Nellie Sengupta
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Nellie Sengupta (1886-1973) was an Englishwoman who fought for Indian Independence and was elected President of the Indian National Congress
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[edit] Family
Born Nellie Gray, she was the daughter of Frederick and Edith Henrietta Gray. She was born and brought up in Cambridge, where her father was a lodging-house keeper. As a young girl, she fell in love with Jatindramohan Sengupta, a young Bengali student at Downing College. Despite parental opposition, she married Jatindramohan and returned to Chittagong with him.
[edit] Non Cooperation Movement
She joined her husband in his participation of the Non Cooperation Movement of 1921. After his imprisonment during the Assam-Bengal Railwaymen's strike, she forcefully 'protested against the District authorities' imposition of a ban on assembly, addressed mass meetings and courted arrest. She defied the law by selling Khadi door to door. In 1931 she suffered four months' imprisonment at Delhi for addressing an unlawful assembly.
[edit] Congress President
During the turmoil of the Salt Satyagraha many senior Congress leaders were imprisoned. Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya the President elect of the Congress was arrested before the Calcutta Session of 1931. Nellie Sengupta became the third woman, and the second European woman to be elected in his place.
She was also elected as an Alderman to the Calcutta Corporation in 1933 and 1936. She was also elected on a Congress ticket to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1940 and 1946. During the Second World War she drew attention to the misbehaviour of foreign troops.
[edit] Post Independence
After independence, she chose to live in East Pakistan, in her husbands hometown of Chittagong. She was elected unopposed to the East Pakistan Legislative Assembly. She was a member of the Minority Board and remained an active social activist. Her failing health and eyesight forced her to return to India for medical treatment where she passed away.
