Malya b

Growing up in a Bengali household in the early 2000s, you’d usually have Star Ananda blaring on the TV in the evenings. Even as a child, I remember my parents frequently saying: যাদবপুর ইউনিভার্সিটি সব সময়ে খবরে.¹ At eighteen, I walked through the famous চার নম্বর গেট ², and three months later, the student movement Hok Kolorob broke out. I thought my university was the most university — you know, this is the true meaning of university: to protest, to want to change, to learn to be restless. In fact, it was practically the only one doing it in the city.

Then, many years later, in the little archive of the Bethune College, I came across the story of a group of young women’s protest in 1928. They protested the administration’s denial of their right to hartal. The story quickly hit the newspapers as The Bethune College Sensation. Women protesting, defending their right to strike, after all, was scandalous as it was dangerous.

Their Principal, Miss Wright, another of my my favourite historical characters about whom I’ll perhaps write one day — threatened them in gradually advancing stages. First, she said that she would punish the students and report them to the government. Then, she said she would have their scholarships cancelled. When the women were still relentless, Miss Wright declared that if the students were determined to not come to classes, they would be punished by being expelled from the hostel.

Article in The Forward on the 8th of February 1928, five days after the hartal.

Miss Wright then asked them to write her an apology and sign a declaration saying that they would never disobey their principal again. I imagine the women students laughing at this – for next, they gained even more support.

The following day they sent her a letter of solidarity with signatures of students representative from all years in the College. In short, their movement grew.

About one month later, Miss Wright left not only her post as Principal of the Bethune College, but left India to retire in the quiet town of Ambleside in the Lake District of England.

1. Jadavpur University is always on the news. ↩︎
2. The Gate no.4 of the University that takes you to the Arts and Humanities departments. ↩︎