By IANS,
Kolkata: Pushpa Ranjan Chatterjee, who fasted with Mahatma Gandhi in 1947 here against India’s break up and communal riots, died at his home in Hooghly Monday, family sources said. He was 103.
Chatterjee, a widower, is survived by his two sons and grandchildren. “He was ailing for about a month,” a source said.
Born at Madarihat (now in Bangladesh) in 1909, Chatterjee joined the freedom movement in his youth as a member of Anushilan party, which believed in armed revolt against the British Raj.
Attracted by Gandhi’s ideals, he joined the salt movement and was arrested. He also faced imprisonment for participating in the Quit India movement and passed his BA examination from jail.
Chatterjee fasted with Gandhi in eastern Kolkata’s Beliaghata area in 1947.
He founded an informal school – called Satya Bharati by Gandhi – in Goabagan area of Kolkata and a community kitchen at the Sealdah railway station to feed refugees following partition.
He developed two colonies for refugees from across the border and set up a second Satya Bharati school in Konnagar.
Satya Bharati now has a primary school, a higher secondary school, an old age home, a short stay home for morally endangered girls and a children home. It also provides nursing and vocational training.