Anuraag

a newsletter of NSS – IIT Kharagpur In this issue:

Highlights Photo feature: Regular NSS

activities Photo feature: Blood Donation

Camp activities Bimal Dasgupta – an immortal

activist by Dr Amal Pandey

Highlights Government of West Bengal sought the help of NSS – IIT

Kharagpur in conducting a baseline survey before rolling out of the ‘Kanyashri Prakalpa.’ The project aims to retain girls in schools, colleges and vocational training programmes and to minimize the instances of child marriage. A survey form has been developed jointly by several units of IIT Kharagpur including NSS, RGSOIPL, HSS department and RDC for this. Accordingly Units 4 and 12 of NSS are collecting data at Porapara and Rangametia.

Unit 11 of NSS organized a Thalassemia awareness camp at Talbagicha High School on February 8, 2014. The programme conducted by ‘Thalassemia Muktir Angikar,’ an NGO based in Midnapore, and included a training and quiz. Following up on this a serum testing programme was undertaken at Talbagicha High School on March 1, 2014 with participation from Midnapore Medical College and Saptarshi Vivekananda Society. More than 80 high school students their teachers, IIT Kharagpur students and faculty members got their blood tested. Unit 6 organized a medical camp on January 19, 2014 at Gholghoria Primary School with help from BCRT Hospital, IIT Kharagpur. General physicians, paediatricians, gynaecologists, dentists, a dermatologist and an optometrist treated about 180 villagers from Gholgoria, Salbony, Ayodhyagarh, and Gopali there. Free medicine was also distributed. At another camp organized by Unit 15 at Sholadahar with help from SMST, IIT Kharagpur on March 22, 2014 about 50 villagers were treated by one general physician.

Institution of Chandrasekhar Memorial Scholarship for class XI and XII students at the initiative of Professor Jacob Chacko of Materials Science Centre in the memory of one of his students, who passed away on November 2, 2011 also needs a special mention. First 6 recipients are to receive the scholarship during the Annual Day celebration of NSS – IIT Kharagpur on April 12, 2014.

In addition, our NSS volunteers continue to teach underprivileged children, campaign to raise social awareness, provide help with the upkeep of public facilities, e.g., schools and collect books, toys and clothes for distribution amongst underprivileged children.

This newsletter also shares the life and works of Late Mr Bimal Dasgupta of Midnapore, freedom fighter and social activist, with our volunteers and well wishers. We are thankful to Dr Amal Pandey of ‘Thalassemia Muktir Angikar’ for contributing the profile.

April 12, 2014

Photo feature

Regular activities

Photo feature Annual Blood Donation Camp

More than 1000 NSS volunteers from IIT Kharagpur spends three

hours every week teaching children, campaigning to raise social awareness, provide help

with upkeep of schools and public facilities, conduct medical camps and collect clothes, books and toys for distribution amongst

underprivileged children at 20 villages and slums around IIT Campus. This photo feature

illustrates a few of these activities.

Eight volunteers of NSS – IIT Kharagpur central team

guided by Professors Paramita Bhattacharya and B Maruthi Manoj organized the NSS annual blood donation camp BCRT Hospital in IIT

Campus on April 5 2014. Kharagpur Voluntary Blood Donors’ Association helped

organize the camp. NRS Medical College and Hospital

blood bank collected 120 units of blood from students and faculty members of IIT

Kharagpur.

Bimal Dasgupta was born at Bashanda on April 29, 1910 and accompanied his family to Midnapore when he was 7. He studied at Hardnige School, the present day Vidyasagar Vidyapith for boys, and then at Hindu School, which was later closed by the British for being an incubator for revolutionaries. Dinesh Gupta of ‘Dhaka Mukti Sangha’ came to Midnapore in 1927 for organizing a unit and got admitted at Midnapore College. Being attracted by Dinesh, many youngsters including Bimal joined the ‘Bengal Volunteers,’ as the Gupta Samiti (secret cell) became known in 1928.

