Background
Hare Krishna Konar was born to a Bengali family on August 5, 1915, in Kamargoria, a village across the Damodar River in the Bardhaman district of Bengal Presidency, British India. His father, Sarat Chandra Konar, was a well-known businessman and landlord of Burdwan who had a very close relationship with the ruler of Bardhaman Raj, Bijay Chand Mahtab, while his mother, Satyabala Konar, was a housewife. As Konar was born to an Zamindar family, eventually he grew up in a very privileged manner in an Indian-style joint family with his young siblings, as he was the eldest son of Sarat Chandra Konar and Satyabala Konar. There were no political or anti-government activists associated with his family; moreover, his father had good connections with British officials for his trade purposes.
Education
Konar started school in the same village, at Kamargoria Prathmik Bidyalay, and he has always been an excellent student in studies as well as in social life. During his school days, Konar was interested in multiple subjects, particularly Sanskrit and Physics. After finishing his primary education in Kamargoria, along with his parents, he moved to Panihati in the North 24 Parganas district, then to Bardhaman district, and finally settled in the South Radhakantapur village of Memari. He began his high school education at Memari Vidyasagar Smriti Vidyamandir. Later, he completed his intermediate education at the same school.
After moving to the new village, the Congress leader of Burdwan, Bibhuti Bhusan Dutta, used to visit their house on a regular basis since Bibhuti Babu and his father had a good relationships; Konar used to listen to their discussions about politics and independence movements taking place throughout the countryside. From Bibhuti Babu, Konar heard about the new leader who had recently made his name in Indian politics, M.K. Gandhi, who had come out with his new idea of Ahimsa Andolan and launched his first Satyagraha movement and were participated by teachers, professors, lawyers, college students, and school students, but the teachers of Memari Vidyasagar Smriti Vidyamandir never encouraged their students for the independence activities; they actually tried many ways to maintain distance between movements and the school students.
Konar was soon influenced by the fasinating philosophy of Ahimsa, which led him to participate in the Satyagraha Campaigns and Burdwan Congress political activities. Konar goes to school and then secretly leaves at lunchtime to join the campaigns. He regularly goes to the meetings and rallies. But one day, a meeting regarding "Revolutionary culture" was going on, and Konar was there in the meeting. A person who knows Konar and his father spotted him standing in the rally dressed in school uniform and ran home to inform Konar's father that Konar was attending a political event. Then his father arrived and caught him for the first time at political and anti-government rallies. Konar's father came and grabbed his hand to take him back home. After this incident, his family completely isolated Konar so that he couldn't attend or stay away from these independence and political meetings because his father, Sarat Chandra Konar, had a great reputation in the village and Burdwan city as a wealthy businessman who wanted to send Konar to University of Oxford for further studies, and if he went into politics, his career would be destroyed.
Again, after a few years, Konar became active in political activities, and at the age of 15, while studying in the ninth grade, Hare Krishna Konar was jailed for picketing in front of Burdwan Raj College. After being released from jail, Konar was again isolated by his family, but he ran away from home to join the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed again in April 1930, this time for six months in Burdwan jail. In jail, he met with Benoy Choudhury, who was also arrested for participating in the disobedient movement, and they talked about various types of topics. He also spoke with other revolutionaries who had been imprisoned for their involvement in the armed struggle revolution and had been influenced by the armed revolutionary doctrine.
After being released from prison, Konar moved forward with the mindset of joining the armed revolutionary movement. By giving up the process of nonviolence, he moved towards the armed struggle and showed particular skill in creating secret revolutionary groups in and around Memari. It was during this time that Bhupendranath Dutta and Bankim Mukherjee were introduced to the revolutionary group of Burdwan. Under Dutta and Mukherjee's influence, the Burdwan revolutionary group got the supply of various Marxist books along with the news about the case, which appeared in the newspaper articles about the Meerut Conspiracy Case. Hare Krishna Konar started his political activities as an active member of the Jugantar revolutionary party in our country's freedom struggle against British imperialism. As a political activist, his beginning was from involvement in various activities of the revolutionary movement of Jugantar.
