had been taken over by the Americans and now was housing the Royal Navy as it prepared for the final push against the Japanese in order to get all the islands in the Pacific back. I spent about two months in Sydney till I was called away. 

Mascot of Indefatigable

The aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable had run short of a torpedo man. I was barely 18 and there I was being taken on a truck and then a boat, all alone, to join the crew on it. It was early in 1945 when Indefatigable set sail. We called on Manus island and then cruised on to Ulithi[1] to join a huge American fleet. The fleet turned out to be a task force for the invasion of Okinawa. We found 27 US aircraft carriers anchored in the Pacific. I had never seen so many ships together before. There were a couple of oil tankers ahead of us. At Ulithi, we were joined by other British aircraft carriers, namely H.M.S Illustrious, Indomitable, Formidable and I believe, Implacable. Also in the support group were many other ships-cruisers, destroyers, frigates, submarines and others. I have no idea how many, but there were a lot.    
                 

I was hand held the first few days as someone guided me through the norms of rolling up the hammock and hanging it in a corner and then taking it out to sleep at night. We were 20 of us in a small room but that was alright. The food was good and there was little to complain on the deck two floors below the captain’s. Apart from the bombs, torpedoes, we had to take care of all electricals and telephone lines as aboard the ship. There were three different lots of fighter aircraft on board the Indefatigable –‘Seafires’, naval equivalent of Spitfires, single-seater American seagoing fighters called ‘Fireflies’ and ‘Avengers’ which were bombers carrying torpedoes and bombs. We stayed in this area until the end of May with our planes attacking anything Japanese daily.   

Kamikaze Attack

We seamen never got any shore leave. We were allowed to spend a few days at an American dock at Leyte in the Philippines and then we were back to sea. On the 1st of April, we heard a huge bang. A Japanese ‘Kamikaze,’ had hit the top deck, barely 30 feet away from the bridge where the captain stood. There were 14 dead and many injured. Quite a bit of the ship was damaged but within an hour, the bombers were taking off and flying. We were cruising on the sea most of the time and were anchored in Ulithi only for a few days. We sailed back to Sydney at the end of May arriving there early in June. After serving for about 18 months, I was promoted to the rank of an Able Seaman.

We left Sydney at the end of June 1945. Our planes attacked Japanese mainland for the first time. One day, early in August, we were warned that something significant was about to happen. We had no idea what that might be. We were then informed about the dropping of the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must have been too far away to hear anything of the bombs. In the middle of August, ‘Cease Hostilities’ towards Japan was announced by the captain of our ship. 

Overlooking the Tokyo Bay, August 1945

On the 25th of August, on my 19th birthday, we ran into a typhoon which lasted a few days. After this, we had collections on board of anything that would benefit British prisoners of war held in Japanese camps. Cigarettes, food, soaps among other items were put into canvas bags and dropped on the camps by our planes. From where we were, on a clear day, we could get a glimpse of USS Missouri aboard which the Japanese Emperor signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2. 

The war over, we cruised back in September 1945 to Sydney where the celebrated and much decorated Admiral Philip Vian joined our ship to lead a good will mission to New Zealand. It was a lovely experience and I remember our ship docking at the ports of Wellington and Auckland. An unforgettable memory is of a troupe of Maori performers in their traditional wear dancing to their own tune which I came to realise was adapted to the now popular song, ‘Now is the hour.’ I also will never forget what Admiral Vian said: ‘I hope the next ship, I as the Commander-in Chief, have to raise a flag on, I can spell the bloody name.’ Indefatigable was not an easy one!

Following the goodwill mission, we were assembled as the Captain greeted us together. We were going back to England and we were chosen to be the first carrier to take on jet aircraft. Then orders were changed and we were to be used as a troop ship bringing home personnel from naval bases in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Singapore, and a small contingent from America, back to Portsmouth. We sailed to Norfolk Virginia in the US and spend two nights at the naval base where the local staff really put themselves out to take care of us. We returned to England and again sailed for Sydney with 130 British brides who had married Australians together with their children. 

