Dr Rash Behari Ghosh, the great revolutionary said this about sister Nivedita. ” Our sister fell under the spell of India. We, in turn, fell under her spell, and her bewitching personality attracted thousands of our young men to her. If the dry bones are beginning to stir, it is because Sister Nivedita breathed the life into them.
Birth in the family of freedom fighters
Margaret Noble was born on October 28, 1867, at Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, in far-off Ireland, in a family of revolutionaries. Her grandfather, John Noble, father, Samuel Richmond and her maternal grandfather, Hamilton, was in the forefront of Irish freedom struggle.Completing her college education in Halifax, Margaret took to teaching for ten years from 1884 to 1894. During the later part of this period, she came into contact with the famous revolutionary, Prince Kropotkin.
When Swami Vivekananda visited England, after establishing his reputation in the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, conquered by his magnetic personality, convinced by the depth of his wisdom and realization and carried away by his ideals of sacrifice and service, Margaret dedicated herself at the feet of great sannyasin and came to India in 1897, on March 25, 1898, she was initiated into the order of Brahmacharya by Swamiji who conferred on her the new name ‘Nivedita’ meaning the ‘Dedicated’.
Revolt Against Imperialism
During the period May to October 1898, Sister Nivedita went on a tour of Almora and Kashmir regions, accompanying Swami Vivekananda. In Kashmir, she observed how the British government refused permission to the Maharaja of Kashmir to hand over a piece of land to her guru to set up a Mutt and Sanskrit College. Her Irish blood revolted and she realized that the emancipation of India and regeneration of Hinduism could be achieved only by putting an end to British rule in India.
‘Bande Mataram’ in School Prayer
The Nivedita Girl’s school in Calcutta was a brilliant example to nationalist institutions all over the country. Nivedita not only refused to take the aid of the government but even introduced Bande Mataram in the daily news papers of her school, at a time when singing the song in public was an offence. She also introduces Swadeshi and spinning wheel in her school. Besides being a school, her place of residence was also a meeting place of scientists, artists, journalists, nationalists and revolutionaries. Young men inspired by Nivedita used to attend the Sunday get-togethers at her home and prominent among them was Barindra Ghosh, the renowned revolutionary and younger brother of Aurobindo.
As Leader of Revolutionaries
In 1902, when Viceroy Lord Curzon appointed the ‘university commission’ to strangulate the national education system, Nivedita came to the forefront in condemning the move. She came to the forefront in condemning the move. She came into close contact with the fiery freedom fighter, Brahmabhandav Upadhyaya. After Aurobindo’s reaching Bengal, when he organized a five member revolutionary committee consisting of himself, Surendranath Tagore, C.R. Das, Yateendra Banerjee and Sister Nivedita, Nivedita acted as the secretary of the committee and undertook the task of organizing under one banner various revolutionary organizations operating in Bengal, later this revolutionary committee was merged into the Anuseelan Samiti, the secret revolutionary society, and Sister Nivedita became a source of inspiration and guidance to the young revolutionaries participating in the underground activities of the Samiti.
Fight Against Bengal Partition
In March 1905, Nivedita fell seriously ill and spent some time in Darjeeling with the family of Jagadish Chandra Bose. But the Explosive Atmosphere aroused in the country in the wake of the British government’s decision to Partition Bengal, made her return to Calcutta in the First week of July 1905. she addressed mammoth public meetings. In one such meeting, she spoke strongly supporting the resolution moved by the famous revolutionary, Anand Mohan Bose, condemning the unwise move of the British Government.
‘Bhagava Dhwaj’ as National flag
During the Benaras session of the Indian National Congress in 1905, Sister Nivedita played the role of a mediator between the Moderates and the Extremists in the Congress, as she had already won the unstinted love and admiration of leaders of both these wings. It was at her place of stay that these leaders used to have a heart to heart talks. At the time of Calcutta Session of the Congress, she organized a Swadeshi Exhibition in which the Nivedita Girl’s School exhibited a ‘National Flag’. The flag chosen by Nivedita for the country was nothing but the saffron ‘Bhagava Dhwaj’, Which stood as the symbol of the hoary culture, heritage and nationalism of the country. And on the flag was portrayed in yellow colour, the Vajraayudha ( the thunderbolt ),reminding the people that the great Rishi Dadheechi donated his backbone to the Devas for making a weapon to fight the Asuras and it was now for the people to sacrifice their all at the altar of the Mother in this fight against British imperialism.
