Sarojini Naidu/Comments on Mother India

Comments on

Mother India

poem by

Sarojini Naidu

When the first world war broke out England faced one serious problem. Though it was otherwise powerful, the empire suffered from a lack of manpower to fight the war. The kingdom needed millions of soldiers to fight powerful enemies like Germany. So the queen of England sent a request to the people of India to help with soldiers for fighting the war. This call of the empire divided India into two schools of thought. Revolutionary leaders like Subash Chandra Bose argued that the cruel British government should not be given any soldiers. They even argued that this was a good opportunity to get independence by not cooperating with the empire. If we didn’t give soldiers, the empire was sure to get defeated in the war. A weakened Britain would be forced to give independence to India at an earlier date.

But Mahatma Gandhi was strongly against this school. He argued that it was our duty to help the empire in this critical juncture. We are Hindus and we can act only in according to our dharma. Gandhi strongly believed that we should not abandon the empire in such a critical situation because we are also subjects of the British empire. Gandhi didn’t believe in doing a wrong thing even for achieving a good result. According to Gandhi it was not only the end but also the means that was important. Finally the Gandhian school won the argument and Indians enlisted in the Royal army in large numbers. Sarojini Naidu’s poem ‘The Gift of India’ describes this great contribution of Mother India towards the British empire. According to Mrs. Naidu, India always had the tradition of giving to others. We never believed in receiving. India always gave rich gifts of raiment, grain or gold to the Europeans. Mother India is the narrator in the poem. Mother India proudly acknowledges that she had flung to the Eastern world and the Western world priceless treasures torn from her breast. When the empire needed soldiers, Mother India even gave away the sons of India taken out of her wounded womb. The womb of Mother India is described as wounded because of the already pathetic and poverty-stricken condition of the country.

A large number of Indian soldiers died in the war because the cruel British government deployed the Indian soldiers for dangerous duties nearer to the enemy ranks. Mother India was distressed to hear about the death of her children. Their dead bodies lied like pearls in their alien graves in Persia, Egypt and France. Their bodies were scattered like blossoms cut down by chance. According to Hindu traditions, the dead bodies of Indians should not be buried in foreign soil. They must be brought to India and all the rituals and poojas have to be performed according to the age old religious practices. After that the body has to be burned in a pyre by the eldest son of the dead soldier. But the selfish British empire gave no attention to these Indian beliefs. They simply dragged all the Indian dead bodies into mass graves and buried them underground without performing any Hindu rituals of samskara. The Empire gave a different type of treatment to the dead bodies of the British soldiers. Each and every one of the white bodies were respectfully collected from the warfronts and taken home by chartered flights of the British Airways. Once in England, they were given a ceremonial welcome and the burial ceremony was conducted according to the proper Christian practices.

England and its allies emerged victorious in the first world war. The empire started celebrating the victory and flags and banners were displayed everywhere. But Sarojini Naidu describes them as “torn red banners of victory”. They are torn because the victory was really a mockery for the Indians. They are red in colour because of the blood of Indians sacrificed for the victory of the British empire in the war. In the fourth and last stanza of the poem, Sarojini Naidu makes a request to the British Empire. She wants the empire to remain thankful for the sacrifice done by the dead Indian soldiers. Indians fought the war with equal or higher courage compared to their English counterparts. So Mother India wants the empire to remember the sacrifice done by the sons of India for the success of the empire. She wants the empire to honour the dead soldiers along with the honours going to be given for the British martyrs. But what happened in the end? The dead British soldiers were celebrated as war-heroes. Their widows were summoned to the Buckingham Palace and posthumous awards were presented in honour of their dead husbands. Their children were given resersvation for higher studies in prestigious military academies and even future employment was guaranteed to them. But, in the case of the dead Indian soldiers, no such consideration was given. They were not given the status of martyrs because they were all poor and black Indians. All that their relatives received was a telegram from the war office informing the death of their near ones in the war.!