Carrying out the legacy of Amal Prabha Das at Sarania ashram

My friend Subrato Sharma studied in Rajghat Besant School in Varanasi with me. She now teaches at the Cotton College in Guwahati. Her father was a Gandhian and  later became a member of the legislative Assembly in Assam. Subrato took me to meet Sakuntala Chowdhury and  Hemo Kakati, both octogenarians, who stay at the Sarania Kasturba Gandhi ashram to look after its varied activities. Both of them were colleagues of Amal Prabha Das who was a reformer and a Gandhian. She along with her mother, Hemaprabha Das, set up the Sabarmati-style ashram in the Sarania Hills near Guwahati.

With Sakuntalaji and Hemo Kakati ji

Amal Prabha was the child of Hema Prabha and Hare Krishna Das. In 1934, when Gandhiji visited Assam for the Harijan yatra, he stayed at her parents’ house. Amal Prabha got to see his work at close quarters and this inspired her to walk the path of service. In 1927 she was denied admission to Cotton College as she was a girl; ironically this same college was later to offer her a job but she declined. She traveled to Calcutta and studied applied chemistry, becoming the first Assamese woman to get a postgraduate degree. She also studied clinical pathology there.

Having completed her studies, in 1939 along with her mother, she visited the Maganvadi Center of Self Development at Wardha in Maharashtra to learn about constructive programs for village development - to train local people in handicrafts and small-scale forest-based industries. Inspired, the mother and daughter decided to set up indigenous cottage industries on their Sarania Hills land. The ladies also started training the downtrodden masses so that they might stand on their own feet. That marked the genesis of many a creative activity atop the hills. When Kasturba Gandhi died in 1944, Gandhiji set up the Kasturba Gandhi Memorial Trust and appointed Amal Prabha to supervise its work in the Northeast.

The cottage where Gandhiji had stayed

When  Gandhiji came to Assam in 1946 he stayed in the Sarania ashram and formally inaugurated the Gram Sevika Vidyalaya.  Gandhiji  is said to have commented about  Amal Prabha, ‘Yeh ladki chatur hain, kam kar sakti hain,’ (this girl is clever, she can work).  Assam’s Amal Prabha Das, dedicated  her life to render service to the suffering humanity.

Many of the present generation do not know that it was in Assam, particularly the area under Dhakuakhana and Dhemaji, that the Bhoodaan movement took concrete shape of Gramdaan. The draft of the first Gramdaan Act was prepared by the Kasturba Trust, Guwahati and presented to the government of Assam and was promptly made into a law at the untiring efforts of Amal Prabha. At Guwahati, Mahendra Mohan Lahiri donated 100 bighas of land on which she started the work of Assam Go-Seva Samiti.

With Subrato Sharma under the tree where Gandhiji  sat to spin the charkha

I was fortunate to have spent some time with both the grand old ladies who look after the ashram to continue the work of Amal Prabha Das at the age of 92 and 89 respectively even today. The serene surroundings of the Sarania ashram, the cottage where Gandhji had stayed for three days, the tree under which Gandhiji used to spin on the charkha and the gentle Gram Sevikas in their simple Khadi mekhala and dupatta reminded me that one of the qualities of Gandhiji was  that whoever came into contact with him, did his work, all through their life, considering it their mission.