In this extract from an interview recorded in 1975, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay remembers being arrested and imprisoned for her involvement in political activism. She tells interviewer Charles Allen that she was detained without trial and kept in solitary confinement.

Who was Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay?

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was an Indian social reformer, freedom fighter and activist, well known for her dedication to the Indian independence movement and advocacy for Indian women. She was a member of the Indian National Congress, and was actively involved in Gandhi’s salt satyagraha in 1930, despite women being officially excluded from the movement. She was also president of the All India Women’s Conference, the founding leader of the Indian Co-operative Union and a published author. Chattopadhyay was also an advocate of Indian art and culture. She established the Indian National Theatre in 1944 and promoted a revival of traditional Indian handicrafts.

About the British in India Oral Archive

These interviews were carried out between 1975 and 1976 to supplement the BBC's popular Plain Tales of the Raj radio series. The project was jointly conducted by the National Sound Archive (NSA), the India Office Library & Records (IOLR) and the School of Oriental and African Studies. The NSA and the IOLR became part of the British Library in the early 1980s and are now known as the British Library Sound Archive and the India Office Records respectively. The collection includes interviews conducted in the UK, India and Pakistan with a wide range of people, including Lord Mountbatten, B K Nehru and British civil servants. The interviews cover the role of the Viceroy, the royal family, missionary work, the police force, the Indian Civil Service in Burma, trade and shipping in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the Japanese invasion during the Second World War and the Nehru family. The interviews were conducted almost exclusively with those who had roles in the administration of the British government in India, and this is reflected in their content. The full recordings from the British in India Oral Archive are archived at the British Library Sound Archive, with collection reference C5.

KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY:

It was not done deliberately, it was at a period when there were not many arrests being made, therefore there were not a large number of political prisoners. But they need not necessarily have taken me to a prison. That was very deliberate. I was arrested in Bangalore, no I was arrested in Andhra in some village. Then I was [inaudible 00:29] where I was visiting a friend. I was not active, I was not doing anything, I had just gone to the village. The villagers gathered and we were having a chat. They asked me to talk to them, but the arrest was already prepared, the police van was there and in a few minutes I was rounded up, then I was taken to a court. The gentleman who had taken me in the car, he was also arrested, he was himself a lawyer, and he said well you have to prove what this lady has done, when I was with her, what was it that we did? We didn’t incite them to do anything, we did not say anything seditious. So the magistrate dismissed the case. Then it was shifted. When we came out, we were again arrested. They of course did it under those ordinances. Then there was a trial again and again nothing could be proved, because we’d done nothing, then they just arrested me and kept me under detention, which also of course, they could do, without any trial.

CHARLES ALLEN:

Was there a suspension of Habeus Corpus at that time?

KAMALADEVI CHATTOPADHYAY:

Yes. So, they took me to a prison, where there were no other political prisoners and then we were not allowed to mix, so it meant solitary confinement which of course need not have been, they could have kept me somewhere else.