Pritilata Waddedar: The iron lady

The name Pritilata Waddedar  is related with the anti-British revolutionary movement during the time of undivided Indian subcontinent. Pritilata is one of the most renowned names of this subcontinent in the history of anti British armed movement. She was a brave fighter of the independent of Indian Subcontinent from British Empire. Independence of a country is not easy to gain. Blood of braves, sweat,struggle,movement and overall patriosm is essential. Pritilata was undoubtedly a great patriot and wished to free her country from oppressors.

She sacrificed herself to liberate the country from British exploitation. There are many names of male revolutionaries comes out in the history of anti-British movement but names of female revolutionaries are few. Pritilata Waddedar was born in a middle class vaidya Brahmin family on 5 may 1911 in Dhalghat village in Patiya upazila. Her father Jagabandhu was a clerk in Chittagong municipality and mother Pratibhamayi Devi was a housewife. She was called 'Rani' as her nickname.

She was the first female revolutionary war soldier who sacrificed herself to free the Indian subcontinent from the oppressive British rule. For her contribution, anti-British movement turned to a new dimension. It is said that she was greatly influenced by Rani Laxmi Bai of Jhansi when she chose the revolutionary road for herself. With the name of Pritilata, Pahartali European club is related closely because her struggle was end after attacking this club. That story is for brave, for love the country. In front of the Pahartali European club there had a signboard that read 'Dogs and Indians not are not allowed'.
Nothing is needed to understand that Indians were none but slave to the British rulers. They hated Indians. This hates turned Bengalis to revolt. After completing her education, Pritilata first joined as a school teacher and later she was appointed as headmistress of the school. But she could not attentive to her job rather she decided to join the independence movement against British rule.  She had heard the name of Surya Sen who was called 'Masterda'. She fixed up her mind to Joined his group. On 13 June 1932, Pritilata met Surya Sen and Nirmal Sen in their Dhalghat camp. Pritilata was involved as women were safer to carrying arms than man.

The Indian movement group of Surya Sen decided to attack the Paharpur club on 23september 1932. Pritilata was assigned the leadership of the attack as Kalpana Datta was arrested before few days. The attacking group were given potassium cyanide and told swallow if they were caught by chance. On the day, the group reached the club at around 10.45 pm and launched their attack. They were separated into three groups for the attack. 40 people were in the club at that time.

But unfortunately, at the time of attack, Pritilata injured a single bullet. She was seriously wounded but she chose swallow cyanide rather than caught by police. At last she died. According to the police report, in this attack, one woman with a surname of Sullivan died and four men and seven women were injured. The next day police found her dead body and identified her. During the post mortem, it was found that she was died for taking cyanide, not for bullet.

The chief secretary of Bengal sent a report to British authorities in London. Here wrote ' Pritilata had been closely associated with, if not actually the mistress of the terrorist Biswas who was hanged for murder of inspector Tarini Mukherjee, and some reports indicate that she was the wife of Nirmal sen who was killed while attempting to evade arrest of Dhalghat, where Captain Cameron fell.' Pritilata chose to kill herself than surrender to the British officers. When she died, she was only 21. The Sacrifices and bravery of countless men and women in undivided India made the British ruler to think again about this country.

Pritilata was really an iron lady.
The writer is journalist and columnist and he can be reached at: [email protected]