Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was an
Indian political activist and poet, often referred to as "Bharat
Kokila (The Nightingale of India)." Naidu studied at
the University of Madras, King's College, London, and
Cambridge. While in Britain she became involved in the
women's suffrage movement, and she also advocated throughout
her life for Indian self-government alongside such other
celebrated Indian political leaders as Mohandas Gandhi,
Jawahalarl Nehru, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. She was a
participant in the Constituent Assembly which drafted the
first Constitution of India after independence, and served
as the governor of the province of Uttar Pradesh from 1947
until her death in 1949. In the speeches excerpted below,
she argued for Indian women's emancipation, unity between
Indian Hindus and Muslims, and, in an address to the
Constituent Assembly in 1946, tried to assuage the fears of
minority group leaders such as Jinnah and B. R. Ambedkar by
proclaiming a vision of justice and equality for all
Indians, regardless of race, religion, or caste.
Address on the Emancipation of
Indian Women (1918)
Narrow-minded people say that the education of women
is to be condemned, because it makes them bold! Brothers, have
you forgotten the heroic stories and scriptures of your own
Motherland? It was the privilege of India to possess women who
were bolder and braver than men. Yes, even to-day the need is
that we the women of India should be bold and go to Yama
Savitri-like and beg of him a new life for Mother India. I say,
if you condemn boldness, the lack of dependence, and manliness
in women what do your homages to Chand Bibi and Ahalya Bai
signify? Read Mahabharata and Ramayana, and read of those brave
Indian women who accompanied their husbands in the wars and the
wilderness of the jungles.
You demand political rights, you say, you are fit enough to
manage things for yourself. Pray do not forget that a lame
person can but walk slowly, a one-eyed man sees only one side,
and that a carriage with one wheel cannot move properly. By
force of habit, you have begun to think that women were made to
cook food for the families and that they have no rights.
Remember one thing, that is, education makes a person more
intelligent than she is. An educated woman can look after her
house better than her illiterate sister. In Europe, too, a type
of critics similar to that in India today was once met with who
cried— "Who would look after children? Who would light the
lamps? Will the women be allowed to bring dishonour to us,
menfolk?" Where is that type of critics gone? Hundreds of
thousands of European men go to the battlefield with this
consolation in their hearts that their educated wives will look
after the house in their absence. Could Indians have the same
consolation? Japan founded universities for women, and benefits
from these universities have been reaped by others than the
Japanese also. . . .
People of the Punjab! I humbly beseech you to understand your
rights and along with that your responsibilities also. If you
possess the wealth of knowledge, you have grave obligations
towards womankind. Tell me honestly that you are discharging
them properly. What reply have you got to give to the
questioning humanity, you who possess the treasured heritage of
India's past learning and noble traditions. Oh! you cannot
obtain true liberty, until you are charged with the spirit of
liberty spirit that knows no prejudices, — a spirit that spurns
all false and foolish trammels. Break open the cage of bigotry
and fly out with a sacred fire in your hearts. Yes, that sacred
fire will undo all the fetters that bind you. With that sacred
fire of liberty in your hearts, you will march towards the goal
apace. Woman will be your guardian angel. She will cheer you up
when you are gloomy. She will be your support in desolation. She
will be a light when you are in darkness. The liberty of the
soul will be India's share only when woman is free. The woman,
whom you try to keep in subjugation, will be the cause of your
salvation when they are free.
Address on Hindu-Muslim Unity
(1917)
Centuries ago, when the first Islamic army came to India, they
pitched their caravans on the banks of the sacred Ganges and
tempered and cooled their swords in the sacred waters. It was
the baptism of the Ganges that gave the first welcome to the
Islamic invaders that became the children of India as
generations went by. And today, in speaking of the Hindu-Muslim
Unity, we should bear in mind that historic circumstance, that
historic culture, that historic evolution for which the Gangetic
valley has stood in bringing about the Hindu-Muslim relationship
age after age. . . .
It is only because we are ignorant that we are divided and it is
the sacred mission of enlightenment to bring not the lesson of
quarrel but the lesson of peace [Hear hear]. That is the
problem with which we have to deal to-day. For what is the
Hindu-Muslim Unity! We hear it spoken of vigorously, we hear it
spoken of unceasingly, we hear it spoken of passionately. But we
have defined to ourselves its practical issues? What is the
meaning, what is the significance of the Hindu-Muslim Unity?
