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Sarojini Naidu
1st Governor of United Provinces
In office 15 August 1948 – 2 March 1949
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Hormasji Peroshaw Mody
President of the Indian National Congress
Preceded by	Mahatma Gandhi
Succeeded by	S. Srinivasa Iyengar
Personal details
Born	Sarojini Chattopadhyay (1879-02-13)13 February 1879 Hyderabad, Hyderabad State, British India (now in Telangana, India)
Died	2 March 1949(1949-03-02) (aged 70) Lucknow, United Provinces, India
Nationality	Indian
Political party	Indian National Congress
Spouse(s)	Govindarajulu Naidu (1898–1949)
Children	5; including Padmaja
Relatives	Harindranath Chattopadhyay, Virendranath Chattopadhyay, Suhasini Chattopadhyay, Leela Naidu
Alma mater	University of Madras King's College London Girton College, Cambridge
Occupation	Political activist, poet-writer
Writing career
Language	English
Notable works	In the Bazaars of Hyderabad

Sarojini Naidu (née Chattopadhyay; 13 February 1879 – 2 March 1949) was an Indian independence activist and poet. She was born in a Bengali Hindu family at Hyderabad and was educated in Chennai, London and Cambridge. She married Dr. Govindarajulu Naidu and settled down in Hyderabad. She took part in the Indian Nationalist Movement, became a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and fought for the attainment of Swaraj or independence. She became the President of Indian National Congress and later she was appointed to be the Governor of the United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. Known as the 'Nightingale of India',^[1] she was also a noted poet. Her poetry includes children's poems, nature poems, patriotic poems and poems of love and death. She also wrote poetry in praise of Muslim figures like Imam Hussain.^[2]

Early life and family

Sarojini was born in a Bengali Hindu family in Hyderabad. Her parental home was at Brahmangaon in Bikrampur (in present-day Bangladesh).^[3] Her father, Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, with a doctorate of Science from Edinburgh University, settled in Hyderabad, where he administered Hyderabad college, which later became Nizam College in Hyderabad. Her mother, Barada Sundari Devi Chattopadhyay, was a poet and used to write poetry in Bengali.

She was the eldest of the eight siblings. Her brother Virendranath Chattopadhyaya was a revolutionary, and another brother Harindranath was a poet, a dramatist, and an actor.^[4]

Sarojini Naidu in 1912

Sarojini Naidu, having passed her matriculation examination from the University of Madras, took a four-year break from her studies. In 1895, H.E.H. the Nizam's Charitable Trust founded by the 6th Nizam, Mir Mahbub Ali Khan who gave her the chance to study in England, first at King's College London and later at Girton College, Cambridge.

Sarojini met Paidipati Govindarajulu Naidu, a physician, and at the age of 19, after finishing her studies, she married him. At that time, Inter-caste marriages were not as common as they are today, but both their families approved their marriage.^[4] The couple had five children. Their daughter Paidipati Padmaja also joined the independence movement and was part of the Quit India Movement. She was appointed the Governor of the State of Uttar Pradesh soon after Indian independence.^[5]

Political career

Sarojini Naidu (extreme right) with Mahatma Gandhi during Salt Satyagraha, 1930

Naidu joined the Indian national movements in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. She came in contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.^{[citation needed]}
Sarojini Naidu began writing at the age of twelve. Her Persian play, Maher Muneer, impressed the Nawab of Hyderabad.

In 1905, her first collection of poems, named The Golden Threshold was published.^[6] The volume bore an introduction by Arthur Symons. Her poems were admired by prominent Indian politicians like Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

The Feather of The Dawn which contained poems written in 1927 by Naidu was edited and published posthumously in 1961 by her daughter Padmaja Naidu.^[7]
In 1915–18, she travelled to different regions in India delivering lectures on social welfare, women's empowerment and nationalism. She also helped to establish the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in 1917.^[8] She was sent to London along with Annie Besant, President of home rule league and Women's Indian Association, to present the case for the women's vote to the Joint Select Committee.

In April 1947 she was present at the Asian Relations Conference in Delhi where the Tibetan Government Representative, Sampho Theiji, said, "In a similar way we are very glad to meet representatives from all the Asian countries in this Conference and we wish to express our sincere gratitude to the great Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, and to all the distinguished representatives who have gathered in this Conference."^[9]
Naidu entitled Muhammad Ali Jinnah "the Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity" after the Lucknow Pact(1916).

