Kuntala Kumari Sabat
One of the session of Utkal Sammilani was held at Balasore on 2nd August 1931 with Kuntala Kumari in chair. Jahnabi Devi was the chairperson of the reception. Nearly twelve hundred people all over Orissa attended. This meeting was also attended by more than a thousand women. In her speech as the chairman of the Reception Committee Jahnabi Devi refuted the universally accepted view of women’s inability to stand on their own.8 In this session a central executive committee, named “All Orissa Women’s Association” was set up. Here sincere efforts were made to work out a programme for the improvement of condition of women of Orissa. In an essay entitled “Kabi O Lekhakara Udeshya”, she raised the status of a poet by declaring that she is not limited to any time and clime. A true creative artist moves high above such human limitations : “The poet or the writer is nature’s representative. He is not confined to any particular nation or time. He belongs to all the nations, to all time and all humanity.9 Her death on 23rd August 1938 was a great loss for the people of Orissa. Her brief life was a saga of relentless struggle against evil and darkness. She was a talented woman poet from Orissa, second to none in her bold utterances for the cause of Indian freedom. Although she spent major part of her short life outside the state, she had enough inclination to intercede the causes of its Gods and Goddesses, aquatic landscapes, rural surroundings, and the people irrespective of rich and poor alike. Therefore, time and tide has not thrown her into the limbo of oblivion. Her ideas and concern for common man got reflected in her works. Her life and creatives made her a legendary personality in her lifetime itself. She championed the cause of a world-free from evil and injustice. Her passion for justice, equality, liberty and fraternity was astounding. Throughout her life she fought against injustice and exploitation.