Biography of Sarojini Naidu

 
                                Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879, in a house of intellectuals, poets, philosophers and revolutionaries. She was the eldest daughter of Aghornath Chattopadhyaya and Varasundari. Aghornath was a pioneer in education and established Nizam’s College in Hyderabd in 1878 and Varasundari was a Bengali poetess. Imbibing virtues and cultures from her family, Sarojini was a combination of all – a good poetess, intelligent, philosopher, singer and a true freedom fighter. She was also called bulbul because she possessed a sweet voice. She completed her matriculation in Madras Presidency and received scholarship to study abroad. At the age of 16, she went to England for further studies and at the age of 21 she got married to Dr. Govindarajulu Naidu. Sarojini joined the Indian independence movement in 1905 and came in contact with various other freedom fighters. In 1916, she met Mahatma Gandhi and was motivated to start her career as a freedom fighter. She woke up women of India from sleep and re-established self esteem within them. To do so, she traveled from state to state and city to city, asking for women’s rights. In 1925, she presided over the annual session of Indian National Congress and later participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement. She was arrested in 1942 during the Quit India Movement and was imprisoned for several months. She was the first Indian woman to become the Governor of the largest state of the union, Uttar Pradesh. Naidu vibrantly fought for the freedom of the country but she could not enjoy the freedom for long. She died in her office on March 2, 1949.

Biography of Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was born on November 19, 1917 in Allahabad and was the loving grand-daughter of Motilal Nehru. She completed her early education from Pune University and was further sent to Shantiniketan formed by Rabindranath Tagore. She then went to Oxford University for further studies. After completing her education she returned to India in 1941 and got married to Feroz Gandhi, the son of Gandhi family. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru was a freedom fighter and so she was exposed to politics since childhood. Mahatma Gandhi was a frequent visitor to her house and she was highly inspired by the feelings of patriotism he had. Further to her marriage, Nehru was imprisoned and he wrote beautiful letters to Indira. These letters were to make Indira aware of the current political condition of the country. Being highly influenced by her father’s letter, she decided to join freedom struggle. In 1942, she participated in Quit India Movement for which she was imprisoned. She laid emphasis on the freedom of the country and convinced local Indians to fight for the cause. After gaining independence in 1947, she was appointed as the third Prime Minister and the first woman Prime Minister of the country in 1966. Her commendable efforts during her tenure of 16 years are unforgettable. Fighting the battle for her country, she was killed by her body guards on October 31, 1984.

The history of India

The history of India goes back 4,000 years.

The diversity of Indian culture with its unique variety of social and economic configurations comes from this long and complex historical journey. Regional expansion and population density can also be understood only after a thorough and deep study of the history of India. India history, when viewed from the present times with contradictions like poverty and material growth, illiteracy and high intellectual human resources, rich culture and low standard of living reveals a magnificent society in flux. The process started in the 3rd Millennium B.C. with the inception of the Indus valley civilization. The Harappan civilization was established in the northwest. It was primarily an agricultural economy, which extended into an urban mode of society. Long distance trade started at this time. In India, history opened its second chapter in the first millennium B.C. At this juncture, extensive agricultural development around the Yamuna, Ganga and several other southern rivers boosted population, trade and urbanization. It is easy to understand India and its culture when seen from the perspective of the Vedas, which served as the prime treatise in the country. The Vedantic code is still ingrained in the Indian psyche. The seventh century A.D. ushered a new era in India due to cross cultural trade associations with other parts of Asia and the Middle East. This culminated in the infiltration of Portuguese explorers, missionaries and other traders in 1498. The history of Buddhism in India was a special chapter, which has given the world a new religion. Buddhism was founded by Sidharth Gautama (563-483B.C.). Gautama was a prince who abandoned his kingdom in search of the meaning of life. Gautama Buddha or Sidharth diluted the culture of brahaminic priesthood and caste hierarchy in the 5th century B.C. Gautam and Mahavir (the founder of Jainism) gave the world a practical means of seeking the truth.