While still a student, Konar gave his life along with others to create a new tide in the freedom struggle of the country through the death struggle against British imperialism. On the other hand, Konar passed his 10th standard with an excellent result of first division in all subjects and letter in Sanskrit subject from Memari Vidyasagar Smriti Vidyamandir, then he went to Calcutta and took admission in first year as a science student of Bangabasi College under the University of Calcutta. In Calcutta, he used to stay at the Canning Hostel of Scott Lane, meet Abdul Halim, and join the Calcutta armed revolutionary group. But was also in contact with Benoy Choudhury and Saroj Mukherjee of the Burdwan armed revolutionary group.
After a few days, the Calcutta Party's funds were practically reduced, and there was an urgent need for money. Bipadbaran Roy, one of Konar's friends, lived in Calcutta but also spent time in hostels. So, one afternoon, Bipadbaran Roy's uncle, a government employee, arrived with 10,000 rupees and put it at his home, so it was determined that they would rob the money and use it for the party's funds. So Bipadbaran, Konar, and a few others went to the residence and took all of the money, as well as some extra gold and cash. However, this amount was insufficient for their funds. So, Konar broke his father's chest in Memari to get the remaining money for the group. Konar gradually emerged as a revolutionary figure at Bangabasi College, which was the center of Swadeshi and revolutionary students who were directly associated with the Anushilan Samiti or Jugantar party.
The armed struggle revolution reached its peak in 1931. In February, Anushilan Samiti's allies, HSRA leader Bhagat Singh, were sentenced to death, while in London, M.K. Gandhi built the Gandhi–Irwin Pact. Independence activists slowly began to oppose Mahatma Gandhi and his nonviolent ideas. Finally, in March 1931, the key figures of the Indian armed resistance revolution, Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad, were hanged and shot to death. Following that, Gandhi organized another Satyagraha movement, which was met with opposition from many students and from numerous revolutionary parties. As a result, the armed struggle revolution expanded, and revolutionary groups spread throughout the country. At the same time, the Indian Proletarian Revolutionary Party, Calcutta's largest revolutionary organization, was established. Konar along with Benoy Choudhury joined the group. Konar soon became involved in various kinds of revolutionary activities, including bomb making, robbery, and party fund management, and gradually rose to the position of leader of that organization.
Career
Hare Krishna Konar became known as the youngest face of the Indian Proletarian Revolutionary Party and was a firebrand mastermind behind many cases, but on September 15, 1932, he was caught and arrested in the Begut Robbery Case, despite the fact that Konar had been tracked by British officials for many months over his activities. Konar's detention came as a tremendous shock to his family, as Sarat Konar had already made all possible arrangements for Konar to move to London, England, for his further studies at University of Oxford.
Konar was brutally tortured by police after his arrest and throughout his custody period. However, he tolerated all of the torture inflicted by the British Police and never spoke about any revolutionaries or their future plans. In the special tribunal case, the police charged Hare Krishna Konar with robbery and murder under Sections 694 and 398 of the Indian Public Penal Code, respectively. Following his arrest, he was taken to Midnapore Central Jail, and the tribunal's decision was given in Calcutta High Court on January 20, 1933. During his court trial, Konar was asked whether he was guilty of his revolutionary activities against the British Empire. Konar replied:
“What I have done is not shameful, and the consequences will be something I am proud of.”
After his address to the court, the judge stated:
“Therefore acquit the accused of the charge under section 398 IPC with regard to the sentence to death on the accused under section 394 IPC. We have the consideration on the one hand that the offence is exceedingly grave one and on the other hand the youth of the accused who is to be about 17 years age, taking both the circumstances into account sentence the accused to undergo rigorous imprisonment six years.”
After announcing the rigorous imprisonment, Hare Krishna Konar had no remorse for it. Again for a month he was kept in Midnapore Central Jail, and in February 1933, the Central Government, in consultation with the Government of Bengal, decided that all prisoners who had been sentenced for 5 years or more would be sent to the Kālā Pānī, that is, the Cellular Jail. As a result of the government's decision to give him the highest punishment of Kālā Pānī, at the age of 18, Konar was sent to the Cellular Jail of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in April 1933 by the Maharaja ship of the British Empire. As a companion on the ship, Hare Krishna Konar got revolutionaries like Satish Pakrashi, Niranjan Sengupta, Dr. Narayan Roy, and Dr. Bhupal Basu convicted in the Mechuabazar Bomb Case or Dalhousie Bomb Case.
