Godavari Parulekar (14 August 1907 – 8 October 1996) was a freedom fighter, writer, and social activist. She was influenced by Marxist and Communist ideologies and spent her life fighting for the farmers and working class. She was married to Shamrao Parulekar, another freedom fighter and activist with the same ideologies.

Early life

Godavari Parulekar (then Gokhale) was born on 14 August 1907 in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

. Her father Laxmanrao Gokhale was a renowned lawyer. She received a good education, since she was born in a well-to-do family. She graduated from

Fergusson College Fergusson College is an autonomous public-private college offering various courses in the streams of arts and science in the city of Pune, India. It was founded in 1885 by the Deccan Education Society. Professor Vaman Shivram Apte was its fir ...

and then studied law, becoming the first woman law graduate in

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

Start of Activism

In her college years Godavari became involved in the student movement against the British. She participated in individual Satyagrahas and was imprisoned for that in 1932. This did not go with her moderate family, who was comfortable with the British rule. She left the house and decided to join social service in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. Godavari joined the

Servants of India Society The Servants of India Society was formed in Pune, Maharashtra, on June 12, 1905 by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who left the Deccan Education Society to form this association. Along with him were a small group of educated Indians, as Natesh Appaji Dra ...

. She was the first female life member. In 1937 she organized a literacy campaign in Maharashtra. In 1938 she unionized the domestic workers as a part of the working class. In 1938-39 she organized the farmers in Thane district of Maharashtra. She was imprisoned many times by the British for her work. During this time she met her husband Shamrao Parulekar. He was also a member of Servants of India and was running protests in the same area. Godavari married Shamrao Parulekar in 1939.

Joining the communist party

Godavari and Shamrao Parulekar’s ideologies did not match those of the

. During World War II, they believed that refusing to support the British’s war efforts was the best way to get rid of them. After some clashes, they left the organization and joined the

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

in 1939. Godavari believed that organizing the working class and farmers was the best way to overthrow the British rule. She was inspired by

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

. Along with the leaders of the CPI, she organized the first anti-war strike of the working class in Mumbai. Even after other leaders were captured, she led the protests. She was imprisoned from 1940 to 1942.

Work with farmers and adivasis

Then she shifted her focus to organizing farmers. She joined the

All India Kisan Sabha All India Kisan Sabha ( AIKS; lit. ''All India Farmers Union'', also known as the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha), is the peasant or farmers' wing of the Communist Party of India, an important peasant movement formed by Sahajanand Saraswati in 1 ...

and founded its Maharashtra branch, the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha. She was the first joint secretary of the Sabha. She then devoted her life to the struggle of the

Warli The Warli or ''Varli'' are an indigenous tribe (Adivasi) of western India, living in mountainous as well as coastal areas along the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas. They are considered by some to be a sub-caste of the Bhil tribe ...

Community in Thane, who was being pushed into forced and bonded labour by wealthy landlords. The Warli women were being raped by landlords, and accused of witchcraft and killed. She led the Warli Adivasi Revolt from 1945 to 1947 along with her husband Shamrao. She documented the movements in her book ''Jewha Manus Jaga Hoto'' (The Awakening of Man). After independence also Godavari kept fighting for the rights of Warlis and Adivasis. She founded the ''Adivasi Pragati Mandal'' (Tribal Progress Council) with Shamrao in 1961.

Founding the CPI (M) in Thane District

The Communist Party of thane broke in 1964. almost the entire Party in Thane district, led by the Parulekars, unswervingly came over to the CPI(M)

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in term ...

. Both Shamrao and Godavari were among the 163 leaders of the Party in Maharashtra who were then in jail. Shamrao and Godavari were elected to the state secretariat.''.''

Later life

After Shamrao’s death in 1965, Godavari continued to lead the CPI (M). In 1986, she became the first female president of the All India Kisan Sabha. She died on 8 October 1996.

Written works

Godavari captured her struggles in her books. Her most popular book is ''Jewha Manus Jaga Hoto'' (The Awakening of Man). It was published in 1970, and received the

Sahitya Akademi award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1972. It also won the Jawaharlal Nehru Award and the Soviet Land Award''.'' It has been translated into many languages, including English and Japanese. Her other books are: ''Adivasi revolt: the story of Warli peasants in struggle'' and ''Bandivasachi aath varsh'' (Eight Years of Imprisonment)

Recognition

Godavari was given the Lokmanya Tilak Award and the Savitribai Phule Award for her service towards the marginalized and downtrodden communities in India.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parulekar, Godavari 1907 births 1996 deaths Indian independence activists Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Marathi