The turning point in her life really came at the Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress in 1921. C R Das was to have presided over that session, but he was in jail. In her unpublished memoir Santosh Kumari writes, "Hakim Ajmal Khan presided over the session. He kept Deshbandhu's photograph on the dais and took his seat a little below the dais. We were all moved to tears. Even Mahatma Gandhi was not immune from it.954 This description tallies with the resume given by an official historian of the Indian National Congress.5
After a brief visit to Burma she came back and settled down in Calcutta and made labour movement her new field of activity. Her paternal residence was near Gouripur, close to Naihati. It was there that she first got involved in a strike of the jute workers and then built up the Gouripur Workers' Union. After that she did not look back. She ' was very active in the entire jute belt from Kankinara to Alambazar as records of that period clearly reveal. But before we briefly analyse the nature and content of her activities, it would perhaps be proper to have some idea of the condition of the working class in Bengal in 1920-1921.
The Working Class in Bengal in 1920-1921
During the war and immediate post-war years there was a limited amount of uadustrial expansion in India. In 1912-13 there were 241 textile mills in India. In 1922 they increased to 264. The number of workers also jumped from 244,000 to 327,000. There was a corresponding increase in the number of mills as well as of workers in the jute and iron and steel industries. In 1914 the number of factory workers in India was 959,000. In 1922 that number had increased to 1,361,000.6
The capitalists made enormous profits but there was no corresponding improvement in the living condition of workers. There was no increase in wages, but prices shot up sharply. Things came to such a pass that life became intolerable for the ordinary worker.
This was also the time when the Russian Revolution had made a strong impact on Indian public life. Its reflection becomes clear by a careful perusal of the newspapers of the period like Atmasaktiy Bijoli, and Sankha. The first major working class strike took place in 1919. Nearly 150,000 workers downed tools with the demand for wage increase.7 Later on came the other demands like reduction of working hours, recognition of trade union rights etc. Working class strikes spread to different places and from factory to factory.
On the crest of this strike wave, Santosh Kumari started her