Free India was a dream

Free India’ was a dream of all Indians under the British rule. Everyone during that rule fought in some way or the other with a common aim of ending British and other colonial authorities in India. After a century of revolutions, struggle, blood shedding, battles and sacrifices, India finally achieved independence on August 15, 1947. India was free in 1947 from the British Empire but the country lost many men and women who were filled with undaunted courage and spirit of patriotism. Today, they are known as freedom fighters because they sacrificed their lives for their motherland. Indian freedom fighters with their true spirit and undaunted courage had faced various tortures, exploitations and hardships to earn us freedom. The pioneers of the freedom movement were Mangal Pandey, Tantia Tope, Rani of Jhansi and the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi who introduced non-violent ways of fighting the enemy. Other notable freedom fighters of India are Annie Besant, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Bipin Chandra Pal, Sukhdev, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Chandrashekhar Azad, Sarojini Naidu>, Dadabhai Naoroji, Sucheta Kriplani and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari. There are endless number of men and women other than the above list who daringly fought for India’s freedom.

Biography of Jawaharlal Nehru

PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Name : Jawaharlal Nehru

Birth  : 14 November 1889

    Death : 27 May 1964           

Moments & Struggles:  Home rule movement,   Non-cooperation , Internationalising the struggle , Republicanism , Declaration of Independence ,Civil disobedience ,Architect of India , Electoral politics ,World War II and Quit India

Awards : In 1955 Nehru was awarded Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour

                                                                                                             Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) was a great Indian nationalist leader who worked for independence and social reform. He became first prime minister of independent India, a position he retained until his death. He initiated India's nonalignment policy in foreign affairs.

First prime minsiter

                                                                                        Born on November 14, 1889 in Allahabad, Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India. The only son of Motilal Nehru and Swarup Rani was a patriot, a freedom fighter and the most highly respected personality. He completed his early education in a boarding school in England. For higher studies he went to Cambridge University and returned to India in 1912 as a barrister. Just after his studies, in 1916 he got married to Kamala Kaul. Nehru was an intellectual with strong feelings of patriotism, liberty and unity.

                                                                                    At the age of 15 Nehru left for England, where he studied at Harrow and Cambridge and then for the bar in London. He was called to the bar in 1912. His English experience reinforced his elegant and cosmopolitan tastes. As Nehru said of himself at Cambridge, "In my likes and dislikes I was perhaps more an Englishman than an Indian." In London he was attracted by Fabian ideas; nationalism and socialism from this time on provided his intellectual motive force.

                                                                                    Being highly influenced by Gandhi Ji, he wanted to join the freedom struggle. During the struggle he was imprisoned several times. He had spent almost 14 years of his life in prison. For consequently 5 times he was elected as the President of Indian National Congress and under his influence Congress adopted the goal of complete independence.

USSR comemorative stamp

                                                                                   After centuries of struggle, India became independent in 1947 and soon after that Nehru was appointed as the first Prime Minister of the country. Even after independence he had served the country that had left a profound influence on the social structure, intellectual development and overall development of the country. He is said to be the architect

                                                            Chacha Nehru as the children fondly referred to him, was fond of both children and roses. In fact he often compared the two, saying that children were like the buds in a garden. They should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they were the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow. He felt that children are the real strength of a country and the very foundation of society. He was the ‘beloved’ of all the children who gave him the endearing name of ‘Chacha Nehru’.

                                                       As a tribute to this great man and his love for the children, his birthday is celebrated all over India as ‘CHILDREN’S DAY’. Most schools have cultural programmes for the day, with the students managing it all. All over the country, various cultural, social, and even corporate, institutions conduct competitions for children. Children's Day is a day for children to engage in fun and frolic. Schools celebrate this day by organizing cultural programmes. Teachers of the school perform songs and dances for their students.

Therefore, Children's Day is special. It is a day set aside to remember Pandit Nehru and his love for children.

Death Of Nehru

                            Nehru the man and politician made such a powerful imprint on India that his death on May 27, 1964, left India with no political heir to his leadership. Indians repeated Nehru's own words of the time of Gandhi's assassination: "The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere."

Rabindranath Tagore biography

“Aami chonchol he, aami shudurer piyashi… Mor dana nai, achhi ek thnyai, shey katha je jai pashori…”  

("I am restless, I am athirst for far-away things… I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore…")

 -Rabindranath Tagore

NAME   :  Ravindranath Tagore
BIRTH   : 7 May 1861
DEATH :  7 August 1941
WIFE   :Bhabatarini (renamed Mrinalini)


                                                            If any man in the contemporary history of India has been able to understand and has been able to put across the understanding of the ephemeral nature of life, the man would undisputedly be Rabindranath Tagore. With thousands of songs, numerous poems, many dance dramas, short stories, novels, etc, the Poet Laureate has time and again simultaneously emphasised the timelessness and temporality of human life.

