Sawnet - Bookshelf - Sarojini Naidu
Sarojini Naidu was born Feb 13, 1879 in Hyderabad, the eldest
daughter of Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, a Bengali Brahman who was
principal of the Nizam's College, Hyderabad. She entered Madras
University at the age of 12 and
studied (1895-98) at King's College, London, and later at Girton
College, Cambridge. After some experience in the suffragist campaign
in England, she was drawn to India's Congress
movement and to Mahatma Gandhi's Non-cooperation 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 on March 2, 1949. She
was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National
Congress and to be appointed a state governor. She published several
books of poetry, all in English, and was elected to the Royal Society
of Literature.
A biography
from the Write Page.
Naidu and Jinnah.
Letter to Gokhale
Letter to Gandhi
Bibliography
- The Golden Threshold
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- The Bird of Time
1912
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- The Sceptred Flute
1928
-
South Asian Women authors
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