Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was known as “The Nightingale of India,” she was the first Indian woman to serve as both president of the Indian National Congress, and as an Indian state governor.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s politician was a feminist, poet, and anti-imperialist activist who fought for women’s suffrage. Known as “The Nightingale of India,” she was the first Indian woman to serve as both president of the Indian National Congress, and as an Indian state governor.
Let’s talk about Sarojini Naidu.
Sarojini was born in 1879 in Hyderabad, a capital city in Southern India. Her father, a Bengali Brahmin, was the principal of Nizam College. Her mother was a poet.
The family was well-known in the area, respected as artists and academics. Sarojini was the oldest of eight children, several of whom went on to become prominent figures in their own rights. One brother was a revolutionary. Another was a poet, actor and dramatist.
As a child, Sarojini began writing plays and poems, first in Persian, and later in English. At 12, she entered the University of Madras, a public university in Chennai.
In 1895, Sarojini enrolled in King’s College, in London. She later attended Girton College, in Cambridge, as well. While a student in England, Sarojini was drawn to the growing women’s suffrage movement. She learned many of her early activism tactics from the suffragists: How to campaign, how to organize, how to orate, and how to resist.
After finishing her studies at the age of 19, Sarojini married Paidipati Naidu, a physician. They would ultimately have five children.
1905 was a big year for Sarojini. She published her first collection of poetry, The Golden Threshold. She also got her start in politics.
That year, in 1905, British authorities re-organized the Bengal territory. The partition separated the largely Muslim Eastern areas from the largely Hindu Western areas. Hindus in West Bengal were worried they would become minorities, cut off from other Hindu communities. They saw it as yet another example of Great Britain’s violent “divide and rule” policy: stoke conflict between Muslims and Hindus, and insure that Indian nationalism would never thrive.
Inspired by the struggles of West Bengal, Sarojini joined the Indian Independence movement. There, she began making connections with many of the country’s most prominent political leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi.
For several years, beginning in 1915, Sarojini traveled across India speaking on the intersection of Indian independence and women’s rights. In 1917, she helped establish the Women’s Indian Association, which advocated for women’s suffrage. That same year, Sarojini traveled to London to speak on universal suffrage in front of the Joint Select Committee.
Two years later, Sarojini spoke in London again -- this time on behalf of the Indian Home Rule Movement. When she returned to India in 1920, she joined Gandhi’s Satyagraha Movement.
The first part of that word means “truth.” And the second means “insistence.” Together, satyagraha means “holding onto the truth,” or “holding onto the love.” Popularized by Gandhi, the movement became a critical part of Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance. It required followers to suffer the anger of opponents, but never retaliate. To never follow an order given in anger, despite threats of violence.
If elements of the movement sound familiar, that may be because Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was inspired by its teachings.
In 1925, Sarojini presided over the annual session of the Indian National Congress. The INC was leading India’s independence movement. And Sarojini was the first Indian woman to lead the party.
In her address, Sarojini said, “In the battle for liberty, fear is one unforgivable treachery and despair, the one unforgivable sin.”
Sarojini carried that fearlessness through the rest of her life. As a leader in the independence movement she was often arrested -- sometimes alongside her daughter -- for leading the Quit India Movement and the Salt March. At one point, she spent 21 months in jail.
After India won independence in 1947, Sarojini was appointed Governor of Uttar Pradesh -- the first woman governor in the country. She remained in office through the end of her life.
On March 2nd, 1949, Sarojini Naidu died from cardiac arrest in Lucknow.
She dedicated her life to fighting intersectional battles, finding strength in their similarities. And with every new role, she broke gender and racial barriers. In drawing connections between struggles, Sarojini created a sort of poetic activism. Uplift one, and you uplift all.
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