Soon after the imprisonment in cellular jail, Konar faced the inhumane and unimaginable tortures of Kālā Pānī; they were subjected to both physical and mental torture. The food provided was unfit for human consumption, with worms in the bread and wild grass boiled in rotten vegetables. Rainwater was provided for drinking, yet it was contaminated with insects and worms. The 13×6 cells were dark, damp, and dingy, with thick moss coating. There were no toilets, lights, or reading materials, and prisoners were not allowed to meet with others; the guards carried out physical torture and flogging; their behavior was insulting; things had become unbearable. So, the prisoners came to a conclusion to do a hunger strike against the jail authorities to improve the systems in jail. Soon, on 12 May 1933, the hunger strike was fast and undo death. Mahavir Singh (arrested for the Lahore Conspiracy Case), Mohan Kishore Namadas (arrested for the Calcutta Arms Act Case), and Mohit Moitra (arrested for an Arms Act Case) died for force-feeding by British warders during this hunger strike. Their bodies were quietly ferreted away and thrown out to the Indian Ocean, so that the Indians could not get an issue to revolt against the British governments. The inspector of Central Jail Lahore, David Barry, had to appear to break the hunger strike; he issued instructions to stop the strike of drinking water. The freedom fighters remained consistent, and the hunger strike sparked widespread outrage across India. After 46 days of hunger strike, the British Raj had to bow down and request to stop the hunger strike, and they stated that the facilities they were demanding would be approved, thus the revolutionary of Cellular Jail accepted it, and the hunger strike ended on June 26, 1933. And soon the facilities from cellular jail authorities improved. Light was fixed in every cell; opportunity to play sports; cultural events were organized by the jail authority; and jail work was reduced to minimal. Prisoners were allowed and given: soap to bathe, bed to sleep, edible food; allowed to study; given respect by the jail authority to the prisoners; allowed to communicate amongst themselves; the prisoners who were less dangerous had been released but were under the eyes of Britishers; and various other facilities were also expanded.
During the hunger strike, Konar met with Dr. Narayan Roy, Niranjan Sengupta, Satish Pakrashi, Ganesh Ghosh, Sudhangshu Dasgupta, Shiv Verma, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, and many more. As after the hunger strike, the supervision and checking process in the jail was extremely reduced, so the prisoners had been able to smuggle in a lot of Communism and Socialism literature. Dr. Narayan Roy and Niranjan Sengupta smuggled the largest volume of literature in the cellular jail from the Pro-Marxist group of Central Jail Lahore and from the Congress Socialist Party group of Yerawada Central Jail. Several prisoners were well educated and were given access to a wide range of books for study while in jail. When they were released, prisoners handed over their literature to the other revolutionary. Many brought their own literature secretly on their way to Andaman, unchecked by the so many authorities that formally checked them. The prisoners also requested the warders outside the Andaman jail to get books directly from book smugglers; the prisoners also requested their relatives to bring the specific books via letter; when they arrived in jail, the authorities checked them and, finding them objectionable, set them aside. However, other revolutionary prisoners who work in the jail office picked up those books and gave them to their comrades. Konar also arranged to bring many books from his Memari's house for his study, and his main responsibility was to read those books all day and then meet at a particular place in the evening to explain the substance of each book in detail to the other revolutionaries. The cellular jail authority made a library for the revolutionaries, but the control of the library passed into the hands of all the left radicals who were formerly revolutionary and named the library as "The Veritable University of Revolutionaries". This was around the year 1935. The prisoners spent most of their time reading communist or socialist literature in "The Veritable University", and a thirst for books and knowledge began. There were students, doctors, lawyers, peasants, and workers all together, discussing politics, economics, history, and philosophy, as the result that there was hardly any left who had not become a confirmed Communist or Socialist. Hare Krishna Konar, Shiv Verma, and Satish Pakrashi organized study circles in which the ideas of Socialism, Marxism, and Communism were explained; doctors among them taught biology and physiology, while others taught historical and dialectical materialism. As the revolutionaries gathered to discuss and read, a novel and unique environment appeared. Hare Krishna Konar and Shiv Verma soon decided to form a party organ known as the Communist Consolidation, and on April 26, 1935, the Consolidation was established with 39 inmates. National slogans such as "Vande Mataram" and "Bharat Mata ki Jai" were never used. The consolidation members only use the slogans "Inquilab Zindabad" and "Dunia ka majduro ek ho". Dhanwantri, Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Batukeshwar Dutt, Niranjan Sengupta, and Narayan Roy were appointed to the editorial board of a newspaper named "The Call", which was published from the jail. "The Call" was started as a monthly paper and acted as a mouthpiece of communist consolidation. The number of members in communist consolidation swelled to 200, and all of them contributed articles on different subjects dealing with Communism, Marxism, Socialism, the biographies of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, etc. "The Call" was like a magazine paper; only one copy was written and placed in the library; it had about 150 pages. Later, the consolidation member celebrates May Day, October Revolution Day, Vladimir Lenin's birthday, etc. These activities of the Communist Consolidation continued unhindered till about the middle of 1937. The Chittagong Arms Group members therefore started military parades, at first without the sanction of the authorities, but a little later with the full approval of the authorities. They also had their uniform prepared; they prepared their buttons and badges from the silver utensils they were given for use. Ananta Singh was the lead instructor of this parade, and they put on an impressive show. When they marched past and performed several laying and attacking formations with bamboo sticks instead of muskets, they looked magnificent. Members of the Communist Consolidation were so fascinated by the Chittagong group's military actions that they asked their leaders for permission to join the Chittagong group's daily parades. This increased the number of Chittagong paraders to over 90, and consequently all of the Chittagong arms group members also joined the Communist consolidation. This is the time of 1937 when the prisoners were enjoying their daily activities and saying themselves as political prisoners of Cellular Jail.
