KOLKATA: On December 7, 1856, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar married off the first widow, much to the disgust and opposition of Hindu conservatives who practised child marriage and Sati.
The event was held under strict police protection from fundamental Hindu Brahmins who were against such social reforms. The widow, Kalimati, the daughter of Palashdanga’s Brahmananda Mukherjee, was married to Shrishchandra Vidyaratna at the house of Raj Krishna Bandyopadhyay on 12, Sukeas Street, now 48, Kailash Bose Street.
On Monday, the eve of the event’s 165th anniversary, heritage enthusiasts wondered why the house of such historical importance does not figure on the city’s official list of heritage buildings.
The old building with plaster peeling off now stands divided in three. The rear section with its entrance on Jadunath Sen Lane owned by Sarba Bharatiya Sangeet-O-Sanskriti Parishad. The front now has two addresses — 48A, which is with the descendants of Raj Krishna Bandyopadhyay and 48B, that has changed hands. A marble plaque that commemorated the historic event has gone missing, pointed out local history enthusiast Ashok Tarafdar.
West Bengal Heritage Commission chairman Suvaprasanna admits a building of such historical significance should have been a graded heritage building worth preservation and promised to check it out. However, he pointed out that owners often resisted the heritage tag due to the belief that it would hinder maintenance or sale. “People have a misconception that a heritage tag will lead to problems. That is not so,” he said.
In 1856, Vidyasagar had invited around 800 people for the occasion, including well-known personalities like Kaliprasanna Singha and Pandit Premchandra Tarkabagish. The wedding took place barely four months after the
Widow Remarriage Act was passed. Vidysagar incurred personal debt to get the marriage institutionalised. To practice what he preached, Vidysagar married off his son Narayanchandra to a widow, Bhava Sundari. Vidyasagar wrote to his brother: “Remarriage of widows is the noblest deed of my life. I don’t think I shall be able to accomplish a greater one, ever. I have sacrificed everything for this cause and won’t mind even laying down my life for it.”
To fight the orthodox society, Vidyasagar beat his adversaries at their own game. In January and October, 1855, he wrote his two famous treatises on the Marriage of Hindu Widows, drawing upon the sutras (literary compositions) and the sastras (scriptures) to establish his logical argument that there was no prohibition on remarriage of widows in the sastras. “Women are at liberty to marry again if their husbands are insane, dead, have renounced the family or are impotent or outcasts,” his thesis said.
