CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 116 of 120

Correct — A, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. She was a major figure of the nationalist and women's movements, but not of the trade unions. Born in 1872 into the Tagore family — Swarnakumari Devi was her mother and Rabindranath Tagore her maternal uncle — she edited the journal Bharati from 1895 to 1907, organised akharas and swadeshi enterprise in Bengal during the anti-partition agitation, married the nationalist lawyer Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri in 1905 and co-edited Hindusthan with him, and worked closely enough with Gandhi that he quoted her writings in his speeches. Her one lasting institution is the Bharat Stree Mahamandal, founded at Allahabad in 1910 — the first national-level women's organisation in India, built for female education and vocational training across class, caste and religious lines, with branches from Lahore and Delhi to Kolkata. That is women's organisation, not labour organisation. Her published life records no strike, no union office and no mill-gate work, which is exactly what makes her the odd name in this list. The clearest contrast is the fourth option: Anasuya Sarabhai, whom the workers called Motaben, founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association in 1917, ran the daily mass meetings during the month-long Ahmedabad mill strike of 1918 that Gandhi addressed and then fasted over, and remained the union's president for life. Note honestly that of the four names, the third, printed here as Prabhabati Devi, is the least documented in the standard accounts; the question is answerable without her, because the answer turns on what Sarala Devi actually did.

• (b)Ushabai Dange — A genuine labour organiser of exactly this period — a communist activist in the Bombay textile belt, tied to the Girni Kamgar movement of the late 1920s, and married to the trade-union leader S. A. Dange. She belongs on the list the question is asking you to sort.
• (c)Prabhabati Devi — Named in this stem among the women who organised workers in the strikes of the 1920s. She is far less written about than the others, and we are not able to source a full account of her work, so treat her as the paper presents her rather than as a fact to build on.
• (d)Anasuya Behn — Anasuya Sarabhai, 1885 to 1972, the founder in 1917 of the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association and its president for life. She organised the mill workers through the 1918 strike and the years that followed — the single most clearly documented woman labour leader on this list.

Indian trade unionism took organised shape around 1918-20 — the Madras Labour Union was formed in 1918 and the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920 — and the following decade produced the country's first great strike waves, above all in the Bombay textile mills. Women were present in that history in two distinct capacities: as a large part of the mill workforce, and as organisers. The organisers came from two different political worlds. One was Gandhian and reformist, working through arbitration and the Ahmedabad model; the other was communist, working through the Girni Kamgar Union and mass strike action.

This is an odd-one-out that rewards knowing what a person is famous for, not merely recognising the name — and all four names are recognisable. The efficient route is to place Sarala Devi Chaudhurani precisely: Bharat Stree Mahamandal, 1910, women's education. Once she is filed under the women's movement rather than the labour movement, the question is over, and you need know nothing about the other three. A useful companion contrast is that Anasuya Sarabhai's own brother, Ambalal Sarabhai, was a leading Ahmedabad mill owner and the employers' representative in the 1918 dispute she was organising against — a detail that fixes her firmly on the labour side of that history.

• Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, 1872 to 1945, founded the Bharat Stree Mahamandal at Allahabad in 1910, the first national-level women's organisation in India.
• She edited the journal Bharati from 1895 to 1907 and later co-edited Hindusthan; her autobiography is Jivaner Jhara Pata.
• Anasuya Sarabhai, 1885 to 1972, founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association in 1917 and was its lifelong president.
• The Ahmedabad mill strike of 1918 ended with a 35 per cent wage rise after Gandhi's fast; workers called Anasuya Sarabhai 'Motaben', elder sister.
• The Madras Labour Union was formed in 1918 and the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920, on the eve of the strike decade this question is set in.

• Assuming that any prominent woman of the nationalist era must have been involved in every kind of mass organisation.
• Confusing Anasuya Sarabhai, the union founder, with her brother Ambalal Sarabhai, who was on the mill owners' side of the same dispute.
• Dating the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association to the 1920s; it was founded in 1917, though its work continued through the decade in question.

As an odd-one-out among named individuals, or as a person-to-organisation match across the nationalist, women's and labour movements.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Bharat Stree Mahamandal, generally regarded as the first national-level women's organisation in India, was founded in 1910 by

  • (a)Annie Besant
  • (b)Sarala Devi Chaudhurani
  • (c)Pandita Ramabai
  • (d)Ramabai Ranade

  Answer(b) Sarala Devi Chaudhurani — founded at Allahabad, with branches in Lahore, Delhi, Kolkata and other cities, to promote women's education and vocational training.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association, founded in 1917, is most closely associated with which woman leader?

  • (a)Kasturba Gandhi
  • (b)Anasuya Sarabhai
  • (c)Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
  • (d)Avantikabai Gokhale

  Answer(b) Anasuya Sarabhai — she founded the union, led the workers through the 1918 strike, and was its president for life.