We brought back to Portsmouth 1000 RAF ratings, wrens and VADs plus several cases of food and gifts from the Australian people. Our last trip to America was to collect the British crew of an American carrier which we had borrowed during the war. On return to Portsmouth, I was sent to Chatham where I was eventually demobbed at the end of 1946. 

All in all, it was a great experience and I would hate to have missed any single moment of the Great War. 

Albert Rodd lives in Cambourne

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1String of coral islands enclosing a lagoon in Western Pacific Ocean^↩

An Unsung Hero -Debendra Chandra Dey

By Tirthankar Dey

Among the countless revolutionaries who participated in the struggle for Indian independence from British rule, many have become well known while memories of some are lost in the turmoil of political transition to modern India. My father was one among the latter and I feel it is imperative that he is remembered with reverence and his story told.

Baba, Deben Chandra Dey

My memories of my father Deben Chandra Dey[1] is of a strong and fearless man. Even as a child, I was aware that he was someone of importance within the Congress Party[2]. There used to be a constant stream of visitors waiting to meet and consult with him. My mother, Roma had to be on her toes to make them welcome. I sometimes felt alone and left out, till my brother was born. It was much later that I learnt that he had been the Chief Whip and the Deputy Home Minister in the provincial government of West Bengal during Dr. B. C. Roy’s tenure as the first Chief Minister in independent India. It feels good to know that his photograph continues to grace the walls of Writers Building[3] in the Chief Whip’s room[4]. 

Deben Dey with Dr. B.C.Roy

After becoming a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Deben Dey used his privilege to establish schools for boys and girls for poor slum dwellers in and around the area they lived on Lynton Street in Calcutta5] where the family resided. The schools exist and function under government grants even today.[6]

I was a few months old in 1946 when the violent communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims broke out in Calcutta. My mother later would recall how she and my father were forced to shuttle between places for safety. She had to carry bottles of milk, a bowl and the traditional spoon called jhinuk to feed me. Similar incidents occurred later during 1950s riots which I remember quite clearly. My mother told us how my father saved the lives of many Muslim families during both the riots.[7] The sound of conch shell[8] that heralded a Hindu-Muslim riot, haunted me for quite some time and even now it brings back fearful memories of the time. My narration of the memories associated with Baba, as we called our father, is mixed with strong emotions. I was only eight years old and my brother four, when we lost him. 

My father’s morning rituals began at four in the morning with swimming in a pond which was within the compound of our home. He used to gather together girls and boys from the neighbourhood and teach them to swim. I learned to swim with him at the age of five. Proper modern swimming pools were rare in India. He had excellent health and was regular in his exercise and work outs. He drove his own car to office at the Writer’s Building and refused to have police escort with him. He abhorred any obvious display of privilege like the read beacon or pilot cars, as all ministers were permitted to have.

Deben Dey joined the freedom movement quite early in his life. He became a member of the Anushilan Samity, an organization devoted to inspiring the youth, which later came to be associated with growing militancy in nationalist resistance in Bengal. He was initiated and trained by some of the leading mentors of the time.[9] As one of the youngest members, he was referred to as the young boy (khoka) by the rest.

As he grew older, Deben chose a middle path and became an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi. In a letter to my mother from his trip to Geneva, he mentioned how he was shown a lot of respect being an Indian and was often asked to speak on Gandhi. However, as Deben believed in an egalitarian society, he was at times dismayed by Gandhian leadership and feared that the Congress cabinet in Delhi was turning into a ‘capitalist caucus.’ In his own capacity, he always upheld the rights of ordinary people and the need to address their grievances and demands. His role during the riots that wrecked through the city of Calcutta in the 1940s and 1950s, was singular. He was specially assigned with the responsibility of conducting anti-riot campaigns, by the Chief Minister, Dr. B.C. Roy. Our family was protected by local Muslim leaders just as we gave shelter to members of the local Muslim families. 

In Calcutta, whenever Deben went out to buy provisions, he would end up inviting friends and relatives for meals. There was rarely a single day when his family members ate their meals by themselves. Roma found her husband always surrounded by Congress party members, relatives or friends. And before 1947, he was always on the run. I can understand my mother’s plight and feel her pain of not having her husband in times of need.