There is so much misconception abroad that, if a Muslim shows
sympathy towards a Hindu, he becomes a traitor and that if a
Hindu shows sympathy towards a Mussalman, he becomes an
outcaste. But what is the reason of this mistrust of those who
stand as links between the two races ? Nothing save our
misreading of the entire purpose of national history. The
problem of the Hindu-Muslim Unity stands like this: there are in
India two communities (I will not say two races), two
communities that are separated by what they consider the
difference of creeds. But when you come to analyze this
difference of creed, you begin to find that after all,
fundamentally, the teaching that came in the wake of the Muslim
conquerors was the same as the teaching that arose in the great
hymns in the sacred mountain regions of the Himalayas and on the
sacred Ganges five thousand years ago. It means essentially the
love of truth, the love of, purity, the service of humanity, the
search for wisdom, the great lessons of self-sacrifice, the
worship of the same transcendent Spirit, no matter whether in
one language it was called Allah and in another Parameshwar. [Applause],
After all, what is this antagonism between creed and creed?
Antagonism is merely the asset of the ignorant. They are not the
weapons of the wise [hear hear] who realize that after
all it is only the misunderstanding of the essential truth
wherein lies the difficulty in launching across that golden
bridge of sympathy that brings together the two great
communities whose fundamental teaching is the love of God and
the service of men. And then in this great country the Muslims
came to make their home not to carry spoils and to go back to
their own home but to build permanently here their home and
create a new generation for the enrichment of the Motherland.
How can they live separate from the people of the soil? Does
history say that in the past they have so lived separate? Or
rather it says that once having chosen to take up their abode in
this land, they became the children of the soil, the very flesh
of our flesh and blood of our blood. Gentlemen, history has said
that the foreign emperors sought not to divide and rule, but to
unite the people and so build an imperishable guarantee of their
own power and administration. . . .
India is so complex in the problems of her civilization, in her
races and her creeds that it is impossible, that it is even very
undesirable — nay, psychologically false, — were we to say that
we desire a unity that means the merging of the separate races
to make one kind of common life for the common weal of the
country. What we want is this: that for the evolution of
national life we want the Mussalmans to bring their special
characteristics and so we want the Hindus to contribute theirs
and considering the chivalry of the past allow no minority to
suffer. We are not limiting ourselves to the contributions of
the Hindu-Muslim culture alone, but we want the special
contributions which the Zoroastrians and the Christians and
other races scattered over this land can bring us. Gentlemen, do
not for a moment entertain any idea of exclusion, harbour any
thought of isolation of one group from another, of one sect from
another. But let each bring its own quota of special
contributions as free gifts offered lovingly and generously At
the feet of the great Motherland for the swelling of the
national Commonwealth. . . .
The way is so simple that when it is put to you in terms of
daily life, the glamour, no doubt, becomes less dazzling in your
daily action, when you hear it said in the advertisement of
lectures on the Hindu-Muslim Unity. That is a magnificent phrase
but in daily action, what does it mean? It means the simple fact
that you love your neighbour as yourselves, you realize his
humanity as common with your experiences and aspirations of
life, his failures, his triumph, his hopes and fears, his
culture and ignorance which are the common inheritance between
you and him [Cheers], There is no difference [hear,
hear] because of your common aspirations, your common
destiny of humanity.
It becomes a very simple thing to say that all men are
neighbours of one another, brothers, blood ties, because they
have the same tears and the same laughter. Therefore, perhaps,
they may have the same kind of aspirations; the same quality of
men may have the same kind of aspirations; why make difference
between the tillers of the soil whether he is a Muslim or a
Hindu ? Does he not suffer from drought, from the failure of
harvest, from pestilence from locusts? The schoolmaster, whether
he be a Hindu or a Mussalman, has he not the same responsibility
of creating within his hands (is he not a sharer of a common
responsibility, I ask) a bond between brother and brother
whether he be a Hindu or a Mussalman ? Then, when floods come,
and famines come, and plagues come, do not all of us suffer
equally? Why make difference between men? Are there different
angels of death for the Hindus and Mussalmans to carry them off?
Does not every man feel that he must co-operate with each other,
what matters if he be a Hindu or a Mussalman? . . . .