On March 12, 1930 Bimal with 79 other volunteers joined Gandhiji’s Dandi March. Despite the harassment of the staff of the then District Magistrate of Midnapore, Mr James Peddie, the procession reached Bengal coast covering 320 km on foot on April 5 and violated the Salt Act by making salt at the beach on the next day. Manhandling women, children and students, and destroying villagers’ properties for taking part in such activities were regular activities of Mr Peddie’s staff. Bimal and a few others decided not to tolerate the tyranny anymore and put Mr Peddy to death. Bimal murdered Mr Peddie in Midnapore on April 7, 1931 and escaped. The Government declared a cash reward of Rs. 3000 on him. Kanailal Bhattacharya, 21, a friend of Bimal from Joynagar, 24-Paraganas, murdered Judge Ginger on July 27, 1931, and was shot dead on the spot. The incident was to avenge the death sentence conferred to Dinesh Gupta for raiding Writers’ Buildings, Kolkata on December 8, 1930 and killing Col. Simpson, the then IG of Prisons. A scribble note purportedly written by Bimal Dasgupta was recovered from Kanailal. The Police, who had been hunting for Bimal, got off his trail thinking they killed him.

On September 16, 1931 Police firing at Hijli Detention Camp, which stands now at the east end of IIT Kharagpur academic area, killed Santosh Mitra and Tarakeswar Sengupta. Mr Edward Villiers, a key functionary, was attacked in his office by Bimal on October 29, 1931. Mr Villiers saved himself by taking shelter under his table and Bimal was caught. Bimal, never implicated in Peddie murder case for want of evidence, was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for attacking Mr Villiers and was sent to Cellular Jail, Port Blair in 1932. In his trial he was defended by Mr BC Chatterjee at the instance of none other than Subhash Chandra Basu. Bimal was repatriated to Alipore Central Jail, Kolkata in early 1938 and was subsequently sent to Barishal Jail. He was released in 1941.

After independence Bimal had to support his family by vending newspapers and selling tea from a stall near Midnapore College and the Head Post Office. The stall later became a restaurant and a sweet shop. College students frequenting the outfit never knew that the person responsible for Peddie murder was running it. He again became active in social causes at the time of establishment of Vidyasagar University in Mdnapore in 1986. Learning that it was to focus only on vocational courses depriving aspirations of many students, he became a key figure in stakeholders’ protest. These days the University offers a wide variety of courses including vocational ones. He also established ‘Iswar Chandara Memorial Trust’ at Mecheda – a town roughly midway between Kharagpur and Howrah – to focus on social works in that area. Bimal passed away on March 3, 2000.

Bimal Dasgupta – the Immortal Activist Amal Pandey, Midnapore

dramalkpandey@gmail.com

NSS – IIT Kharagpur for more information visit: nssiitkgp.blogspot.com

Anuraag

Upcoming Activities of the NSS Team NSS volunteers plan to undertake six year-long projects through IIT Kharagpur funding. These projects are to focus on water quality assessment at Gholghoria, nutritional intervention for primary school children also at Gholghoria, setting up of a hobby centre at Talbagicha High School, training villagers at Kashijora on improved mud block (a product that finds use in rural construction) manufacture and set Sholadahar women up with a puffed rice making unit and train them on its use for income generation and development of an organic farm at Pariapara.

Best Volunteers, 2014, NSS - IIT Kharagpur Unit, Location Names

1: Sonamukhi and Jhuli Indranuj Das 2: Ayodhyagarh and Salboni Pranay Prasoon, Tarun Kumar and Nilmadhab Mondal

3: Salua Board and Rakhalgeria Primary Schools

Vhanbatte Vyomkesh Ramchandra and Rachit Aggarwal

4: Porapara Kaushik Chattopadhyay, Preetam Singh Meena and Pawan Kedia 5: Pariapara Ria Biswas, Atul Goyal

6: Gholghoria Rajorshi Pal

7: Debigeria, Nachna and Gangadharpur Govind Singh Dhakar, Saurabh Kumar, Vibhas Jaiswal and Agnivo Saha

8: Balarampur Dipan Biswas and Nirmit Dhabaria 9: Telugu Basti, Tuli Para, Jhuli,

Dhibighat, Puri Gate Basti Dinesh Kumar, Narendra Kumar, Sunil Kumar and Sd. Aaquib Hussain

10: Kasturba Primary School, Balrampur and Chhattisgarh High School, Ayma

Shyam Simaria, Shakti Singh and Tarit Mondal

11: Talbagicha High School Ayananta Das and Subhamoy Mahajan 12: Rangametia Shramjith Gupta, Asif Ahmed and Raushan Kumar 13: Kashijora Amrut Rajkarne 14: Ghagra Aniruddha Das, Pratyush Devliyal and Arkopal Datta

15: Sholadahar Rupak Kumar Thakur

April 12, 2014