Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu, born as Sarojini Chattopadhyay (Bengali: ) also known by the

sobriquet as The Nightingale of India, was a child prodigy, Indian independence activist and poet.
Naidu served as the first governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949; the
first woman to become the governor of an Indian state. She was the second woman to become the
president of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and the first Indian woman to do so.
Political career
Sarojini Naidu (extreme right) with Mahatma Gandhi during Salt Satyagraha, 1930
Naidu joined the Indian national movement in the wake of partition of Bengal in 1905. She came into
contact with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, C.
P. Ramaswami Iyer, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
During 19151918, she travelled to different regions in India delivering lectures on social welfare,
women's empowerment and nationalism. She also helped to establish the Women's Indian Association
(WIA) in 1917. She was sent to London along with Annie Besant, President of WIA, to present the
case for the women's vote to the Joint Select Committee.
President of the Congress party
In 1925, Naidu presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress at Cawnpore (now
Kanpur).
In 1929, she presided over East African Indian Congress in South Africa. She was awarded the Kaisari-Hind Medal by the British government for her work during the plague epidemic in India.
In 1931, she participated in the Round table conference with Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malaviya.
She played a leading role during the Civil Disobedience Movement and was jailed along with Gandhi
and other leaders. In 1942, she was arrested during the "Quit India" movement.
Literary career: Naidu began writing at the age of twelve. Her Persian play, Maher Muneer,
impressed the Nawab of Hyderabad.
In 1905, her first collection of poems, named "The Golden Threshold" was published. Her poems were
admired by many prominent Indian politicians like Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
Her collection of poems entitled "The Feather of The Dawn" was edited and published posthumously
in 1961 by her daughter Padamaja.
Death and legacy: Sarojini Naidu died of a heart attack while working in her office in Lucknow on 2
March (Wednesday), 1949.