Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu (born 1879) was an English-language poet of Hyderabad, daughter of Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya, a teacher and Swadeshi leader in Hyderabad. Her first book of poems, The Golden Threshold, appeared in 1905. Kandukuri Veeresalingam performed her marriage to Major Govindarajulu Naidu at Madras, and she later turned from poetry to national politics.

Sarojini Naidu was a poet in English who grew up in Hyderabad.¹² Her father taught in Hyderabad and took part in its public life.³⁴ She became famous as a poet before she turned to national politics.⁵

A Hyderabad family

The New Deccan Readers, a school reader prepared for Osmania University in 1938, says she was born there in 1879.¹ Her father was Dr. Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya.⁶ P. Raghunadha Rao writes that the reformer Raghupati Venkataratnam Naidu studied under him at Hyderabad before passing his matriculation.⁴

Her father also took part in public life. The official history of the freedom struggle in Hyderabad (1957) says that in 1905 he and his friend Mulla Abdul Qayyum started the Swadeshi agitation in Hyderabad.³ Many years later, in 1941, Sarojini Naidu wrote a tribute to Abdul Qayyum. She remembered him as her father’s beloved friend, part of her earliest memories of childhood.³ A man who met her father in 1908 called him “an extreme radical”.⁶

The poet

The 1938 reader gives the outline of her life as a poet. She visited England in 1895 and made many friends there.⁵ Her first volume of poems, The Golden Threshold, appeared in 1905.⁵ It was followed by The Bird of Time and The Broken Wing.⁵ The critic Gosse, quoted there, praised her as the most brilliant and original of the Indians who wrote verse in English.⁵

Her fame was tied to her city. In 1914 the author of Modern Hyderabad called her “the well-known Hindu poetess of Hyderabad”.² The reader of 1938 says simply: “Hyderabad takes a pride in the achievements of Sarojini Naidu.”⁵

Veeresalingam and the Naidus

Her marriage linked her with the Telugu reform movement. D. Anjaneyulu, the biographer of Kandukuri Veeresalingam, writes that Veeresalingam performed her marriage to Major Govindarajulu Naidu at Madras.⁷ On a later journey Veeresalingam called at the Naidus’ home at Secunderabad.⁷ There, Anjaneyulu says, the ailing poet introduced her children to their “grandfather”.⁷

From poetry to politics

By 1938 she had stopped writing poems. The Hyderabad reader says that for many years she had not composed any, having turned her attention from poetry to politics.⁵ By 1957 the Hyderabad freedom-struggle history speaks of “the late Srimati Sarojini Naidu”.³

F. J. A. Harding and M. S. Doraiswami, New Deccan Readers, Book Three (Osmania University; Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 169, notes to a poem by Sarojini Naidu (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Modern Hyderabad (Deccan) (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, 1914), p. 149 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. III (1885–1920) (1957), p. 72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
P. Raghunadha Rao, Adhunika Andhrapradesh Charitra (rev. ed. 1997), p. 348 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Harding and Doraiswami, New Deccan Readers, Book Three (1938), p. 170 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
The Freedom Struggle in Hyderabad, Vol. III (1957), p. 158 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
D. Anjaneyulu, Kandukuri Veeresalingam (1976), p. 65 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³

A Hyderabad family

The poet

Veeresalingam and the Naidus

From poetry to politics

Footnotes

References