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Unit 12: Indian Weavers by Sarojini Naidu

were tremendously inspired by her speech” (1987, p.91). Aldous Huxley who met her in the Notes
twenties thought of her as “a woman who combines in the most remarkable way great intellectual
power with charm; sweetness and earnestness with humour” (1987, p.91). Jawaharlal Nehru
considered her as a humanist full of compassion. He called her an interpreter of India, “an
ideal ambassador and the ideal link between the East and West” (1987, p.91).
Delivering the commemorative speech in the Constituent Assembly of India on 3rd March
1949, after the death of Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru said that she was a person of great
brilliance, vital and vivid. She had been a poet, political agitator and administrator. There is
no better way to sum up the deeply human, volatile and nobler aspects of Sarojini Naidu than
what Nehru said in his impassioned speech:

“So we think of her as a brightness, as a certain vitality and vividness, as poetry infused into
life and activity, as something tremendously important and rich and yet something which in
terms of the material world is rather insubstantial, difficult to grasp and difficult to describe,
as something which you can only feel, as you can feel beauty as you can feel the other higher
things in life” (1987, p.92).
In 1935, Sri Aurobindo observed that Sarojini’s poetry was among the lasting things in English
Literature and that she would take her place among the immortals. The prophecy has come
true.
Today Sarojini is among the immortals not only because of her great services to the country
as a soldier of freedom and a builder of modern India but also because of her enchanting
poetry that has thrilled several generations.

Several admirers of her work were encouraging her in all her walks of life. One day she met
Gopal Krishna Gokhale. He asked her to use her poetry and her beautiful words to rejuvenate
the spirit of Independence in the hearts of villagers. He asked her to use her talent to free
Mother India. Then, she totally directed her energy to the fight for freedom. She was roaming
around the country like a general of army along with Mahatma Gandhi pouring enthusiasm
among the hearts of the Indians. The independence of India became the heart and soul of her
work.
Sarojini was responsible for awakening the women of India. She brought them out of the
kitchen. She travelled from state to state, city to city and asked for the rights of the women.
She re-established self-esteem within the whole of India. In 1925, she chaired the summit of
Congress in Kanpur. In 1928, she came to USA with the message of the non-violence movement
from Gandhi. When in 1930, Gandhi was arrested for a protest, she took the helms of his
movement. In 1931, she participated in the Round Table Summit, along with Gandhi and
Pundit Malaviya. In 1942, she was arrested during the “Quit India” protest and stayed in jail
for 21 months with Gandhi. After the independence she became the Governor of Utter Pradesh.
She was the first woman Governor.
She lives ever enshrined in the Oxford Book of Mystic Verse. Most of her volumes are sprinkled
frequently with a deep philosophy of life and other worldly vision that carry her into the very
heart of the great English mystic poets. Sarojini’s language is crystal clear because she never
strove to be obscure like the Georgian School of Poets. Her lyrics are sombre yet sonorous. As
a young woman, Sarojini Naidu defied the bonds of caste by her marriage. Small and vivid
with luminous eyes of liquid brown, she was a feminist, lyric poet, singer of songs and above
all, a mother (of four). She was also a scholar, mystic and philosopher, whose “turbulence of
heart and turmoil of the senses were translated into music”. In this respect she resembled the
two most bellowed of the English poets, Shelley and Keats. Like Keats, she suffered poor
health. Unlike her fellow poet Rabindranath Tagore, she sang directly in English. The English
language, she said, was more naturally her mothertongue than Hindustani.

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