 

He was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his seemingly mesmeric personality, flowing hair, and other-worldly dress earned him a prophet-like reputation in the West. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal.Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India.                                                  

    Rabindranath Tagore was born into a distinguished Bengali family in Calcutta, West Bengal on 1861. His father's name was the Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, a well known Hindu reformer and mystic and his mother was Shrimati Sharada Devi.Tagore received his education at home.He was taught in Bengali, with English lessons in the afternoon. He read the Bengali poets since his early age and himself began writing poetry himself by the age of eight.

                                                                        

                                                          Rabindranath Tagore did have a brief spell at St Xavier's Jesuit school, but found the conventional system of education uncongenial.His father wanted him to become a barrister and he was sent to England for this reason.In England, Tagore heard John Bright and W.E.Gladstone speak and was highly impressed and inspired by their "large-hearted, radical liberalism."

In 1879, he enrolled at University College, at London, but was called back by his father to return to India in 1880.

                                                          By l883 he was married. Tagore's family chose his bride, an almost illiterate girl of ten named Bhabatarini (renamed Mrinalini), whom he married with little ceremony.

They were to have four children, the eldest was born when Mrinalini was 13. However, Mrinalini died at the age of 30.From 1890, Tagore had undertaken the management of his family estates.His earliest poetic collections Manasi (l890), Chitra (1895) and Sonar Tari (1895) used colloquial Bengali instead of the usual archaic literary form.In 1901 he founded the famous Shantiniketan near Calcutta. This was designed to provide a traditional ashram and Western education. He began with 5 pupils and 5 teachers (three of whom were Christian). His ideals were simplicity of living and the cultivation of beauty.In 1912, Tagore visited Britain again and his own English translation of Gitanjali was published under Yeats' auspices. A lecture tour of Britain and the USA followed.In 1913, he was awarded the famous Nobel Prize and used the prize money to improve his school at Shantiniketan. Apart from his poetry, he held major exhibitions of his paintings in the West. He was also a noted composer. His works and his life influenced film director Shri Satyajit Ray, who had been one of his pupils.Tagore was not politically motivated and tried to harmonise the views of east and west.In August 1941, Shri Rabindranath Tagore was moved from Shantiniketan ashram to Calcutta for an operation.

In the same year i.e 1941, he passes away in the same house in which he was born in.

BIOGRAPHY OF MAHATMA GANDHI :

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. He became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. GandhiJi helped free the Indian people from British rule through nonviolent resistance, and is honored by Indians as the father of the Indian Nation.
The Indian people called Gandhiji 'Mahatma', meaning Great Soul. At the age of 13 Gandhi married Kasturba, a girl the same age. Their parents arranged the marriage. The Gandhis had four children. Gandhi studied law in London and returned to India in 1891 to practice. In 1893 he took on a one-year contract to do legal work in South Africa.
At the time the British controlled South Africa. When he attempted to claim his rights as a British subject he was abused, and soon saw that all Indians suffered similar treatment. Gandhi stayed in South Africa for 21 years working to secure rights for Indian people.
He developed a method of action based upon the principles of courage, nonviolence and truth called Satyagraha. He believed that the way people behave is more important than what they achieve. Satyagraha promoted nonviolence and civil disobedience as the most appropriate methods for obtaining political and social goals. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India. Within 15 years he became the leader of the Indian nationalist movement.
Using the principles of Satyagraha he led the campaign for Indian independence from Britain. Gandhi was arrested many times by the British for his activities in South Africa and India. He believed it was honorable to go to jail for a just cause. Altogether he spent seven years in prison for his political activities.
More than once Gandhi used fasting to impress upon others the need to be nonviolent. India was granted independence in 1947, and partitioned into India and Pakistan. Rioting between Hindus and Muslims followed. Gandhi had been an advocate for a united India where Hindus and Muslims lived together in peace.
On January 13, 1948, at the age of 78, he began a fast with the purpose of stopping the bloodshed. After 5 days the opposing leaders pledged to stop the fighting and Gandhi broke his fast. Twelve days later a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse who opposed his program of tolerance for all creeds and religion assassinated him.