In 1937, the revolutionaries of the cellular jail began to feel the atmosphere of a world war, and the freedom fighters believed that before the war began, we should return to the mainland India to be with our people and take an active role in the Anti-war movement. After studying Marxism, Communism, and Socialism, the freedom fighters in jail identified themselves as political prisoners and wanted to seek treatment similar to those in other jails. On July 9, 1937, Shiv Verma and Hare Krishna Konar petitioned Viceroy and Governor-General, The Marquess of Linlithgow, stating:
“All political prisoners should be repatriated to the mainland and released. An ultimatum was given that if these demands were not met, a hunger strike would begin.”
But the viceroy, The Marquess of Linlithgow, did not respond, so on July 25, 1937, the 385 political prisoners went on hunger strike. Some of the other 80 prisoners were released by telling the jail authorities that they were going on personal business, but in reality they were going to propagate and encourage Indians to protest against the British government to transfer the prisoners from Andaman to the mainland, creating noise and protesting the forced feeding by the jailers. The prisoners also arranged to get information about Indian reactions to the hunger strike; it had already been agreed that newspapers containing Indian reactions would be smuggled into the jail via some warders and other contacts made with some of the local peoples. A nationwide movement on the mainland in support of demands of the Andaman freedom fighters began to be treated similarly to other political prisoners in other jails. There was a mass demonstration of working people, intellectuals, and students. This upsurge clearly showed that their people on the mainland did not forget them. After four weeks, telegrams from leaders of the nation, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, etc., poured in imploring the freedom fighters to end their hunger strike. Even poet Rabindranath Tagore sent a letter to The Viceroy on 3 August 1937 stating that:
“I, as a poet, appeal to you to transfer the political prisoners of cellular jail to the mainland as the hunger strike begins, and we cannot allow this flower of the nation to wither away, so please don't use cellular jail as a concentrating camp of revolutionaries, and you have to release the political prisoners from jail.”
Letter to Hare Krishna Konar on 28 August 1937 by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Working Committee stating that:
“The whole nation, along with me and Congress working committee members, appeals to you to end the hunger strike and assures you to take up your demands and to see them fulfilled.”
After a lot of deliberation and discussion, this historic 36-day hunger strike of 200 revolutionary freedom fighters ended. The process of repatriation started on 29 November 1937. There were a total of 385 freedom fighters in jail at the time. 339 from Bengal, 19 from Bihar, 11 from Uttar Pradesh, 5 from Assam, 3 from Punjab, 2 from Delhi, and 2 from Madras, and most of the members of this organization, along with Hare Krishna Konar, were previously members of Jugantar and Anushilan Samiti or from Pro-Marxist groups. By January 1938, Konar was back in Bengal from the Cellular Jail of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. At first, Hare Krishna Konar was kept in Dumdum Central Jail for some time and transferred to Burdwan Jail, from where he was finally released on 27 March 1938.
After being released from jail in 1938, he met with Muzaffar Ahmed, Abdul Halim, Bankim Mukherjee, and Bhupendranath Datta, with whom Konar had worked before being arrested in 1932. After being released, he again met with them and earned membership in the Communist Party of India and also joined the mainstream politics of India. From that year on, Konar's Communist movement and path through anti-capitalism and fighting for the rights of workers, peasants, and hardworking people started.
