People's Democracy

Comrade Jyoti Devi Passes Away

ONE more link with the Atmarakhshma Samity was snapped when perhaps one of the oldest leaders of the AIDWA, Jyoti Devi passed away. Full of years (she was 96), Comrade Jyoti Devi led the women�s movement as well as the literacy movement from the front in what was another time, another era.

India was under the shackles of British colonialism, and the ghomta (part of the sari pallu used as face-covering headscarf) rivalled the naqab and the burqa. Women could but peep out of small windows to look at the wider world calling upon them to come and participate in the festive called struggle for emancipation.

Not caring for her early marriage (she was but a waif of a girl at 11, full of protestations against this social norm), Comrade Jyoti Devi grew up unto the wider world and rise to become a leader of the Atmarakhshma Samity, and of the movement for literacy amongst women, and then of the Left women�s movement, growing in stature in terms of popularity and organisational skills to attain membership of what was then the undivided Communist Party in 1941.

Until death intervened, she had worked relentlessly in the women�s front and the literacy front as a Party activist: dedicated, skilled, and accepted amongst the masses per se. Comrade Jyoti Devi rose to become the vice-president and the treasurer of the AIDWA in stormy times, times fraught with danger for communist organisers.

State secretary of the CPI(M), Biman Basu, and AIDWA leaders including Shyamali Gupta and Banani Biswas expressed their deep condolences at the passage of the communist pioneer. Comrade Jyoti Devi had no cortege to be organised for her last remains -- for she had pre-donated her body for medical research.

(B P)