One of the most important figures in India’s struggle for Independence, Sarojini Naidu was a political activist and poet, whose works earned her the name ‘Nightingale of India’.
Born to a Bengali family of scholars and poets in Hyderabad on February 13, 1879, she was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and his idea of Swaraj or self-governance. Naidu was the eldest of eight siblings. Her mother Barada Sundari Devi Chattopadhyay was a poet who composed verse in Bengali, while one of her brothers Harindranath was a poet, a dramatist, and an actor.
Sarojini Naidu died due to a cardiac arrest on March 2, 1949 in Lucknow.
Here are a few interesting facts about the ‘Nightingale of India’:
Naidu joined the Indian Independence movement in the wake of the partition of Bengal in 1905 where she met other leaders such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
She began writing at the age of 12 and her play Maher Muneer, written in Persian, impressed the then Nawab of Hyderabad.
Her first collection of poems, named The Golden Threshold, was published in 1905 and bore an introduction by Arthur Symons.
She fell in love at the age of 19 to Paidipati Govindarajulu Naidu and after finishing her studies, married him.
She became the president of Indian National Congress in 1925 and participated in Salt Satyagraha in 1930. She also presided the East African Indian Congress in South Africa.
Inspiring quotes
To quench my longing I bent me low/ By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow/ In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.
A country’s greatness lies in its undying ideals of love and sacrifice that inspire the mothers of the race.
In consecrated calm, forgotten yet. Of the keen heart that hastens to forget old longings in fulfilling new desires.
Hark to a voice that is calling, to my heart in the voice of the mind.