Once more we turn to the sacred river flowing beneath us; what
has been the symbolism of that river through the centuries? What
has been the symbolism of that river ? What is the symbolism, I
say, that age after age has made it sacred not merely in
Sanskrit but in Persian verses as well, that flows giving gift
to the land, that waters the fields of both the Hindu and
Mussalman alike. It has been the inspiration of the Hindu and
Mussalman geniuses as well. The sacred water of this sacred
river, with the solemn music flowing through city after city has
washed away sins after sins of the Hindu people and has given
cold waters to the thirsting armies of the Mussalmans. And when
the great river arrives where it meets another river, in sacred
Prayag, there is the union with mystic music, soul to soul and
heart to heart, of the two great rivers, the Ganga and the Jumna
— a Sangam of two rivers each without losing its own
characteristics and qualities. And yet it is a perfect union.
And that should be the symbol of the Hindu and Muslim Unity,
each keeping its own culture, its own individual
characteristics, its own purity, its own special colour of its
own waters, the music of its own deed even at that point of
Union.
Address to the Indian Constituent Assembly (1946)
Chairman Rajendra Prasad:
I shall now request bulbul-i-Hind, the Nightingale of
India, to address the House [laughter and cheers] not in
prose but in poetry.
[Mrs. Sarojini Naidu then went up to the rostrum amidst
acclamation.]
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu: Mr. Chairman, the manner of
your calling me is not constitutional. [Laughter].
Chairman Rajendra Prasad: Order,
order. No reflection on the Chair please [continued
laughter].
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu:
It reminds me of some lines of the Kashmiri poet who
said:-
"Bulbul ko gul
mubarak, gul ko chaman mubarak,
Rangeen
tabiaton ko range sukhan mubarak
[Nightingale is happy to be with the flower, the flower is
happy to be in the garden, People with colourful personalities
are happy with poetry.]”
and today we are steeped in the rainbow coloured tints of
speeches in praise of my great leader and comrade Rajendra
Prasad. [Cheers] I do not know how even poetic fancy
can add yet another tint to the rainbow. So I will be modest,
emulating the example of Rajendra Babu himself and confine
myself, as a woman should, to purely domestic issues. [Laughter].
. . .
I see gaps in this House and my heart is sore because of the
absence of those Muslim brothers to whose coming I am looking
forward under the leadership of my old friend Mr. Muhammad Ali
Jinnah. I think if any persuasion were necessary, if any fine
wand of magic were necessary to bring them in, it would be the
essential sweetness, the essential wisdom, the essential
creative faith of Dr. Rajendra Prasad. I am hoping and I believe I am right
in hoping that my friend Dr. [Bhimrao Ramji] Ambedkar who is so bitter today will soon
be one of the most emphatic supporters of this Constituent
Assembly in all its purposes and that through him his adherents
of many millions will realize that their interests are as
safe as the interests of more privileged people.
I hope those that call themselves the original masters of this
land, the tribal people will realize that there is no
distinction of caste, creed, ancient or modern, status in this
Constituent Assembly. I hope the smallest minority in this
country will, whether represented politically, or I do not know
by what other means they may be represented,--I hope they
will realise that they have a jealous, vigilant and
loving guardian of their interests who will not permit the more
privileged to encroach by, a hair's breadth on their birth-right
of equity and equal opportunity in this country. I hope also
that the Princes of India, many of whom I count among my
personal friends, who are so hurried, so anxious, so uncertain
or so afraid today, will realise that the constitution
for India is a constitution for the freedom and emancipation of
every human being in India, whether Prince or peasant. I want
that realisation to be carried home, and in no better
manner, in no more convincing manner can it be carried than
through the guidance and guardianship of Dr. Rajendra Prasad. I have been asked to speak-for how
long? But I believe that I must disprove the age old proverb
that woman has not only the last but the longest word. I have
the last word not because I am a woman but because I am acting
today as the hostess of the Indian National Congress which has
so gladly invited those who are outside its fold to come and
participate with us in framing the constitution, that is to be
the, immortal charter of India's freedom.
Sources:
Speeches and writings of Sarojini Naidu, Madras,
Natesan,1919
(https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044024157315&view=1up&seq=1);
https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/1/1946-12-11