When Sarojini Naidu found the Mahatma amusing

Defiant of social norms, committed to the nationalist cause, the irreverent poet-crusader was a versatile woman with many firsts. February 13 is her birth anniversary

- By Urvashi Butalia*

Edited by: Ashish Mukherjee

Gandhi with Sarojini Naidu starting for an interview with the Viceroy, Delhi, March 15, 1939.

There is an image of Sarojini Naidu that remains permanently etched in my mind. Gandhi is walking on his Salt March, followed by 70-or-so men. He has decided to include only men because the march, he believes, will be too arduous for women to cope with.

Female nationalists, led by Naidu, however, have other ideas. She pushes her way into the procession, as a bemused, but not entirely surprised, Gandhi looks on. After all, why not? They’re the ones who use salt, and who know what it’s about. Why should the march for salt be handed over to men?

Whether myth or reality, this image only reinforces our ideas of what Naidu stood for courage, an indomitable spirit, a commitment to the nationalist movement, political acumen, and her most memorable traits, an irreverence and a sense of humour.

The latter was in evidence the first time she met Gandhi in London in 1914. She walked through the door and saw “a little man with a shaven head seated on the floor eating a messy meal of squashed tomatoes and olive oil” and she burst into laughter “at this amusing and unexpected vision of a famous leader”. At which point, Gandhi looked at her unfazed and said, “Ah, you must be Mrs Naidu. Who else would dare to be so irreverent?”

Born Sarojini Chattopadhyaya in 1879 in Hyderabad, Naidu was a child prodigy. Her father wanted her to be a mathematician, but she discovered a love of poetry something that would later earn her the epithet of Nightingale of India. Once, the story goes, she was working at home on an algebra equation. At some point, she got fed up and decided to take a break by composing a poem.

Her parents encouraged her literary interests her mother, Varada Sundari Devi, was a poet herself and sent Naidu to England to be educated further. It was there that she met the man who was to be her husband, Govind Naidu. In 1898, she returned to India and wed him in Madras at a time when inter-caste marriages rarely took place.

She became an early supporter of women’s rights and of the Independence movement, joining the nationalists in the wake of the partition of Bengal in 1905. Her commitments brought her into contact with several of the new breed of leaders, such as Gopal K. Gokhale, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru.

She spoke on women’s rights, the dignity of labour and workers’ rights. She led the delegation to meet the then secretary of state for India Edwin Montagu in 1917 to demand women’s suffrage. In 1919, she was the first to join Gandhi in his protest against the Rowlatt Act. A few months after this, she became the Home Rule League’s ambassador to England and, in 1925, became the first Indian woman to be elected president of the Indian National Congress.

In 1920, attending a conference in Geneva, Naidu was asked why she became interested in politics. She replied, “I think it is inevitable that one should become interested in politics if one is a true Indian.” In keeping with her secular upbringing, Naidu supported the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, speaking at meetings of the Muslim League and working with riot-torn victims in Bombay. Nor were her activities limited to addressing the concerns of Hindus and Muslims.

She spoke out in opposition to discrimination against blacks in America and on behalf of the Akalis in India. In 1924, she went to South Africa and presided over a session of the East African Congress. And through all of this, she wrote poetry that spoke of love, beauty, and hope. Several of her poems were also put to song. In 1947, this versatile woman became the governor of Uttar Pradesh, notching up another first by becoming India’s first female governor.

But perhaps the story that best describes Naidu is told by Bhabani Bhattacharya, who describes how Naidu, at a conference of the World Alliance of Peace where the flags of 70 countries decorated the banquet room, demanded sharply, “Where is the flag of India?” The intrepid poet died in 1949 while serving as the governor of Uttar Pradesh.

Courtesy: India Today, dated February 12, 2025.