Suniti Choudhury and Santi Ghosh

One was fourteen and the other fifteen. Both were schoolgirls in Comilla, in eastern Bengal.

On 14 December 1931 they shot the district magistrate in his own office. They became among the youngest political prisoners of India’s freedom struggle.

1Who were the two girls?

Our story begins in Comilla, now in Bangladesh. Santi Ghose is born there on 22 November 1916. Her father, Debendranath Ghose, is a nationalist and a professor of philosophy at Victoria College.

Suniti Choudhury follows on 22 May 1917. Her parents are Umacharan and Surasundari Choudhury. She studies at the Nawab Faizunnessa Government Girls’ High School.

The same school has another pupil, Prafullanalini Brahma. She will bring both girls into the revolutionary movement. Suniti is also inspired by Ullaskar Dutta, a revolutionary who lived in Comilla.

• Santi Ghose: born 22 November 1916, Comilla.
• Suniti Choudhury: born 22 May 1917, Comilla.
• Santi’s father was a professor of philosophy at Victoria College.
• Suniti studied at Nawab Faizunnessa Government Girls’ High School.
• Prafullanalini Brahma, a fellow pupil, recruited them to Jugantar.
• Suniti was inspired by Ullaskar Dutta.

2What was the Chhatri Sangha?

By 1931 the two friends are part of something bigger. The Chhatri Sangha is a students’ association for girls, and it is linked to the Jugantar Party. Santi helps to found it and becomes its secretary.

The Tripura Zilla Chhatri Sangha holds its annual conference on 6 May 1931. There Suniti is chosen Captain of the Women’s Volunteer Corps. Her alias is Meera Devi.

She is also named the “custodian of firearms”. She trains other girls in lathi, sword and dagger play. Santi trains too, with swords, clubs and firearms.

The mood in Bengal is tense. The Chittagong Armoury Raid, led by Surya Sen, was in 1930. Bhagat Singh was executed in March 1931. Young Bengalis feel the pull of armed resistance.

• Santi was a founding member and secretary of the Chhatri Sangha.
• On 6 May 1931, Suniti became Captain of its Women’s Volunteer Corps.
• Suniti’s alias: Meera Devi.
• She was “custodian of firearms” and trained girls in lathi, sword and dagger play.
• Background: Chittagong Armoury Raid (1930) and Bhagat Singh’s execution (1931).

3What happened in the magistrate’s office?

Now comes 14 December 1931. The two girls walk into the office of Charles Geoffrey Buckland Stevens, the District Magistrate of Comilla. They are carrying a paper and a story.

Accounts of that story differ. One says they came to present a petition for a swimming contest among classmates. Another says they came with sweets for the magistrate before Christmas.

All agree on what followed. Automatic pistols were hidden under their shawls. While Stevens was distracted, the girls drew the pistols and shot him dead.

Santi was fifteen. Suniti was fourteen. Some websites give Santi’s age as sixteen, but her birth date makes her fifteen.

• Date: 14 December 1931.
• Victim: C. G. B. Stevens, District Magistrate of Comilla.
• Ages: Suniti 14, Santi 15.
• Weapons: automatic pistols hidden under shawls.
• The cover story is told two ways: a swimming-contest petition, or sweets.

4What did the court decide?

The girls are arrested and held in the local jail. In February 1932 they appear before a court in Calcutta. They are young, and the court does not send them to the gallows.

Sources differ on the exact sentence. Some say ten years in prison. Others say transportation for life. Both agree they were freed in 1939, after about seven years.

In an interview they said, “It is better to die than live in a horse’s stable.” One account says Santi was disappointed not to be hanged. She thought it meant no martyrdom.

The jail years were hard. Suniti was held at the Hijli Detention Camp as a third-class prisoner. Santi is said to have faced humiliation and abuse, as a second-class prisoner.

Suniti’s family paid too. Her father’s government pension was stopped. Her two elder brothers were held without trial. Her younger brother died of consumption, made worse by years of malnutrition.

Public opinion split along lines. Western periodicals saw an outburst against an ordinance of the Earl of Willingdon. Indian accounts spoke of the “misbehaviour” of district magistrates. A flyer praising the girls as heroines was found in Rajshahi, with lines from Burns’s poem Scots Wha Hae.

• Trial: a Calcutta court, February 1932.
• Sources differ: ten years, or transportation for life.
• Both freed in 1939, after about seven years.
• Release followed amnesty talks between Gandhi and the British.
• Suniti: Hijli Detention Camp, third-class prisoner.
• Her father’s pension stopped; brothers detained; a younger brother died.

5How did their lives turn out?

When the doors open in 1939, two young women step out. Their youth is behind them, but not their future.

Suniti studies medicine and passes her M.B.B.S. She becomes a doctor. In 1947 she marries the trade union leader Pradyot Kumar Ghosh. She dies on 12 January 1988.

Santi attends the Bengali Women’s College. She joins the Communist movement, and later the Indian National Congress. She marries Professor Chittaranjan Das in 1942.

Santi enters public life. She serves on the West Bengal Legislative Council from 1952 to 1962, and again from 1967 to 1968. She also sits in the Legislative Assembly from 1962 to 1964. She writes a book called Arun Bahni. She dies in 1989.

• Suniti became a doctor (M.B.B.S.) and married Pradyot Kumar Ghosh in 1947.
• Suniti died on 12 January 1988.
• Santi joined the Communist movement, then the Indian National Congress.
• Santi married Chittaranjan Das in 1942.
• Santi sat in the West Bengal Legislative Council and Assembly.
• Her book: Arun Bahni. She died in 1989.

6What are the exam traps?

Names and details blur easily here. Keep these straight.

• The pair’s claim to fame is their age: 14 and 15.
• Do not confuse them with Pritilata Waddedar, another Bengal revolutionary.
• The target was a district magistrate, C. G. B. Stevens, not a police chief.
• The spelling varies: Ghose or Ghosh, Choudhury or Chowdhury.
• They were freed through Gandhi’s amnesty talks in 1939.
• Suniti led the Women’s Volunteer Corps; Santi was Sangha secretary.
• Read about Pritilata Waddedar.
• Read about Surya Sen.
• Read about revolutionary nationalism.