2016-03-02 Wed

The first Indian woman to become the President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman to become the governor of a state in India, Sarojini Naidu will always be remembered as “The Nightingale of India. A wonderful poet, a freedom fighter and one of the great orators of her time, Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879 and today marks her 67th death anniversary.

Sarojini Naidu was a brilliant student and was proficient in Urdu, Telugu, English, Bengali, and Persian. Her father Aghoranath Chattopadhyaya, who was a scientist & philosopher and the founder of the Nizam College, Hyderabad, wanted her to become a mathematician or scientist but Sarojini Naidu was interested in poetry.

Impressed by her English poetry, Nizam of Hyderabad gave her scholarship to study abroad. At the age of 16, she joined the King's College London and later the Girton College, Cambridge. It was writer Gausse who convinced Sarojini to stick to Indian themes to express her poetry. Her collections "The golden threshold (1905)", "The bird of time (1912)", and "The broken wing (1912)" attracted huge Indian and English readership.

At the age of 15, she fell in love with Dr. Govindarajulu Naidu a non-brahmin, and a doctor by profession. At the age of 19, she married him when inter-caste marriages were not allowed. Sarojini Naidu joined the Indian national movement during the partition of Bengal in 1905. She came into contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, C.P.Rama Swami Iyer, Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru.

She travelled from state to state and fought for Women’s rights. In 1925, Sarojini Naidu presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress at Kanpur. Sarojini Naidu led the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed along with Gandhiji and other leaders. In 1942, Sarojini Naidu was arrested during the "Quit India" movement and was jailed for 21 months with Gandhiji.

After Independence, Sarojini Naidu became the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. She was India's first woman governor. Sarojini Naidu died in office on March 2nd,1949.