Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu was born in Hyderabad on 13 February 1879 to Aghorenath Chattopadhyay. Her father was from Brahmangaon, Bikrampur, Bengal (now in Munshiganj, Bangladesh). Her father was a Bengali Brahmin and the principal of Nizam College. Another sister, Suhasini, was an Indian communist leader. Their family was well-regarded in Hyderabad. Education Sarojini Naidu passed her matriculation examination to qualify for university study, earning the highest rank, in 1891, when she was twelve. In England, she met artists from the Aesthetic and Decadent movements. Marriage Chattopadhyay returned to Hyderabad in 1898. That same year, she married Govindaraju Naidu (who hailed from Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh), a doctor whom she met during her stay in England, in an inter-caste marriage which has been called "groundbreaking and scandalous". Both their families approved their marriage, which was long and harmonious. They had five children. Their daughter Padmaja also joined the Quit India Movement, and she held several governmental positions in independent India. ==Political career==

Early oratory Beginning in 1904, Naidu became an increasingly popular orator, promoting Indian independence and women's rights, especially women's education. She was the first Indian woman President of the Indian National Congress and first Indian woman to preside over the INC conference. With Reddy, she helped established the Women's Indian Association in 1917. Later that year, Naidu accompanied her colleague Annie Besant, who was the president of Home Rule League and Women's Indian Association, to advocate universal suffrage in front of the Joint Select Committee in London, United Kingdom.She also supported the Lucknow Pact, a joint Hindu–Muslim demand for British political reform, at the Madras Special Provincial Council. In 1906, Naidu spoke to the Social Council of Calcutta in order to advocate for the education of Indian women. In her speech, Naidu stressed that the success of the whole movement relied upon the "woman question". Naidu claimed that the true "nation-builders" were women, not men, and that without women's active cooperation, the nationalist movement would be in vain. The women's movement developed parallel to the independence movement for this reason. That same year, Naidu served as a spokesperson for a delegation of women that met with Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, and Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy of India, in order to discuss reforms. The delegation expressed women's support for the introduction of self-government in India and demanded that the people of India should be given the right to vote, of which women must be included. The delegation was followed up with public meetings and political conferences supporting the demands, making it a huge success. In 1918, Naidu moved a resolution on women's franchise to the Eighteenth Session of the Bombay Provincial Conference and to the special session of Congress held in Bombay. In her speech at the Conference, Naidu emphasized "the influence of women in bringing about political and spiritual unity" in ancient India. She argued that women had always played an important role in political life in India and that rather than going against tradition, women's franchise would simply be giving back what was theirs all along. In her speech at the Bombay Special Congress, Naidu claimed that the "right of franchise is a human right and not a monopoly of one sex only." She demanded the men of India to reflect on their humanity and restore the rights that belonged to women. Throughout the speech, Naidu attempted to alleviate worries by reassuring that women were only asking for the right to vote, not for any special privileges that would interfere with men. Despite the increasing support of women's suffrage in India, which was backed by the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and others, the Southborough Franchise Committee, a British committee, decided against granting franchise to women. In 1919, Naidu, as representative of the WIA, went to plead for the franchise of women before a Joint-Select Committee of Parliament in London. The resulting Government of India Act 1919, however, did not enfranchise Indian women, instead leaving the decision to provincial councils. Naidu became the first Indian female president of the Indian National Congress in 1925, demonstrating how influential she was as a political voice. To Naidu, it was women's duty to help in the fight against Britain. Nonviolent resistance Naidu formed close ties with Gandhi, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Rabindranath Tagore and Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. to represent the state of Bihar, however died before the Constitution was finalized and put to vote. She gave her only speech at the Constituent Assembly on 11 December 1946. Governor of United Provinces Following India's independence from the British rule in 1947, Naidu was appointed the governor of the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh), making her India's first woman governor. She remained in office until her death in March 1949 (aged 70). ==Writing career==

Naidu began writing at the age of 12. Her play, Maher Muneer, written in Persian, impressed the Nizam of Kingdom of Hyderabad. Naidu's poetry was written in English and usually took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism, which she was sometimes challenged to reconcile with her Indian nationalist politics. She was well-regarded as a poet, considered the "Indian Yeats". Her first book of poems was published in London in 1905, titled "The Golden Threshold". The publication was suggested by Edmund Gosse, and bore an introduction by Arthur Symons.