25/09/2022
Remembering Pritilata Waddedar, the illustrious anti-British revolutionary from Bengal, who sacrificed her life to liberate her motherland from the colonial rule. Born in Chittagong on May 5, 1911, Pritilata dreamed of freedom of her country from British rule.
Her father was a clerk in the Chittagong municipality. As a young girl, Pritilata was an exceptional student. Having passed her Matriculation exam in the first division in 1927, she appeared for her Intermediate examinations in 1929, where she bagged the first position, beating out all the other candidates from the Dhaka board. She went on to study philosophy at the Bethune College in Calcutta, from where she graduated with distinction.
While still a student in Eden College, she began to participate in activities 'subversive to the state'. She joined the Dipali Sangha there. After her graduation, she returned to Chittagong as a headmistress of a local English medium high school.
In 1930, there was a mood of dissension against the British rule, and small bands of revolutionaries began to spring up all over Bengal. Pritilata believed that it was time for women to stand up and take up arms along with their men, and help them liberate their country from the clutches of the British Raj. Pritilata's brother was already a revolutionary nationalist, and it was he who introduced her to Masterda Surya Sen.
Initially, because she was a woman, Masterda had reservations about allowing her to join as a military activist, but like one Joan of Arc before her, Pritilata was a woman of a resilient spirit, and she finally made it as the first female revolutionary in Surya Sen's group.
She was involved in operations for destroying the Telephone and Telegraph Office and the capture of the reserve police line. She took part in the Jalalabad battle where her job was to supply explosives. In 1932, she went to Dhalghat to meet Masterda at his hideout. By that time, her name was already on the police's most-wanted list.
That same year, Surya Sen planned an attack on the Pahartali European club, which bore the notorious sign "Dogs and Indians not allowed". He assigned Pritilata to lead the strike time on September 23, 1932. Members of the team were instructed to carry potassium cyanide with them. The raid was a success, but Pritilata, who was disguised as a man, was nabbed, and had no choice but to swallow the pill and thus end her short endeavor in fighting for freedom of her country
She was only twenty-one years old at the time of her death. Her martyrdom was a hallmark event in the history of the revolution that toppled the British Raj, and she was an inspiration for revolutionaries in Bengal in the years to come.
