With the Indian Leader: Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay

I admired her greatly... but I did not love her!!

She is one of them... a female... yet she differs from them in many things...

From her eyes look out resolve and firmness... on her lips appear truthfulness and sincerity... from her brow flow ambition and sacrifice... and from her heart springs love and devotion...

Love for all... for all people... in all lands...

She descended upon our world some weeks ago... and stayed among us a handful of days... few or many, they were enough to show us the good human qualities, the beautiful, giving soul, and the great, luminous heart... that this female carries within her breast...

A female... who felt humanity's need of her and answered the call... her sex was no obstacle standing between her and what she willed...

"It happened by chance that God created me a female... and I take pride in being a human being before being a woman."

How often the Indian leader, Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, repeated this sentence, whenever someone remarked to her that she was a pride to the daughters of her sex...

★

At the house of the Indian Legation I met her... her body wrapped in the "sari," that bewitching Indian national dress... she girds herself in it with grace and simplicity... and it lends her a dignity joined to an artless, endearing elegance...

From the East... she has taken a warm, wheaten duskiness... two wide black eyes... and a firm faith of unshakable foundations...

And from the West... a solid and abundant learning, a balanced and unceasing industry... a precise, scientific understanding of the nature of things... and an ambition toward the better, the finer, and the loftier...

And out of this and that she created for herself a singular personality... a deep one... whose depths none can sound but one long practiced in diving into the deeps, storming obstacles, and leveling difficulties...

*

I had to steal no more than fifteen minutes of her time... for her program was full... and she had to answer the many invitations addressed to her by the political, literary, scientific, and social bodies among us...

And I decided to speak... of her, first... of them — the women of her country — second... and of us ourselves... third!..

My first question was about her... about her life... her struggle... her fight in the cause of the liberation movement in her country... and the steadfastness, sacrifice, and devotion for which she is known...

She said:

— I was not the only female... the women who fought in the cause of the national liberation movement were many... I and they met every kind of torment... we were imprisoned again and again... persecuted again and again... driven out again and again... but we left no path for despair to seep into our souls... because we never for a day renounced our mission... and despair, as you know, my friend, is unbelief itself...

— What is the total number of years you spent in prison?...

— Five years... falling between 1930 and 1945...

— How were you treated in prison?

— As criminals are treated...

— Were you required to do some kind of work?..

— I sewed... and darned...

— So you are skilled at sewing, then?

— I am... I sew my own clothes myself...

— And what household work do you do well, besides sewing?

— Cooking...

— Have you mastered any of the arts?...

— I play the piano well... and I have a taste for the arts in all their kinds... I preside over the governing board of the Indian Handicrafts Council — the council that has helped to revive every sort of traditional village industry in India, after these were on the road to extinction and disappearance... and I am now taking part in a new movement that aims at reviving the arts in all their kinds and at creating the Indian theater...

— What are the institutions you have helped to found, or which you head, besides the "Indian Handicrafts Council" you have mentioned? And besides your being president of the Indo-Arab Friendship League, as we know?

— These societies and organizations are nothing but a means of building the Indian homeland... we all work together in this regard...

Mr. Johnson — the chargé d'affaires of the Indian Legation, who was witnessing our conversation — noticed Mrs. Kamala Devi's evasion of my question... and he hurried to my rescue... He said:

— Mrs. Kamala Devi divides her activity among several societies... she is the doyenne of the Indian women's organization, and was at one time its president... she has, moreover, represented her country at several international women's congresses... and she recently founded the "Indian Cooperative Union," through which she has tried, with desperate persistence, to resettle the refugees on a cooperative basis...

After that I asked her... about them... about the women of her country...

And she saw fit to question me in my turn...

She said: And what do you know about them?

I said: I know that the women among you are of two classes. An educated class... which includes the doctor, the lawyer, the deputy, and the delegate to international congresses. And a very ignorant class...

— That is true... but the question of sex is no longer a problem for us... the difference between male and female in India is exactly the difference between one citizen and another... All work for one goal and a single mission... the building of the homeland, and labor for its interest, its national dignity, and its sovereignty, and for carrying it ever forward. We do not count the number of women doctors, lawyers, and judges so much as we count the services each one of them renders to her homeland... in this she is exactly like the man.

As for... us... Mrs. Kamala Devi answered my question, saying:

— Your Lebanon is very beautiful... I visited it eight years ago, that is, in 1948... and today I have noticed a tangible advance in woman's renaissance, in her progress, and in her share in raising humanity's towering edifice...

And now... I admired Mrs. Kamala Devi greatly... as has everyone who has seen her or heard her or heard of her... but — and I say it frankly — I did not love her.

For a person to move you... for you to act by his guidance... you must admire him... and love him at one and the same time...

And after all this I found myself asking the reason: the reason that led Mrs. Kamala Devi to address my mind and not my heart. Is it that she is trying to renounce her fair sex, so fine and sensitive... neither granting its existence nor acknowledging it??..

Or is it because she so admires the other sex... that she tries to imitate it in everything...

Or is it because the dry life of work and struggle has given her a certain roughness, sternness, and rigidity... which has raised a barrier between her and others??..

I leave the answer to these questions of mine... to everyone who met Mrs. Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay on her short visit to Lebanon... and admired her greatly... without loving her!