Abala Bose

 Abala Bose was born in Barisal on 8 August 1865, to Durgamohan Das, a prominent leader of the Brahmo Samaj and Brahmamoyee, who was a famous advocate for the rights of widows (who traditionally became social outcastes upon the deaths of their husbands). Tragically, Brahmamoyee died when her daughter was just 10, but her philanthrophy left a deep impact on her daughter, as would be demonstrated throughout Abala’s life.  

Contrary to the social norms of the day, Abala grew up in an environment that encouraged higher education of women. She was one of the earliest entrants to Bethune College and went on to study medicine at Madras University. She appeared for her final examination but had to return home before the results were declared, owing to ill health. She never found out that she had in fact passed her exam.  

After leaving university at the age of 23, Abala married Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, later known as the Father of Radio Science. In 1916, he received a knighthood, and Abala subsequently came to be known as Lady Bose. Her positive influence on her husband’s success has been well documented, yet her own successes have (unsurprisingly) been forgotten in his shadow. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Her husband’s work required constant international travel, and while accompanying him, Abala observed how women across the world lived. She noticed that while the women across societies had many differences, they also shared many of the same struggles in terms of lack of education and other patriarchal oppression. She decided to do what she could to improve this situation within her own country, and in 1910, she became the school secretary of the Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya in Calcutta and served this post for the next 26 years. 

Following a trip to Europe, she also brought to India the Montessori school system, and in 1919, started the Brahmo Girls’ School. The same year, she established the Nari Shiksha Samiti, wherein she brought together eminent personalities including; Chittaranjan Das, Founder-leader of the Swaraj Party; Jadumati Mukherjee, mother of Bengali industrialist Dr Rajen Mukherjee; Prafulla Chandra Ray, the Father of Chemical Science in India; social reformer Priyambada Bannerjee and Sir (Dr) Nilratan Sircar, who promoted science and technology education in contemporary India, among others—to promote the spread of education for women and provide financial assistance to widows. The organisation worked hard to ensure female representation in educational bodies, and advocated for gender-sensitive syllabus in schools.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Abala did not stop with just one success. Throughout her life, she established around 88 primary schools and 14 adult education centres in the British province of Bengal. This included the Murlidhar Girls’ College and the Beltala Girls’ School in Bhowanipore, South Calcutta, in 1920. 

Both Abala and her husband were close friends with prominent Indian nationalists Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita, his disciple. Sister Nivedita was rumoured to have helped Sir Bose out by funding his scientific endeavours when the British government refused to. With her help, Abala was able to train teachers at the kindergarten level, and the two revolutionised the educational system by providing self-defence training to young girls, and allowing the older girls to step out and visit places of their interest. 

In 1925, Abala established the Vidyasagar Bani Bhawan, which provided both teacher training as well as education to widows. These women would then be employed by schools that came under the jurisdiction of the Nari Shiksha Samiti. The institute was the first in Bengal that trained primary and pre-primary teachers. (3/6) 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Simultaneously, Lady Bose also set up the Mahila Shilpa Bhavan in Kolkata and Jhargram. Here, she encouraged entrepreneurship and financial independence of distressed women and widows, so they could lead lives that were free from the shackles of societal expectations at the time. These women were trained in different arts and crafts, and the institute would then help them set up their own businesses. Abala also set up a training institute in Kamarhati, where she trained poor women in trades such as weaving, leatherwork, pottery and tailoring. Additionally, she was chosen as the first president of the Bengal Women’s Education League. 

Abala also pioneered women’s suffrage in India. Along with freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu, Margaret Cousins (Irish-Indian educationist and suffragist), Dorothy Jinarajadasa (English feminist) and Ramabai Ranade (social worker and activist), she was part of the delegation that met Edwin Montagu in 1917, while he was visiting India to negotiate the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. This led to Indian women’s struggles to secure political and civil rights, and the committee asked for franchise on the same terms as men. In 1921, Bombay and Madras became the first provinces to extend the franchise to women. Bengal followed in 1925.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

After India gained independence, Abala’s work shifted more towards the education and rehabilitation of displaced and economically distressed young girls and women (who had born the brunt of the brutality of partition).  

Her drive for educational reforms and upliftment of distressed women came from a very deep-rooted understanding of how the system worked at the time. She was aware that simply building schools would not reform how girls were being educated. She emphasised on the education of purdah (segregated)  women, and understood that brahmin pundits would have to be replaced by female teachers in order to make girls more comfortable with educational environments. Thus, she placed a heavy emphasis on training women to be teachers, alongside establishing schools for them to teach in.  

In a piece she wrote for Modern Review, an English magazine, she said that women were entitled to better education not so they can get better matches (in terms of marriage), and not even so they become more valuable as daughters-in-law in their new homes, but because “a woman, like a man, is, first of all, a mind, and only in the second place, physical and a body”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

In her final days, Lady Bose donated Rs 10,00,000 to set up the Sister Nivedita Adult Education Fund, which provided literary classes, first aid, home gardening and many other such skills to women in rural areas. 

Abala died in 1951, 14 years after her husband.  

Abala Bose is the prime example of “women supporting women” – she knew that men could not be relied upon to set women free or to surrender their patriarchal privileges, and thus focussed on training women to overcome their own oppression and think and work for themselves. She knew who in society was most vulnerable, but more importantly, knew what practical steps needed to be taken to help these women escape these circumstances. Her comradery with many of the other most influential women at the time is also beautiful – if ever I wanted to join a girl squad, it’s theirs! Abala should be remembered as much, if not more so, than her husband, as should her amazing female contemporaries who worked to improve the position of women in India and beyond. I salute you, Abala.