In 1953, Konar became a member of the West Bengal State Council of the Communist Party of India; in 1954, he became the Secretary of the West Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha and a member of the Central Council of All India Kisan Sabha; and in 1956, he became a member of the West Bengal State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India. In the year 1957, Konar won the assembly election from the Kalna Assembly constituency and became a Member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly; in 1958, he became a member of the National Council of the Communist Party of India. In 1962, Konar was reelected as Member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Kalna Assembly constituency.
After the 1964 split in the Communist Party of India, Hare Krishna Konar became a founding member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and also became a member of the Central Committee, West Bengal State Committee, and West Bengal State Secretariat. In 1967, 1969, and 1971, Konar was reelected as a Member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from the Kalna Assembly constituency. In 1967, after the split in the All India Kisan Sabha, Hare Krishna Konar became the General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Politics
Hare Krishna Konar considered Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress leader, as a young freedom hero, and Konar believes that the idea of Ahimsa and nonviolence is a magnificent ideology that will undoubtedly lead to India's independence from Britain. So, he chose a nonviolent way and joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. However, when Gandhi signed the Gandhi–Irwin Pact at the second round table conference in London and ended the Civil Disobedience Movement, Konar stated that:
“India was on the verge of independence from the British Raj, but Gandhi delayed it for another ten years.”
After this incident, Konar rejected Gandhian philosophy, which advocated Civil disobedience and other kinds of nonviolent resistance, believing that such politics would only replace one set of exploiters with another. However, Konar and Gandhi shared the same perspective in that they both believed that India would never achieve independence from the British until Hindus and Muslims united. In 1931, he joined India's Extremist Movement of Calcutta, Jugantar, which was founded by Sri Aurobindo, a key figure in the Indian independence movement from Bengal. Subsequently, in 1932, he was arrested by British officers and taken to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands. At that time there were three streams of political movement in our country, the first National Liberation Movement initiated by Congress, secondly the Revolutionary movement initiated by Pro-Marxist groups, and the last Communist movement. All these three movements influenced Konar's life. Many revolutionaries in the 1930s who chose the path of Communism marched with devotion and single-mindedness toward the aim of permanently ending all forms of exploitation and tyranny by judging the interests of workers, peasants, and hardworking people. Konar came from within these change movements based on practical experience.
While Konar was in cellular jail, he was an avid reader of the teachings of Mikhail Bakunin and also read Karl Marx, Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Clara Zetkin. He studied the history of the revolutionary movements in India, Europe, the Soviet and abroad. Konar describes Lenin as "A revolutionary of the modern world," and he also read the revolutionary thoughts of Trotsky and Mazzini. Dr. Narayan Roy used to brought those books and let young Konar read them, and later Konar also acknowledged that Dr. Narayan Roy and Satish Pakrashi were the leading characters behind the teaching of Communism and Socialism and their practical implementation in society. Actually, Konar learned a great lesson of his life in jail from Dr. Roy; moreover, this man completely changed Konar's mindset from revolutionary intellectual to a pure communist who wants to fight for backward working-class people. With the help of this entire knowledge taught by Dr. Roy and Pakrashi, in 1935 Konar formed an Indian revolutionary and Communist organization named Communist Consolidation in Jail, and later it was the most resistant against British Empire.
After being released from jail in 1938, Konar joined India's mainstream communist movement, and during the 1964 split in the Communist Party of India, he stood on the side of the leftist fraction and became a founding member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In 1967, when Konar became the Minister of Land and Land Reforms. Hare Krishna Konar's objective was to initiate the first land reform and agrarian reform in India, as well as to seize land from zamindar exploiters and distribute it to poor landless people, as he realized that the primary threat to rural Bengal was not Britishers, but these zamindars or landlords, who had exploited these poor peasants for 300 years. He even opposed private land ownership, so while serving as India's first Land Minister in West Bengal, he enacted a rule limiting private land ownership to 70-90 bigha per family, which was in effect from 1967 to 1969 and later successfully implemented from 1977 to 2011, during the Left Front led West Bengal. Actually, Konar was a believer in Scientific socialism, hence his land reform effort followed the socialistic formula. He claims that Joseph Stalin once mentioned "The differentiation of land between landless and landlords and that such differentiation among the peasants in India means they can have no uniform attitude towards revolution". Konar says towards this agrarian revolution that:
“If agrarian revolution in the villages is not carried forward, People's Democratic Revolution would be a far cry, the core of People's Democratic Revolution is agrarian revolution and the key to its success is People's Democratic Revolution.”
