Sarojini was a very forceful erudite woman. She never hesitated to call spade a spade. Her judgements were based on strictly secular ideals.
The poetess never discriminated between Hindus and Muslims or men and women.
In 1916 Muslim League convention was held in Lucknow. Sarojini was invited to speak at the inaugural meeting.
She fearlessly spoke, ‘For one reason I consider it my right to speak at this convention. The reason is that I have been a friend of the Muslim community for decades and I have been fighting for the human rights of the Muslim women. I fought with men folk for the rights that Islam had granted to women long way back but you (men) have been denying them.’
She stood for love, understanding and cooperation between all sects and communities. But Hindu-Muslim unity was her passion. She spoke on numerous occasions stressing the need for the strengthening of Hindu-Muslim unity.
On 13 October, 1917 she said while speaking to students at Patna—‘Mister Chairman and Hindu-Muslim brethren! Today I feel charged with a special feeling of responsibility like I never felt before. The reason is that I am going to speak to you on a subject that so dear to the thread of my life that I fail to find appropriate words for this occasion…’
She declared that the Muslims too were sons of India—‘Centuries ago when Muslim army came to India it camped on the holy banks of Ganga and dipped their swords in its sacred waters. The river water anointed those first Muslim invaders who over a period of time became the natural born sons of India.’
She referred to the humanitarian thinking of the Mogul Emperor Akbar, ‘Akbar worked successfully for the amity between various caste, creeds and the sects of this land.’
This deep insight and educated thinking evolved into a revolutionary ideology gradually.
Sarojini spoke about self-rule—‘The call for self-rule was first voiced in this very city of Dadabhai Naoroji. I think there could not be a single one amongst you who was not moved by that all for the birth right which has been denied to you for so long.
Today we gather here to revive that call and reaffirm our faith in the truth contained therein. We demand the fulfillment of that dream worked out for us on that sacred occasion. I stand before you as a chosen representative of the United Province because woman power stands by your side…
What are we demanding? Nothing new or surprising. We are only asking for which is eternally fundamental for human life and conscience.’
Sarojini Naidu always strived for the upliftment of the women and their awareness. In 1917 she went to meet Montague and the Viceroy with a women’s delegation to demand self-rule and equal voting rights for the women.
Montague noted in his diary—‘A very interesting women’s delegation came to meet us to demand a medical college and educational facilities for the women. It was led by Mrs. Sarojini Naidu. She was a poet, a charmer and a clever woman. But I think deep down in her heart she is revolutionary.’
Sarojini saw the progress of the nation in the upliftment of the women. In all her speeches she made it a point to raise the issues of the awareness of the women and their welfare.
In March, 1918 she addressed the students of women’s school at Jallunder—‘Our guru Gandhiji has ordered us to speak in Hindustani language in the public. I request you to forgive my imperfect Urdu.
……The narrow minds think that the education makes women impudent. It is condemnable. Have our brethren forgotten our scriptures and the sagas of our motherland?
India is proud that its daughters are more courageous and brave than the sons. For any country its progress demands cooperation and the equity between men and women…Don’t forget that a lame person can limp slowly only, a blind can see only one side and an one wheeled vehicle can’t run properly’.
She hit hard on the tradition of veil saying—‘Veil does not mean that one should veil mind and soul as well…Smash the cage of orthodoxy…India can gain freedom only when the women are liberated.’
In 1942 the Chancellor of the Bombay University remarked—‘In our view, no other person comes who is as talented poet, as famous admirer of our ancient culture, as fierce patriot, as dedicated reformer and as erudite leader as Sarojini Naidu who has given so much glory to India…’
Sarojini Naidu was deep friends with poet Ravindra Nath Tagore.
Whenever she went to Bengal she was sure to meet Tagore.
On 20 August, 1917 Sarojini sent her ‘Broken Wing’ poem collection to Tagore for his comments with a note.
Tagore wrote to her paying tributes to her poems in glowing words. He indeed sounded very elated and excited by her poems.
Many years later, Sarojini was appointed as a professor in Tagore’s university ‘Shantiniketan’.
Sarojini Naidu had great respect for Mohammad Ali Jinnah as an emerging leader. He was at that time a nationalist leader and a member of the Congress.
Later, he joined Muslim League to lead it.
On the occasion Sarojini said in his support—‘In the form of respectable Jinnah you have got a president who stands as a link between Hindus and Muslims as a focal point. The reason is that Mohammad Ali has chosen him to be a member of the Muslim League.’
The close relationship between Sarojini and Jinnah had developed in London when she had supported Jinnah in his activities. Later, both had addressed meetings jointly several times. Then, a stage came when the two went separate ways compelled by the politics of the Muslim League and Jinnah.
But they continued to have a soft corner for each in their hearts. Sarojini’s respect for Jinnah never ended or lessened.
Sarojini’s biography writer Padmini Sengupta reveals—‘Once I went to Mrs. Naidu and told her that I had written books on some great leaders. She asked me if I had included Mohammad Ali Jinnah. I shook my head in negation. She got upset and told me that Jinnah was a great leader who I could not afford to exclude.’
Sarojini had a rich Bombay businessman friend named Omar Sobhani who as the name suggests was a Muslim. He had turned over all his wealth to Gandhiji to be spent in the national cause. Soon after doing this great deed he had died suddenly.
It saddened everyone.
But it was a great shock to Sarojini Naidu. Her poet heart poured out an ode to the patriotic departed soul.
Thus, she reached several milestones in her endeavour to forge unity and amity between Hindus and Muslims. And it gave her great pleasure and a sense of achievement of a very noble kind.
