A champion of civil liberties
I was listening to the Kolkata Doordarshan's news bulletin on September 20, 2015. When the news reader announced that Barrister Shadhan Gupta had passed away, I recalled many fond memories of my association with him.
Back in 2003, while returning to Dhaka from Mumbai via Kolkata, Noman Khan, Executive Director of CDD and I, met Barrister Shadhan Gupta, his wife and son at their Jodhpur Park apartment in Kolkata. We invited him to be the keynote speaker at the Regional Symposium on Disability that was to be held in Dhaka. He gladly accepted the invitation and came to Dhaka to speak at the symposium.
Barrister Gupta was born on November 7, 1917 at their family house in Sharat Gupta Road (named after his grandfather), Narinda, Dhaka. He was blinded by small pox when he was only 18 months old. I informed him that I was blinded too from severe wounds while playing at the age of six when I was living with my parents at the same Sharat Gupta Road in Narinda.
He was educated at Calcutta Blind School, standing among the top ten in his Matriculation examination. He graduated with Honours in Economics, with stellar marks at Presidency College, Calcutta. He completed his postgraduate degree in Economics from the same college. He obtained his Bachelor of Law degree from Calcutta University and was enrolled as an Advocate of the Calcutta High Court on September 14, 1942. In 1944, he married Manjari Dasgupta. She too became an advocate and later became one of the leading members of the Calcutta bar.
A leftist at heart since his college days, he was the President of the Bengal Provincial Students' Federation and in 1939 became a member of the Communist Party of India, a membership that endured till the end.
My last encounter with Barrister Gupta was at the Academic Bhaban auditorium in Kolkata. We both spoke on the use of Braille in Bangla. I recall that at one stage during the meeting he announced, "I have to leave because of an urgent business at the High Court. Therefore, for the remaining part of the session, my friend from Dhaka, Mr. Monsur Ahmed Chaudhuri will preside over the meeting."
Late Barrister Shadhan Gupta was a role model for visually-impaired people of the sub-continent. He was a lawyer of import, an intelligent person with high morale, a lover of music and a dedicated worker in progressive left politics. He completed his Matriculation in Braille from the Government Calcutta Blind School and was placed in the merit list as one of the first ten students. Barrister Gupta studied Economics and Law at Presidency College and Calcutta University, respectively. Later, he was called to Bar from Middle Temple in 1947. He was elected a Member of Indian Parliament in 1957 from Southeast Calcutta. He was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly in 1969. Overcoming his visual impairment, he had successfully fought many lawsuits in different states of India and at the Indian Supreme Court. Barrister Gupta was appointed the first ever blind Advocate General of West Bengal in 1986.
While a Member of Parliament, Gupta built a more or less nationwide practice, appearing in the Supreme Court and High Court and other courts in various states, including Srinagar, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Patna, Allahabad, Cuttack, Jamshedpur and Jabalpur, besides Calcutta High Court. He even appeared in a case across the border in Chittagong (then in East Pakistan).
He was always a champion of the underdog, and all the cases he took were to defend the rights of ordinary people – workers or farmers. He was consistently a defender of civil liberties in court.
We salute Barrister Shadhan Gupta, who left us on September 19, 2015.
The writer is ex-member of UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Founder Trustee, Impact Foundation Bangladesh.
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