Konar legally recovered the land hidden by the zamindars and changed the Land reform Act for it. On the other hand, as the undisputed leader of the peasant society, the Zamindar seized the land hidden by intense mass movements and distributed it among the rural landless. The procedure of regaining land was highly diplomatic and tactful; it was done in two ways: first legally, and then forcefully. As a result, massive protests against communism broke out in Bengali villages by zamindars and landowners from whom Konar had forcefully taken land. Though Konar didn't pay attention to those exploiter Zamindars, and he coined a slogan:
“The land belongs to the plough, the price to which the sweat belongs.”
Finally, Konar implemented India's first and most successful land reforms while leading the United Front in Bengal. However, after the fall of the United Front in 1970, Bengal's new Congress chief minister, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, dissolved the land reforms and returned all land to the zamindars while taking back all land from landless peasants. And in future, this land reform became the key initiative in Bengal that helped the Left Front rule for 35 years. Since the vote was split between landlords and poor landless people, where landlords benefited from the Congress regime and the poor landless people from the Communist regime. And, as the ratio of poor landless people in Bengal during the 1970s was unusually high, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) won by an extremely large majority in 1977. The left front government implemented the land reform in that year, and it was enacted until their loss in 2011. According to Konar, fundamental land reform is impossible in this state structure. So the campaign began to seek as much legally feasible and fundamental land reform in the state of West Bengal. The liberation of the country sparked a new surge of activity in the struggle for the liberation of exploited people. Konar turned down any prospects for comfort in his personal life. He knew how to read the minds of the villagers; agriculture was their primary source of income, and he was well-versed in agricultural issues. And because of his remarkable oratory, exceptional ability to understand the mindset of rural India, desire to reform Indian agricultural beliefs, and positive impact on working-class people's mindsets. Even the Union Cabinet Ministers used to fear him on any form of agricultural disagreements and issues, including Ashok Mitra, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, who once said:
“When Konar used to speak, I had no audacity to speak in front of him at any issue. He was my teacher, and I was his studious student.”
Despite the differences in ideology, Prime Minister of India and Congress leader Indira Gandhi maintained to seek advice from Konar on Land-related decisions. Even Indira Gandhi once sent Konar to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration to conduct a seminar with the professors, teaching faculties, and students about land reform implementation and other agricultural difficulties.
Connections
After being released from jail in 1938, Konar's father intended to put his son into business and expand the value of his assets. Despite his disappointment, he refused to give up. He believed that if he could get his son married and have children, then Konar would have to return home. Finally, after 3 years of trying, Konar agreed to the marriage, but only under 3 conditions:
1. No dowry should be taken.
2. Paying 1500 rupees to the Communist Party funds.
3. Being allowed to talk separately with the bride before marriage.
His father agreed to the conditions of his marriage, and before marriage, Konar talked with Pramila Dan and told her that:
“I am a jailed communist. In future, I must be in jail or hiding, and I may even be killed. Can you continue in this uncertain life of mine?”
Pramila Dan replied that:
“Yes! I can continue with you in your uncertain life.”
In 1941, Konar married Pramila Dan, the eldest daughter of Sribrajeshwar Dan, a wealthy landlord. The wedding ceremony took place at the house on Mohunbagan Lane, Hatibagan, Calcutta. After marriage, Konar renamed Pramila Dan as Biva Konar.
After Konar's marriage, his father hoped that Konar would stay at home and look after his business, but within 3 months of marriage, Konar received an arrest warrant, and Benoy Choudhury took Konar's wife, Biva Konar, to a secret lair, and she had to go underground with her husband. Sribrajeshwar Dan was a wealthy Zamindar; therefore, when his daughter married, he gave her a lot of jewelry. However, during their party life, Biva Konar almost sold all of her jewelry for the party funds. Although there was no political tradition in the paternal family of Biva Konar, but a simple devotion to her husband's ideals, an uncanny ability to throw herself into the crowd at the expense of the conventional notions of individual happiness—Biva Konar was a simple image of simplicity.