In happier times, with Baba

As an active member of the revolutionary groups fighting for freedom, Deben often had to disguise in order to escape capture by British police. In one instance, he wore a sari and another time a burqa to evade imprisonment. He escaped under the pseudo name “Shaikh Kaloo” and travelled to Singapore, Malay, Java to finally reach Burma. There was an arrest warrant issued in his name; he was branded ‘a dangerous terrorist criminal’ and a reward of 1000 rupees was announced for anyone who helped in his capture. Deben was ambidextrous and could shoot with equal adeptness with either of his hands. Unfortunately, we his sons learnt from others and what my mother in her deep anguish recollected, his acts of courage, gallantry and deep commitment to the cause of his country. He was an excellent driver who on several occasions had driven Subhas Chandra Bose[10], to several secret meetings and hide outs at all hours of the night. 

After independence, in active politics, he turned a grass root level leader and negotiated with different political groups in the province of West Bengal, tackling sensitive and critical issues of religion, party politics and power. As Member of Legislative Assembly, he went to Germany from where he wrote letters to my mother. When I read some of these as a young adult, I was amazed. One said, I have “...left you empty handed.” In today’s India, a Deputy Home Minister’s family waiting for money to run the household is unimaginable. 

I so wish my brother and I could have listened to more of his adventures from him. But that was not to be. That day was like another. Deben was driving to Krishnanagar a town, 113 kilometres north of Calcutta with three other members of the Congress party. Roma knew nothing of the purpose of this journey. She received a call in the evening that her husband’s car had met with an accident and that he had been admitted to hospital. My mother and I were taken in an ambulance to Krishnanagar. Baba was critical but conscious. The Chief Minister, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy rushed too and being a doctor oversaw every effort made to treat him. He was alive for 48 hours before succumbing to his injuries on the 1st of November, 1954. He was only 49 years old and my mother was 35. In the 48 hours that he lived, his wife Roma wasn’t allowed to go near him. He was busy speaking to Dr. Roy. 

Later Roma learnt that Deben was on a secret mission to unearth some improper activities that senior members of the ruling party were involved in. We never knew the truth or the details. It was the beginning of grim, dark days for my mother and for us brothers. The Chief Minister, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy grieved at the death of Deben Dey on whom he depended a lot. The Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru expressed his shock at his untimely and tragic death. Friends and admirers condoled his passing away and many felt he would have been the person to succeed Dr. Roy as the Chief Minister and that the politics of Bengal would have been different had he taken charge. 

Nothing of this consoled his young widow and her two young boys as they struggled to find their feet with little government support. She moved home to a lesser developed part of the city and it wasn’t till 1973 that she was granted freedom fighters’ widow pension. She never believed the incident to be an accident because her husband she knew was an excellent driver. Roma was convinced that her husband, the dynamic Deben Dey, was a victim of political crime and till the end of her life could not come to terms with the tragedy that it was never investigated adequately. The mystery remains unsolved and we members of the Dey family are still waiting for some kind of a closure.


Tirthankar Dey lives in Kolkata

[1] Also spelt as Deven in the newspapers. Deben Dey was born in Kumarkhola village of Dhaka in 1905 

[2] The largest political party in India that took over the reins of governance from the British 

[3] What used to be the headquarters of the East India Company turned into the Secretariat building after 1947

[4] This was pointed out to me by Mr. Robin Deb who I met in his chamber some years ago, when my father was long gone

[5] In his Constituency and where he lived (33 Lynton Street) 

[6] The schools are Benpukur Vidyapith and Debendra Chandra Dey Balika Vidyalay

[7] I later corroborated this from newspaper reports. ABP, 2nd November, 1954

[8] A loud sound emanates from blowing the shell and that is often a call for prayers among the Hindus

[9] They included Jyotish Ghosh, Santosh Mitra, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bipin Bihari Ganguly, Surya Sen, prominent nationalist leaders who held extremist views

[10] A leading nationalist and a radical leader who broke away from the Congress and formed his own army to fight the British