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


The Bird of Time
1912

The Sceptred Flute
1928

South Asian Women authors
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