As a Revolutionary Journalist
The period from 1906 to 1907 was one of the busy journalistic activities for Sister Nivedita. Besides writing editorials for Prabuddha Bharata, she was contributing to journals like Sandhya, The Dawn and New India. Aurobindo, his younger brother Barindra Ghosh and Swami Vivekananda’s younger brother, Bhupendra Nath Dutta, started a new weekly, Yugantar, as an organ of the secret revolutionary movement, from March 12, 1906. Not only the decision to start it was taken in Nivedita’s house but also because of her efforts, the circulation of the journal was built up to more than 50,000 copies. On August 16, 1906, Bipin Chandra Pal started Bande Mataram with the cooperation of Aurobindo. The famous revolutionary of the south, Tirumalachari, started Bala Bharata from Madras, With the poet-patriot, C. Subramania Bharati. An ardent disciple of Nivedita, as Editor.
On July 20, 1907, when Bhupendra Nath Dutta was imprisoned, Nivedita met him in the court, assured him of taking care of his mother Bhuvaneswari, and the publication of Yugantar, and also helped his associates to collect funds for paying a fine of Rs. 10,000/- imposed on him.
With Indian Revolutionaries Abroad
In 1907, Nivedita left for England to set a favourable atmosphere for Indian independence through meetings and interviews with British parliamentarians and writings in English journals. One important work of Sister Nivedita was to organize the publication of revolutionary journals from outside India, arranging for their secret distribution in India and organizing the Indian Revolutionaries who were scattered abroad.On Sept 28, 1908, Nivedita left England for America where she met Bhupendra Nath Dutta, Tarak Nath Dutta and other revolutionaries in exile. According to the famous writer Girija Shankar Roy Choudary, Nivedita was, during this tour collecting funds for the rehabilitation of revolutionaries in exile and she had a plan to purchase a building at Chandranagar in the French territory in India, to enable these revolutionaries to settle down there and carry on the activities.
Death
The enormous strain that Nivedita had undergone over the years had shattered her health. In September 1910, she herself wrote: “I have still two years left, but no more”. In November 1910, she went to America to be by the side of her friend, Mrs Bull, who bequeathed a large fortune to her for her work in India and died in January 1911. on return to India, Nivedita spent her summer holidays in Mayavati with the Bose family. They wanted to spend the Pooja holidays at Darjeeling. Nivedita had the premonition of her end and she bid farewell to every one of her friends in Calcutta before leaving for Darjeeling. The stay in the Hill-station proved unsuitable to her health and she suffered an attack of blood dysentery in the first week of October. She knew that her journey’s end had come. She wrote her last will on October 7, leaving all her possessions and writing in the hands of the trustees of Belur Math to be used for her school. On October 13, 1911, at about 7 am., the sun unusually shone, in spite of the cloudy days in Darjeeling. Nivedita said in her diary: “The frail boat is sinking, but i shall yet see the sun rise”. Chanting the Rudra Prayer of the Upanishad “Asatoma sadgamaya, Tamaso maa jyotir gamaya, mrityor maa amritam gamaya– From the unreal lead us to the real, from darkness lead us o the light, from death lead us to immortality” – Nivedita breathed her last breath. The dedicated Daughter of Mother India went to sleep for ever in her lap. Today. In distant Darjeeling, there stands a memorial in which, on a marble tablet, are inscribed these words – Here Reposes Sister Nivedita Who Gave Her All to India.
Chanting the Rudra Prayer of the Upanishad “Asatoma sadgamaya, Tamaso maa jyotir gamaya, mrityor maa amritam gamaya– From the unreal lead us to the real, from darkness lead us o the light, from death lead us to immortality” – Nivedita breathed her last breath. The dedicated Daughter of Mother India went to sleep for ever in her lap. Today. In distant Darjeeling, there stands a memorial in which, on a marble tablet, are inscribed these words – Here Reposes Sister Nivedita Who Gave Her All to India.
Nivedita had emphatically declared,
“If the whole India could agree to give say ten minutes very evening, at the on coming darkness, to thinking a single thought – We are one. We are one. Nothing can prevail against us to make us think we are divided. For we are one and all the antagonisms amongst us are illusions – The power that would be generated can hardly be measured.”
Post Your Comments