The documentary ‘Basanti: A struggle for Spring’ revolves around A Bangladeshi educationist and writer Basanti Guhathakurta, who had a significant contribution in spreading women’s education in the post Partition social context of erstwhile East Pakistan. She also played an important part in the development of modern educational methods of teaching and school management. The life and culture of old Dhaka, activities of Gandaria Girls’ school, the struggle to educate girls and women all manifest themselves in her life story. At the same time this film attempts to capture her personal struggle, her courageous ventures and the values she enshrined in her writing and philosophical outlook.
The martyrdom of her husband Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta in 1971 and subsequently her struggle to save and protect her only daughter Meghna is illustrated and documented in this film. After the independence of Bangladesh till the last moments in her life, Basanti Guhathakurta has engaged herself in various activities of state building. In one single life story we therefore see in the life of Basanti the tumultuous changes of a vast expanse of history- British India, Partition, East Pakistan, communal riots, the Bangladesh Liberation War, Bangladesh, traversing all this she has come to be known as one who believes utterly and steadfastly in building women as wholesome human beings. Her name therefore is symbolic of her life story, a story of a struggle for the awakening of Spring.
