Sankar Ray
The end of eventful innings of two great women who had lifelong penchant for a just society in early July this year marks the severance of link between the present generation of women’s struggle for social emancipation and elimination of gender discrimination. One was, Zohra Sehgal (born as Sahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan), who stopped breathing at the age of 102. She was arguably the greatest performing artist of the 20th Century- a dancer of international repute from the mid-1930s when she earned appreciation of discriminating dance critics in Europe while participating under the famous Uday Shankar’s roving troupe (Uday Shankar Ballet Company), an all time -great stage artist and one of the greatest woman actor s on the celluloid. She made a mark as a choreographer too. The other was Vidya Munshi, the first woman journalist of Calcutta in the late 1940s who left the media and plunged into the women’s struggle under the concerned mass front of undivided Communist Party of India. She was 95 when she breathed her last and but she was alert and agile till the end.
Sehgal, fondly called as Zohra Aapa, was literally older than Indian cinema, Zohra Sehgal had a glorious performing career that inspired generations., Born in 1912 in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh in a conservative Muslim family, she grew up in Chakrata near Dehradun before moving out to Lahore to pursue her higher education. She studied there at the famous Queen Mary College, meant for daughters of aristocratic families. But higher education for a career was not destined for her although in 1942 she married Kameshwar Sehgal who was a dancer and painter (although the conjugal life lasted for only ten years, and ended tragically when her husband committed suicide, living two children, Kiran and Pavan, for grooming whom Zohra stayed back in England). Before the wedlock, she toured Japan, Egypt, Europe and the USA as a performing artiste of the Uday Shankar troupe.
From a dancer, Sehgal became a stage artist when she joined the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), cultural front of the CPI, in the 1940s. In no time swhe became the darling of Indian theatre. She was with the Prithvi Theatre of Prithviraj Kapoor. Her debut in cinema was in the first film production of IPTA. Dharti Ke Lal, directed by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas. The script was jointly written by Bijon Bhattacharyya, whose Nabanna in Bengali set a new pace for people’s theatre, and Abbas. The theme was based on Nabanna and Krishan Chunder’s story Annadata. The perspective was the Bengal Famine of 1943 that killed nearly two million people. In the cast were the legendary Sombhu Mitra, Tripti Mitra, another all-time great on the stage, Balraj Sahni, David and the like, each of whom made a name that any actor would be envious of. New York Times wrote “This film proved to be tremendously influential not only to future filmmakers who admired its neorealist-like qualities — but also to intellectuals of India’s left-wing”. After that Sehgal acted for Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar, another IPTA film, based on a story of Hayatulla Ansari who was inspired by Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths. The film got award at the Cannes International film festival in 1946.
Zohra Sehgal never looked back thereafter, made a mark in classics such as like Guru Dutt’s Baazi (1951). Her performance in the dream sequence song of Raj Kapoor’s film Awaara.is unforgettable. She went for a drama scholarship to London in 1962 and appeared there in several TV productions like The Jewel in the Crown, Tandoori Nights and , My Beautiful Laundrette and The Raj Quartet.. She had fond memories of IPTA days.
Vidya Munshi (nee Vidya Kanuga) – known as Vidyadi – whom Rajashri Dasgupta, well-known journalist and a defender of women’s rights, aptly described as one who combined voracious reading, “deep commitment to and involvement in social and political causes” which were inspired by her association with the communists. She was sent to England to study medicine when she was 18. But the career of a physician or surgeon was not destined for her . She came in touch with the Communist Party of Great Britain where the magnetic erudition of Rajani Palme Dutt drew many girl students from India like Renu Chakravartty (nee Roy) who was a CPI MP between 1952 and 1967 and Parvati Krishnan (nee Kumaramangalam), who emerged as a prominent leader of the CPI
Vidyadi’s professional career in journalism began as the Calcutta correspondent of Blitz but her evolution as a scribe with a yearning for social change happened while working at the Bombay headquarters of Student Front, central organ of CPI’s student front, All India Student Federation. There she met, fell in love with and married Sunil Munshi, one of the living doyens among earth scientists.
She was a woman activist of a different strain who combined street fight with social and theoretical thinking, leave alone her lucid oratory. She braved the brutal lathi-charge in February 1954 during the struggle of secondary school teachers under the All Bengal Teachers’ Association.
Vidya Munshi rose to the central leadership of the National federation of Indian Women. She was a member of West Bengal state council for nearly three decades and became a member of central control commission of CPI. “Every debate, every issue of the women’s movement that saw her in the forefront in the streets of Bengal and in solidarity with movements in Vietnam, Cuba or the former Soviet Union, is etched clearly in her memory”, Rajashri Dasgupta wrote profiling her when her book In Retrospect. War-time Memories and Thoughts on Women’s Movement, was released in 2006.”
Gone are Zohra Sehgal and Vidya Munshi – the last remaining links of golden period of left cultural and women’s movement.
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