Sarojini Naidu
Activist, Leader, Poet, & Caregiver During the Plague
Sarojini Naidu was born in 1879 in India during British colonial rule. She was regarded as a child prodigy for her fluency in five languages and creative writings at an early age. As a teenager she was afforded an education in Cambridge and London before returning to India in 1898. Despite being from different castes, she married an Indian physician she met in England at age 19 with permission from their families. From about 1896 through 1904, millions of Indians lost their lives during the plague. For her vehement work during the plague, Naidu received the Kaiser-i-Hind (“emperor of India”) by the British Monarch in 1908. The measures taken to combat the plague would ultimately become the foundation of India’s public health system.
The turn of the century was also a time of growth for the Indian independence movement from British rule as India’s public health policy during this period was primarily concerned with protecting the British officials against diseases that they might contract during their stay in India, instead of protecting Indians from the plague. Naidu became an activist for India’s independence and traveled extensively offering her support to help the needy and oppressed, and delivering lectures on social welfare, women’s empowerment, and nationalism. She met Mahatma Gandhi in 1914, which began a 30-year friendship, and they were at times jailed together for their civil disobedient acts of protests. In 1917 Naidu helped establish the Women’s Indian Association to gain suffrage. Following the 1919 British Indian Army massacre that left 379 unarmed Indians dead and over 1200 wounded, she and Gandhi both returned their Kaiser-i-Hind medals in protest.
When there is oppression, the only self-respecting thing is to rise and say this shall cease today, because my right is justice — Sarojini Naidu (Makers India)
Naidu became the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress party in 1925, but it would take until 1947 for women to obtain the right to vote. It was this party that would be responsible for the country’s first female prime minister. Naidu also became the first female governor of India, in the provinces of Agra and Oudh, from 1947 until her death in 1949. Her poems and prolific writing (including on Hindu-Muslim unity) has given her the name ‘Nightingale of India.’ While mostly in reference to the lyricism and song of her poems, comparisons can also be made to Florence Nightingale, herself a poet and prolific writer, whose enduring iconography and thought leadership at the turn of the century left a seismic impact on future generations of women. Naidu’s legacy lives as part of an international collective of female leaders who lived before the professionalization of nursing, but whether influenced by war, inequity, or disease, chose to dedicate their life’s work to improving health, nationhood, and/or human and gender rights.
Further Reading
View a brief video on Naidu from Makers India series here, her Google Doodle here, or a rare photo essay here.
Learn how the professional role of the nurse and nursing schools were only just beginning to emerge in India during the time of the plague.
Donate to organizations to help India during this wave of Covid-19 here.
Learn about the National Association of Indian Nurses in America here.
Sources
The information above was sourced in the embedded hyperlinks throughout the story.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
Help us paint the internet with nursing’s diverse origin stories. Follow this Medium publication, NursesYouShouldKnow on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or @KnowNurses on Twitter to share and re-post our articles far and wide.
