Ashapurna Devi: In Service of Liberating Women

She belonged to the period when Indians were trying to forget their hardships and come together to stand against one single enemy-the British. Her works were usually confined to the usual day-to-day activities of the protagonist who had a different way of finding liberation in the chaotic male-dominated world. For such reasons, Ashapurna Devi is known to be an early feminist writer of Bengal.

Ashapoorna Devi, the voice of the faceless, nameless women Source: Wikipedia

In 1909, India was under British occupation and the sounds of nationalism were quite strong in the Bengal province because of its recent Partition of Bengal. In between this turmoil, Ashapurna Devi (or Ashapoorna Debi) was born to a Baidya family in Calcutta. As a young girl, she had an interest in learning. Her brothers were home-tutored and she memorized the alphabet after repeatedly listening to them.

Little Ashapurna never received formal education. Girls from middle-class families were generally not educated in those times. They were taught to be better wives. Her mother loved to read and there was always an influx of books from the library in their house. This also helped the daughters in the house to pick up the hobby of reading.

However, what turned this avid reader into a Jnanpith-awarded writer? After reading several books, Ashapurna and her sisters started writing poems. This was a casual competition between the sisters to simply test their writing skills. It was at this moment that she sent an entry to the magazine 'Sishu Sathi'. Thirteen-year-old Ashapurna was amazed that her poem not only got published but the editor of the magazine requested her to send more entries. Since then, there was no looking back.

She began writing only for children at first and later shifted to adult stories which again later resulted in writing adult novels. Academicians find a different kind of liberating factor in her stories. They are set usually in middle-class society and the protagonist is always occupied with daily household chores, a family to look up to, the loss of a parent, early marriage at about eight to nine years of age and already taking care of a sibling just like a parent. Yet even after all these burdens, they still try to create an impact in society by not ruining their image or the image of womanhood.

Ashapurna Devi’s greatest fame was her trilogy: ‘Pratham Pratishruti’ or ‘The First Promise’ (1964), ‘Subarnalata’ (1967), and ‘Bakulkatha’ or ‘The Story of Bakul’ (1974). Indira Chowdhury, a great writer remarked, "Ashapurna telling the story of three generations of women saw the nineteenth century as the original moment of formation of women as subjects of their discourses". But it is also important to remember that she set in the backdrop of the twentieth century and post-independent India compels her to frame the problems in ways that challenged notions of maternity.

In 1976, the Government of India conferred her with the Jnanpith award for her book 'Pratham Pratishruti' and also a Padma Shri for the same. She was later honored with D.Litt by the Jadavpur Burdwan and Jabalpur Universities. Later on, she also won a Sahitya Academy fellowship.

Great minds achieve whatever comes their way. Ahapurna Debi can be seen as a perfect example of it. She did not have formal education but her interest in reading made her immortal in the field of literature. Her works have not only liberated women but also Bengali literature to a great amount.