Women’s Freedom League (WFL) in the UK and in many European countries on the Feminist Movement generally and on votes for Indian women. In an article captioned: “Poetess as a Prophet” the ‘The Daily News’ of 22 May, 1920 expanded on how she and some other women had addressed the International Women’s Suffrage Movement at London’s Kingsway Hall.
In 1920, for the first Sarojini shot into prominence for her strong disapproval of the way the British administration in India had reacted and had handled the Punjab during and after the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy of 13th April.1919. Besides surrendering the Kaiser i Hind Medal awarded to her by the British in the mid-1920, she gave a powerful speech in a mass meeting held in London. A report on the meeting ran as follows: “Expectation was on every face as Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, poet and politician, rose to speak. It would be presumptuous, perhaps, to remark that Mrs. Naidu is a personality, yet such she obviously was—and striking, in her black, silver-embroidered sari. In a voice vibrating with emotion … she proposed the recall of the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, and the impeachment of the ex-Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Michael O’Dwyer. “It was with the deepest regret she said that she did this because of the personal associations she had had with the people against whom she was going to speak. Both were friends of hers from whom at various times she had received personal kindnesses. But when grave matters of life and death and fundamental principles were at stake she could not afford to mix up and confuse personal with world-wide issues. “As the only Indian speaker that night she had to speak in the name of her martyred India. It was possible for her that day to sing a Hymn of Hate, it was possible for her to speak of revenge and retribution, but she would only speak of reparation and regeneration—‘reparation for us,’ she added, ‘regeneration for you.’ ‘My outstanding impression in the debate in the House of Commons on Thursday,’ she continued, ‘was an impression of the tragic irony of a legislature based on an unequal mixture of ignorance and insolence in regard to Indian affairs. From the Ministers of the Crown downwards, to those who set up a claim to be friends of India, not one single Member of Parliament had taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the findings of the National
Congress Committee, in which are detailed page after page the agony and shame to which my brothers of the Punjab, my sisters and their children, were subjected.’ “Mrs. Naidu was proceeding to describe how her sisters of the Punjab had been stripped naked, flogged and outraged, when she was interrupted by a man in the audience. ‘Your psychology may differ,’ she replied, ‘your standards of insult may differ, your standards of modesty may differ. I do not know, being only an Indian, what the standard and the psychology of morality and modesty is in Europe; but in India, forcibly to remove the veil from the face of an Indian woman is equal to desecrating the veil of a consecrated nun. Can anyone deny that this outrage at least was committed, if no others? But some of these outrages are too terrible for me to speak aloud to you. At least still retain enough of the modesty and reticence which are the valuable gifts of the women of my race as to be unable to unfold their shame before you.’ ‘To-day,’ she proceeded, ‘we stand at the parting of the ways. It is for you to choose whether our ways shall lie together in the future or whether we shall say, in bitterness, farewell. ‘I speak in the name of my Nation. Choose well, and, like comrades, hand-in-hand let us make that pilgrimage to the common goal of Self-realisation. ‘I appeal to you to make this choice to-day, whether men like the Viceroy by his weakness, Sir Michael O’Dwyer by his merciless strength, and General Dyer by his panic-stricken brutality shall be your ambassadors and symbols in my country, or whether you will say halt to injustice, halt to tyranny and demand that freedom for India for which you fought, for which you gave your sons, for which to-day in your darkened homes the widows sit mourning the gift of their beloved at the altars of English liberty. ‘In making your choice whether India is to be lost to England for ever or won to her for all time in equal friendship and not in dependence, remember the little pair of blood-stained shoes which were picked up from the hand of a soldier in the field of Jallianwallah, which stands in India to-day as sacred a relic of martyrdom as any piece of wood unnailed from the cross of your crucified Christ. Choose to-day and give me the message to carry back to the women of my nation.’ (Prolonged applause.)” The question that arises now is: How could a woman of Indian origin receive so much importance and attention from members of
the ruling class notorious for their generally dismissive and negative attitude towards India and everything Indian? The answers lie in a number of factors and forces. First of all, despite the infamous air of superiority of members of the British ruling class during the British Raj, the British people never constituted a group united by their general condemnation and negative perceptions about India and its people. Consequently, there always were some individuals and groups within British society, who had a humane and open attitude and it was fortunate that Sarojini happened to meet two such open-minded British literary figures –Gosse and Symons. Secondly, a study of the changing British attitude towards other cultures and people shows that Sarojini Naidu’s second visit ti the UK in the first decade of the 20th century, coincided with a period when British artists, writers and literary figures had begun to exhibit a conspicuous tendency to be receptive of other cultures and people. Focusing on this trend, saying that it began in 1910 and linking it with Postimpressionism in the arts, Mary M. Lago in her selection of letters exchanged between eminent British artist, William Rothenstein, and Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Imperfect Encounters’ writes: “Rothenstein was not the only English artist who felt restless in those years. Virginia Woolf observed later that “in or about December 1910 human character changed.” A conspicuous long-term positive result of this novel trend in Britain was the coming together of a group of prominent British artists and literary figures. After deciding to stand up for the defence of Indian culture and art, they wrote and signed a strong letter of protest to the Editor of ‘The London Times’ on 28 February 1910. In this historic Letter to the Editor, they highlighted a trend noticeable among some important British officials in the field of art to openly denigrate Indian art and literature and their refusal to see any artistic merit in Indian works of art and literature. They also declared that India had a long and glorious tradition of fine art. The signatories reads like a list of celebrities from the world of art and culture in Britain. Among their leaders was a group of professors and accomplished artists, writers led by William Rothenstein, writer scientist, art critic and philosopher. Another solid outcome of this positive trend was that signatories of the letter to ‘The London Times decided to establish a
