SISTER NIVEDITAAN ICON OF DEDICATION CONTRIBUTIONS OF SISTER
SISTER NIVEDITA—AN ICON OF DEDICATION
CONTRIBUTIONS OF SISTER NIVEDITA Defender of culture Role Model Writer Dynamic Speaker Indian Art connoisseur Nationalist Freedom Movement Women’s education
TRANSFORMATION The mother’s heart, the hero’s will, The sweetness of the southern breeze, The sacred charm and strength that dwell On Aryan altars, flaming, free; All these be yours, and many more No ancient soul could dream before – Be thou to India’s future son The mistress, servant, friend in one. � – Written to Sister Nivedita �
PIONEER IN WOMENS EDUCATION Nivedita’s school for girls at 16 Bosepara Lane, Kolkata, inaugurated on November 13, 1898 Nivedita’s school for girls, run by Ramakrishna Sarada Mission has a strength of 1050 in its primary and secondary sections today.
LITERACY RATE IN INDIA FROM 1900 -2000
NIVEDITA SCHOOL BECAME NUCLEUS OF SRI SARADA MATH
CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATIONALISM � � � � Arousing the nation through speeches and writings. Influencing British perception of India Educating public opinion in England. Providing refuge to young revolutionaries. Encouraging swadeshi movement. Advocated ‘Vande Mataram’ when it was banned. Supported the growth of science in India. ‘I believe India is one, indissoluble, indivisible. National unity is built on the common home, common interest and common love. ’
MENTOR OF REVOLUTIONARIES � In 1902, when Viceroy Lord Curzon appointed the ‘university commission’ to strangle the national education system, Nivedita came to the forefront in condemning the move. She came into close contact with the fiery freedom fighter, Brahmabandhav 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. This revolutionary committee later became the Anuseelan Samiti, the secret revolutionary society, and Sister Nivedita became a source of inspiration and guidance to the young revolutionaries. Opposing Bengal Partition � In 1905, the Explosive Atmosphere aroused in the country in the wake of the British government’s decision to Partition Bengal, shocked Nivedita. She addressed mammoth public meetings and condemned the move.
FREEDOM FIGHTERS INFLUENCED BY NIVEDITA Sri Aurobindo Rabindranath Tagore Rash Behari Ghosh Surendranath Banerjee Bal Gangadhar Tilak Bipin Chandra Pal Chittaranjan Das Prof. BK Sarkar
FREEDOM FIGHTERS INFLUENCED BY NIVEDITA Romesh Chandra Dutt JC Bose Gopal Krishna Gokhale Subramania Bharati Ramananda Chatterjee Bhupendranath Dutt
RELIEF WORK & NATION BUILDING � In March 1899, when plague raged in Calcutta, Sister Nivedita organized a group of young men and engaged herself in relief operations. She was seen in every slum in the Baghbazar area with a broom stick in her hand, cleaning the streets. She cleaned ditches, removed sewage and disinfected homes. She even sacrificed her regular diet of milk to meet the expenses of patients. � Nivedita designed a national flag for India as early as in 1905 which symbolized selfless sacrifice. She used the image of the thunderbolt (taken from the story of sage Dadhichi) for this purpose. National Flag designed by Nivedita
IDENTIFYING WITH BHARAT � � � Sister Nivedita was not merely a patriotic daughter of mother India, she had really sought her identity with the spirit of Bharata. She Identified the common factors that made India a nation: She first outlined the fundamental laws of the birth of a nation, she pronounced that the complexity of variation, when subordinated to the nationalizing influence is a source of strength and not a weakness to the nation. It reiterated the fact that the cultural ethos and heritage were responsible for national integration. “If the whole India could agree to give say ten minutes every evening, to thinking a single thought – 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. ” 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. ”
A REVOLUTIONARY JOURNALIST � The period from 1906 to 1907 was one of busy journalistic activities for Sister Nivedita. Besides writing for Prabuddha Bharata, she was contributing to journals like Sandhya, The Dawn and New India. Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda’s younger brother, Bhupendra Nath Dutta, started a new weekly, Yugantar, as an organ of the secret revolutionary movement in 1906. The decision to start it was taken in Nivedita’s house. Due to her efforts, the circulation of the journal was 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 admirer of Nivedita, as Editor. � When Aurobindo was acquitted in the Alipore bomb case, Nivedita celebrated the event in her school with festivities. But soon, Aurobindo fell again a victim to the wrath of the British because of his writings in Karmayogin, and leaving the responsibility of the journals, Dharma and Karmayogin into the hands of Nivedita, he went into exile in Chandranagar and from there secretly to Pondicherry,
NIVEDITA’S CONTRIBUTION TO LITERATURE & ART � Her prolific writings like The Master As I saw Him, Kali the Mother, The Web of Indian life, Cradle tales of Hinduism, Footfalls of Indian history, Civic ideal and Indian nationality and Hints on national education in India and her several letters to friends and devotees all reverberate the voice of the sages and seers of ancient India. Her CW runs into 5 volumes. � She influenced Mr. Havell, head of the School of Art in Calcutta. Her writings on Indian art gave a new direction and sense of purpose to the artistes of modern period like Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore, Surendranath Ganguly and Asit Kumar Haldar and others. She became a chief critic of theory of Hellenic influence on Indian art.
DEFENDING THE CULTURAL HERITAGE ➢ ‘There can never be any sound education of the Indian woman which does not begin and end in the exaltation of the national ideals of womanhood, as embodied in her own history and heroic literature. ’ ➢ ‘India is above all the land of great women’ ➢ It is her awakened sense of responsibility that constitutes the truly educated woman. ➢ There is no such thing as idolatory in India. The word is a gross libel. India, religiously, is like a university which is strengthened by having the Kindergarten stages of every study incorporated. ➢ Religion is philosophy concretized, by means of symbols and ritual. A mere loose system of philosophy takes no hold on mankind.
INTEGRATING THE BEST ELEMENTS OF THE EAST AND WEST Contemplation Purity Dedication Service Energy Universality Chastity Commitment Dynamism Selfless Love of Knowledge & Arts
THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IS THE HISTORY OF A FEW EARNEST MEN AND WOMEN. AND IF ONE MAN IS EARNEST, THE WORLD IS BOUND TO BE AT HIS FEET.
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