In memoriam

Vina Mazumdar (1927-2013)

ITS been over a month since Vina Mazumdar passed on, bringing an end to what arguably had been an amazingly rich and fulfilling life. The days since then have witnessed a plethora of meetings, formal and informal, where numerous friends, compatriots and admirers came together not to grieve, but celebrate the life of a person who gave so much, touched so many, sparking warm and fun-filled memories of encounters and exchanges far too rare in these competitive and self-centred times. The overflowing hall and the many tributes to her by a wide array of people – researchers and activists, administrators and politicians, young and old, women and men – each remembering a special encounter which they treasured and which changed them, at the India International Centre on June 11, brought alive for those of us present, the possibility of genuine fellowship.

It was as if, for the moment, the mere act of remembering had helped us rise above our usual cynical selves. Vina di, in addition to her many qualities and accomplishments, was at her core a positive, aggregating personality, gently nudging all those who worked with her to give of their best, for the cause. The cause, as freedom’s child, one who had witnessed the hoisting of the tricolour in 1947 and heard some of the passionate debates in the Constituent Assembly, was to work, unceasingly, for the realization of our deepest constitutional values – freedom, dignity and equality for all.

Her karmabhoomi may have been women – more so after her involvement with and shepherding of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, whose report, Towards Equality (1974-75), even three decades on, remains the landmark text for all those engaged in researching and changing the status of Indian women. But Vina di’s vision included all. It is often insufficiently appreciated the degree to which Vina Mazumdar managed to draw in men – as mentors and gurus (D.S. Kothari, J.P. Naik), as co-researchers and collaborators (Asok Mitra, Raj Krishna, Iqbal Narain, M.S. Swaminathan), and as students and co-activists. Both learning from and changing them, she and her many associates – Lotika Sarkar, Neeraben Desai, Phulrenu Guha, colleagues at the ICSSR and CWDS – helped change policy and shift public discourse by creatively engaging in every arena that they could access. For Vina di, no opportunity was too small, no forum insignificant. She had, or acquired, the rare skill of listening, attentively, to the insights of researchers and practitioners, which partly explains her ability to be up with the latest scholorly developments and deploy them in her advocacy. She believed in and practiced no apartheid politics – possibly why her many ventures, successful or otherwise, won so many adherents.

For those wanting to know more about her, a good beginning is her memoirs (Memories of a Rolling Stone, Zubaan, 2010). But like all memoirs, they are partial, providing at best fragmentary clues to her personality and operating style which, in the end, helped her more than many others, to bring people together in a striving for a cause larger than themselves. At a time and a phase in our collective history which foregrounds and values other attributes, it would help to draw lessons and inspiration from a life well lived.

Harsh Sethi

 

A tribute

They don’t make them like her any more

It’s a very particular kind of recipe

You’d need an enlightened father

You’d need a visionary mother

It would help if you had an educated book loving driver

You’d need friends scattered all over the world

They’d have to be doctors and feminists and academics and activists

You’d need a good dose of children

You’d have to have politics in the blood

A firm belief in democracy

You’d need universities that believe in teachers and teaching

A rare thing these days

You’d need international recognition

That women deserve to be counted

You’d need mentors at home

And well-wishers abroad

You’d need a spirit of questioning

A liberal dose of rebellion

A belief in support

A commitment to institutions

You’d need to be curious and interested

Awesome and inspiring

You’d have to help new groups

Give support to new enterprises

You’d need to support the feminist endeavour

To provide space and step in to sort out their battles

You’d need friends who connived

And plotted and succeeded

You’d need to march in demonstrations

Learn you lessons from the poor

Focus on the town and the city

You’d need liberal doses of Old Monk

A loud voice to shout for Nandan

An ability to give dictation till four in the morning

Spiced by Old Monk and hot tea

To your poor long suffering fifth child (aka Nandan)

You’d need to fight for women’s studies

Begin the battle long before other had even begun to think of it

You’d need to produce a report that was just more than a report

You’d need to find a good name for it

Perhaps call it Towards Equality

And then work hard to do what most reports don’t do

Turn it into action, use it to further research

You’d need to keep the focus on the activist

And equally on the researcher

You’d need to extend your attention to the village

To learn from your sisters out there

You’d need grit, determination, braggadocio, a loud voice

You’d need a friend called Lotika di

Another called Neeraben

You’d need a clutch of feminists of all ages

your biological and political jamaat

Who were willing to be your students

Even though you’d never been their teacher

An endless supply of cigarettes

A battle with your publisher for delaying your memoirs

You’d need liberal doses of argument

A vast collection of saris

Some kaftans to be in with your grandchildren

Comrades in the movement

Whom you could rap on the knuckles from time to time

You’d need the honesty to say

Arre, you must stop me, I tend to meander

I’m getting old you know

Put all of this together

And you’d have a very potent brew

By another name it would be called Vina di

Glasses on nose, cigarette in hand, tea on table, dictation at the ready

Come on, Vina di, own up, we know you’re up there watching us

And we’ll raise a glass of Old Monk to you tonight

For we know

They don’t make them like you any more.

Urvashi Butalia

(with inputs from many feminists across India)