Phulrenu Guha

Dr Phulrenu Guha (née Dutta, Bengali:ফুলরেণু গুহ; born 13 August 1911) was an Indian activist, educationist and politician, belonging to the Indian National Congress. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha the Upper house of Indian Parliament from April 1964 to April 1970 from West Bengal. She was the Minister for Social Welfare in the Indira Gandhi Ministry from 1967 to 1969. She was elected to the Lok Sabha the Lower house of Indian Parliament from Contai constituency, West Bengal in 1984. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1977.

Early years in Bengal Guha was born on 13 August 1911 in Calcutta to Deputy Magistrate Surendranath Dutta and social activist Abalabala Dutta. Having been nurtured in a progressive family, she inherited the legacy of social service and standing up for justice, from her parents. Guha writes in her memoirs, Elo Melo Mone Elo, that her father had decided to resign from service protesting against the government's decision to partition Bengal when Ashwini Kumar Dutta, a revered social reformer in Barisal finally persuaded him not to do so. Nevertheless, this defiant nature of his, made him unlikeable amongst various British government officials and the outcome was that he needed to acknowledge troublesome postings for many occasions. Her mother Abalabala too, had a noteworthy impact on Guha, in moulding her by instilling a zeal of patriotism and myriad sensibilities in her.

Guha studied in Gokhale Memorial Girls’ School and Brahmo Girls’ School at Calcutta for a few years, but passed her matriculation exam from a school in Assam

Guha along with Lajwanti Rama Krishna, whose Sorbonne thesis Les Sikhs: origine et développement de la communauté jusqu’à nos jours (1469–1930) was published in 1933, were among the first Indian women to earn a doctorate in France and one of the earliest Asian women to pursue doctoral studies in Europe, thereby pioneering advanced academic research for women in India.

She arrived in Calcutta in June 1938 and was reported to have brought Rs.3000 from the Communist Party of Great Britain for the Communists working in India.

Social welfare, activism and foray into politics Having arrived in Calcutta, India, Guha took to teaching in a women's college and took up a variety of projects including working for illiteracy eradication classes in the Khidderpore dock area, where close contact and a view into the lives of prostitutes, proved to be fruitful for her for setting up her organisation for destitute women, later on. Initially a non-believer in Gandhian philosophy, she was drawn to Gandhi's ideas of non-violence, while working for the anti-war movement during the Second World War and this belief prompted her to join the Indian National Congress.

Speaking of her political ideologies, the scholar S. Gooptu argued:

By early 1940s, the Guhas were gotten up to speed in the Non-Cooperation Movement, and Biresh was imprisoned, leaving Guha, resolute, to battle alone. She was a piece of the push to assuage the upset during the Bengal Famine in 1941–43 and she additionally endeavoured to reestablish shared congruity at Noakhali.

From 1943 to 1944, she was Secretary of the Women's Section of the Azad Hind Relief Committee. Like fellow activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, she comprehended that the primary need after Partition must be the recovery and aid of the dislodged, particularly women and kids. After Independence, Guha devoted herself completely to nation-building.

She served different State and Central Government associations in various limits. She was Chairperson of the Task Force on Child Welfare Committee of Planning Commission, Government of India, from 1971 to 1972 and of the Committee on Status of Women in India from 1972 to 1975. She was likewise leader of the Indian Council of Child Welfare from 1970 to 1973.She was a Member of the Lok Sabha from 1964 to 1970. She filled in as Minister of State for Social Welfare from March 1967 to February 1969 and Law from February 1969 to June 1970.

In 1977, she was awarded India's third-highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.

Contribution to women empowerment Guha's undertaking to make women financially independent through learning handiwork aptitudes proved to be fruitful when she established Karma Kutir, an art and crafts organisation in Kolkata. About its beginning, Guha reviewed:

Apart from Phulrenu other founder members were Pratibha Bose, Sudha Sen, Swarnarenu Ghosh, Panna Ray, Hena Sarkar and Amita Das. Phulrenu recalled that when the Government of India started providing grants then, women from Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Mauritius also started participating in the training courses provided by Karma Kutir, alongside local women.

Restoring and reestablishing exploited women to a standard of living, and engaging them with establishments that would provide with the opportunities, were the essential objectives of Guha's life. During the 1960s, she set up Association for Social Health and Moral Hygiene in Naktala, Calcutta. The foundation had a humble start in a room at the workplace of the Social government assistance board at Free School Street, Calcutta. Guha recognized the commitment of her two collaborators Amita Das Gupta and Dr Maitreyi Basu behind the development of the foundation. From 1965 onwards, this association began working as the West Bengal section of the Association for Social Health in India (ASHI).

An adherent of equal rights for women, Guha was charmed when the Hindu Marriage Act was passed in 1955 giving equivalent rights to women for separation to end a marriage. In any case, Phulrenu called attention to the fact that specific proviso in the law should have been dealt with. She called attention to the fact that the Hindu Marriage Code had given a privilege to either gathering to request the disintegration of a marriage. She spoke at the Rajya Sabha:

She additionally noticed that the Act, in its current structure permitted to request for legal partition on some particular grounds as brutality, infidelity or incurable illnesses, for example, experiencing leprosy and venereal infections or if the life partner was of the unsound psyche. However, such charges must be validated, and meanwhile, counter-arguments could likewise come at the court. In the process, it was the ladies who endured most. Speaking of this, she notes:

Personal life She was married to the noted Indian biochemist Dr Biresh Chandra Guha on 17 July 1945, numerous years after they had initially met. Guha died 95 years old in 2006, in a maturity home she had established herself, and furthermore openly gave her assets to Calcutta University to set up the B.C. Guha Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.