SISTER NIVEDITA IN A TRUER LIGHT ... 1
It is not true to say that Sister Nivedita dedicated her life in India for women's education as is the standard official refrain of the Order to which she belonged. She sure did so but she laboured tirelessly for the national regeneration in every sphere as well including the awakening of the political consciousness of the masses, quickening them through her fiery speeches across the length and breadth of India.
Nivedita's association with the revolutionaries of the day including Aurobindo Ghosh, her being a member of their inner council of five and attending the revolutionary meetings in secret, her scathing criticism of the British government's policies in India in her newspaper articles, her seminal work for scientific development in her adopted motherland through her collaborative labour with Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, her inspirational work for the entire intelligentsia of India in bondage from which cultural figures like Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore and a host of others drew sustenance, all these and much more were the burden of the Sister's attainments and the mission to which she dedicated her life in the land of her dreams. But her greatest mission increasingly turned out to be the quickening of the political consciousness of dependent India groaning under British tyranny. In this she stood rock-solid behind the Bengal revolutionaries led by Aurobindo Ghosh and became the inspirational figure of the freedom movement with all her Irish patriotic fervour and Vivekananda-fire impelling her into action.
Sister Nivedita, thus, to my mind, must truly be remembered not merely as one of the many pioneers of women's education in India but as the one who totally consecrated her life to the emancipation of suppressed India in every sphere, not the least of which was the liberation movement of colonised India. To deliberately downplay her political attainments is to be a falsifier of history which ought not to be indulged in.
Vande Mataram !
Written by Sugata Bose
It is not true to say that Sister Nivedita dedicated her life in India for women's education as is the standard official refrain of the Order to which she belonged. She sure did so but she laboured tirelessly for the national regeneration in every sphere as well including the awakening of the political consciousness of the masses, quickening them through her fiery speeches across the length and breadth of India.
Nivedita's association with the revolutionaries of the day including Aurobindo Ghosh, her being a member of their inner council of five and attending the revolutionary meetings in secret, her scathing criticism of the British government's policies in India in her newspaper articles, her seminal work for scientific development in her adopted motherland through her collaborative labour with Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, her inspirational work for the entire intelligentsia of India in bondage from which cultural figures like Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore and a host of others drew sustenance, all these and much more were the burden of the Sister's attainments and the mission to which she dedicated her life in the land of her dreams. But her greatest mission increasingly turned out to be the quickening of the political consciousness of dependent India groaning under British tyranny. In this she stood rock-solid behind the Bengal revolutionaries led by Aurobindo Ghosh and became the inspirational figure of the freedom movement with all her Irish patriotic fervour and Vivekananda-fire impelling her into action.
Sister Nivedita, thus, to my mind, must truly be remembered not merely as one of the many pioneers of women's education in India but as the one who totally consecrated her life to the emancipation of suppressed India in every sphere, not the least of which was the liberation movement of colonised India. To deliberately downplay her political attainments is to be a falsifier of history which ought not to be indulged in.
Vande Mataram !
Written by Sugata Bose
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