Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay defied societal norms that restrain individuals on the basis of gender several times in her life. Despite facing early setbacks, she emerged as a trailblazer. Freedom fighter, social activist, actor, author and reformer. Kamaladevi was the first Indian woman to contest elections, she was the first to get a legal divorce, she was an earlier pioneer who became an actress against the wishes of the society.
Kamaladevi was born in Mangalore in an India of the early 1900s. The youngest daughter of the District Collector, she grew up in a progressive household for its time but was already married away at the age of 14. Just two years later, she found herself a widow destined for a life as a social outcast. Remarriages for widows were unheard of in the society at the time. She challenged the long-standing cultural practice by marrying again at 20. Kamaladevi married Harindranath Chattopadhyay, who was the brother of famous freedom fighter Sarojini Naidu, called ‘The Nightingale of India’. The couple shared a mutual love for theatre. Their marriage eventually ended in the first legal divorce which was granted via an Indian court of law.
Kamaladevi also went on to become an actress against the wishes of the society at that time. Despite dedicating her life to social upliftment and freedom later on, she worked to establish theatre in independent India, starting the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography and setting up the Indian national theatre in 1944 which later became the National School of Drama.
She studied at the Queen Mary’s College in Madras and Bedford College, University of London. In the UK, she joined the non-cooperation movement and entered the freedom struggle. She founded and led the All-India Women's Conference (AIWC). Kamaladevi became the first Indian woman to contest elections when she ran for a Legislative seat in the Madras Provincial Assembly in 1926. She was a key face of Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha. Her protest in violation of the salt laws led to a year in prison.
She had been an early advocate of political independence of Indian women, economic and political justice and abolition of racism. She contributed to the rise of the Indian handicraft industry post independence, started the Indian Cooperative Union and helped rehabilitate thousands of artisans which eventually led to the emergence of the Delhi-NCR city of Faridabad.
