Sarojini Naidu
(born February 13, 1879,
Hyderabad
, India?died March 2, 1949, Lucknow) was a political activist, feminist, poet, and the first Indian woman to be president of the
Indian National Congress
and to be appointed an Indian state governor. She was sometimes called “the Nightingale of India.”
Sarojini was the eldest daughter of Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, a
Bengali
Brahman who was principal of the Nizam’s College, Hyderabad. She entered the
University of Madras
at the age of 12 and studied (1895?98) at
King’s College
, London, and later at Girton College, Cambridge.
Britannica Quiz
A Study of Poetry
After some experience in the suffragist campaign in England, she was drawn to
India’s
Congress
movement and to
Mahatma Gandhi
’s
Noncooperation Movement
. In 1924 she traveled in
eastern Africa
and
South Africa
in the interest of Indians there and the following year became the first Indian woman president of the National Congress?having been preceded eight years earlier by the English feminist
Annie Besant
. She toured
North America
, lecturing on the Congress movement, in 1928?29. Back in India her anti-British activity brought her a number of prison sentences (1930, 1932, and 1942?43). She accompanied Gandhi to London for the inconclusive second session of the
Round Table Conference
for Indian?British cooperation (1931). Upon the outbreak of
World War II
she supported the Congress Party’s policies, first of aloofness, then of avowed hindrance to the Allied cause. In 1947 she became governor of the
United Provinces
(now
Uttar Pradesh
), a post she retained until her death.
Sarojini Naidu also led an active literary life and attracted notable Indian
intellectuals
to her famous salon in Bombay (now
Mumbai
). Her first volume of
poetry
,
The Golden Threshold
(1905), was followed by
The Bird of Time
(1912), and in 1914 she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her collected poems, all of which she wrote in English, have been published under the titles
The Sceptred Flute
(1928) and
The Feather of the Dawn
(1961).