Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav: Godavari Parulekar, a social worker who dedicated life for social work

New Delhi, Jun 18: Indian freedom movement will remain incomplete without the mention of Godavari Parulekar, a freedom fighter, writer, and social activist. As the country is set to celebrate its Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav to commemorate the 75 years of independence, it is time for us to remember her contribution.

Born on August 14, 1907, in a well-to-do family in Pune, Godavari Gokhale was the daughter of the renowned lawyer Laxmanrao Gokhale, who was a cousin of the great Indian freedom fighter and leader of the moderates in the Indian National Congress, Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

After graduating in economics and politics from Fergusson College, Pune. She then studied law, gaining the distinction of becoming the first woman law graduate in Maharashtra. Her father wanted her to join his law practice, but she was drawn to the freedom struggle and plunged into individual satyagraha, for which she was convicted by the British regime in 1932.

However, this did not go well with her politically moderate father who cut ties with her. Godavari then came to Mumbai, where she started engaging in social service in the Servants of India Society in the early 1930s. She became the first woman to be inducted as a life member of the Society.

"It was under the aegis of the Servants of India Society that Godavari and her future-husband Shamrao began to organize first the working class and then the peasantry. Their activities in the 1930s, even before they joined the Communist Party in 1938-39, revealed their growing class orientation. Independence for them did not simply mean the end of the British Raj.

It also meant economic, social and political justice for the toiling millions. And so they plunged into organizing the basic classes. Godavari distinguished herself in the Servants of India Society by organizing a massive adult literacy campaign in the working-class areas of Mumbai in 1937-38, this being perhaps the first-ever organised literacy campaign in Maharashtra," CPI (M) noted in its Centenary Tribute.

Noting the success of her work, the Congress chief minister of Bombay state, BG Kher, offered to make her the chairperson of a new department of adult literacy to be started by the state government. However, she rejected his offer in his inimitable style by saying "there are some people yet who cannot be purchased"!

"Godavari also made her mark in the trade union movement when she organized a new section, that of domestic workers. And in 1938, she astounded many by leading a 10,000-strong demonstration of domestic workers on the same day that the working class of Mumbai condemned the anti-worker Black Act. In 1938-39, Godavari helped in organizing the peasantry in Kalyan and Murbad tehsils of Thane district and led their struggles," the special article said.

On May 24, 1939, Godavari Gokhale tied the knot with Shamrao Parulekar which started their remarkable political and personal partnership that was to last for more than twenty-five years.

After the India-China border conflict broke out, several leading communists in the country were detained under the Defence of India Rules on November 7, 1962. They included Ranadive, the Parulekars and many other leaders who were later to form the CPI(M).

But tragedy struck within months of this event, when Shamrao suddenly died of a massive heart attack on August 3, 1965, in the Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai. It was a major blow for Godavari, who was also in the same jail at the time. It took her several months to recover from this shock. In a sense, it would be true to say that she never fully recovered from this loss. Every year thereafter on August 3, she always made it a point to be alone at home that day with her memories.

Thereafter, he continued to dedicate her life to social work. Notably, she gave away all my property, movable as well as immovable, to the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Several other honours were bestowed on Godavari, who died on 8 October 1996, that included the Sahitya Academy Prize, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award and the Soviet Land Award for her book; the Lokmanya Tilak Award for a selfless public life devoted to service of the downtrodden; and the Savitribai Phule Award for her work promoting social equality and emancipation of women.

Source: CPI (Marxist)