Congress Party president

In 1925, Naidu presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress at Cawnpore (now Kanpur).^{[citation needed][10]}

In 1929, she presided over East African Indian Congress in South Africa. She was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal by the British government for her work during the plague epidemic in India.^[11]

Sarojini Naidu plants a tree in Mehrauli, Delhi.

In 1931, she participated in the second round-table conference with Gandhiji and Madan Mohan Malaviya.^[4] She was jailed, along with Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malaviya, and others for participating in the Salt March, when 1st Round Table Conference took place in London.

She played a leading role in the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed along with Gandhi and other leaders. In 1942, she was arrested during period of the "Quit India Movement"

Death and legacy

The ashes of Sarojini Naidu kept at Golden Threshold, Hyderabad before immersion

Naidu died of cardiac arrest at 3:30 p.m. (IST) on 2 March 1949 at the Government House in Lucknow. Upon her return from New Delhi on 15 February, she was advised rest by her doctors, and all official engagements were cancelled. Her health deteriorated substantially and bloodletting was performed on the night of 1 March after she complained of severe headache. She died after collapsing following a fit of cough. Naidu was said to have asked the nurse attending to her to sing to her at about 10:40 p.m. (IST) which put her to sleep.^[12] The last rites were performed at the Gomati River.^[13]

Naidu is commemorated in the names of several institutions, including the Sarojini Naidu College for Women, Sarojini Naidu Medical College, Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital and Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad.

Aldous Huxley wrote "It has been our good fortune, while in Bombay, to meet Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the newly elected President of the All-India Congress and a woman who combines in the most remarkable way great intellectual power with charm, sweetness with courageous energy, a wide culture with originality, and earnestness with humour. If all Indian politicians are like Mrs. Naidu, then the country is fortunate indeed."^[14]

Her 135th birth anniversary (2014) was marked by a Google Doodle on Google India's homepage.^[15]

In 2018, she was among 150 "Leading Women" featured by the University of London to mark the 150 years since women gained access to higher education in the UK in 1868.^[16]

Golden Threshold

Golden Threshold in 2015

The Golden Threshold is an off-campus annexe of University of Hyderabad. The building was the residence of Naidu's father Aghornath Chattopadhyay, the first Principal of Hyderabad College. It was named after Naidu's very first collection of poetry. Golden Threshold now houses Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication of University of Hyderabad.^[17]

During the Chattopadhyay family's residence, it was the centre of many reformist ideas in Hyderabad, in areas ranging from marriage, education, women's. empowerment, literature and nationalism.^[18]

Works

• 1905: The Golden Threshold, published in the United Kingdom^[19] (text available online)


• 1912: The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring, published in London^[20]
  


• 1917: The Broken Wing: Songs of Love, Death and the Spring, including "The Gift of India" (first read in public in 1915)^[20][21]
  


• 1919: Muhammad Jinnah: An Ambassador of Unity^[22]
  


• 1943: The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India, Allahabad: Kitabistan, posthumously published^[20]
  


• 1961: The Feather of the Dawn, posthumously published, edited by her daughter, Padmaja Naidu^[23]
  


• 1971:The Indian Weavers^[24]
  

See also

• Indian poetry in English


• Indian English literature


• Indian literature


• List of Indian poets


• List of Indian writers


• Indian poetry

References

Further reading

• 
  Gupta, Indra (2004). India's 50 most illustrious women (2nd ed.). New Delhi : Icon Publications.
  


• 
  Baig, Tara Ali (1985). Sarojini Naidu : portrait of a patriot. New Delhi: Congress Centenary (1985) Celebrations Committee, AICC (I).
  


• 
  Ramachandran Nair, K. R. (1987). Three Indo-Anglian poets : Henry Derozio, Toru Dutt, and Sarojini Naidu. New Delhi : Sterling Publishers.
  

• 
  Padmini Sengupta (1997). Sarojini nido.
  

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Sarojini Naidu

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Sarojini Naidu

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sarojini Naidu.

• The poetry of Sarojini Naidu: A fusion of English language and Indian culture


• 
  Works by Sarojini Naidu at Project Gutenberg
  


• 
  Works by or about Sarojini Naidu at Internet Archive
  


• 
  Works by Sarojini Naidu at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
  


• Biography and Poems of Sarojini Naidu


• Letter written by Sarojini Naidu


• Sarojini Naidu: An introduction to her life, work, and poetry By Vishwanath S. Naravane


• Sarojini Naidu materials at the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA)


• 
  Newspaper clippings about Sarojini Naidu in the 20th Century Press Archives of the German National Library of Economics (ZBW)