Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), Indian poet and prominent figure in the Indian independence struggle. Naidu was born into a Bengali Brahmin family in Hyderābād, India. With her father a scientist and her mother a poet, she grew up surrounded by artists, intellectuals, and revolutionaries. A brilliant student, she entered Madras University at the age of 12, about the time she began also to write poetry. In 1895 she was sent to England to study at King’s College, London, and Girton College, Cambridge, before poor health forced her to abandon her studies and return home. During this period, nevertheless, she came into contact with some of the great literary figures of the day, and formed particular friendships with Edmund Gosse and Arthur Symons, whose advice and encouragement helped her poetry to mature.

On her return to India in 1898 she married Govindarajulu Naidu, a non-Brahmin. She soon came into contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Annie Besant. Encouraged by Gokhale, she entered politics and, with her remarkable powers of oratory, soon emerged as an admired leader. She campaigned vigorously for women’s rights and improvement in the conditions of workers. Ill health took her back to England where she was fired by the enthusiasm of the young Mohammed Ali Jinnah, then an ardent Indian nationalist who had founded the London Indian Students’ Association. By 1918 after the death of Gokhale and her meeting with Gandhi, she had become an important figure in the nationalist movement, actively participating in Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign and traveling widely across the country promoting Hindu-Muslim unity and the nationalist cause, as well as continuing her fight for the rights of women and the depressed classes. In 1919 she returned to London as part of the Home Rule Deputation, becoming involved in the woman suffrage movement while there. During the 1920s she traveled to South Africa and represented Gandhi in the United States.

In 1925 Sarojini Naidu became the first Indian woman to be elected President of the Indian National Congress. She took part in the round table conferences in London in the 1930s and, continuing her active participation in Gandhi’s program of satyagraha, a nonviolent form of protest, was jailed on several occasions by the British. Although she was deeply disappointed by the partition of India upon independence, which ended her hopes for Hindu-Muslim unity, and by the assassination of Gandhi, she nevertheless accepted the Governorship of United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), a post she held until her death in 1949 at Lucknow. Her published poetic works include The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912), The Broken Wing (1917), Selected Poems (1930), The Sceptred Flute (1937, with introduction by Joseph Auslander), and The Feather of the Dawn (1961). Many of her speeches have also been published.