Dr. Sayan

The Confluence
of
Mother’s Heart and Hero’s Will
Exploring Sister Nivedita’s Role in Indian Cultural Renaissance
Probationers’ Training Centre

R AMAKRISHNA M ATH , B ELUR M ATH
D ISSERTATION B Y G UIDED B Y
(B R . S AYAN ) (S WAMI T YAGARUPANANDA )

TABLE OF C ONTENTS
Page
1 Introduction 1
2 Sweetness Warring Against Strength 5
3 Reawakening Art 10
3.1 The Seed — as sown by Swami Vivekananda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.2 Inspiring Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2.1 Okakura Kakuzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2.2 E B Havell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.3 Abanindranath Tagore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3 Rejuvenating Social and Civic Ideals in Indian Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4 The Bose War 20
5 Interpreting Indian History 25

5.1 An Interesting Correspondence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2 Pointing The Throbbing National Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6 Educational Ideas of Sister Nivedita 29

6.1 The Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.2 Imparting National Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.3 Education based on personal relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7 Sunrise from the Sinking Boat 37
i
HAPTER
1
C
I NTRODUCTION
“Do not cease to ask it for me and

do not cease to ask for him that
steady light, where nothing
wavers, where all is held in
sweetness and strength."
— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

p.726
n a letter to Sister Nivedita, Swami Vivekananda wrote,
I ...I am sure, you have the making in you of a world-mover.
These words came literately true afterwards, as we shall see.

No matter how hard she tried to work incognito, she could not help being a world mover.
When she was calm it was the calmness of a cloud, ever ready to break into torrential rains.Again
when she was still, it was a lull before a storm!
To Nivedita the national movement of India was not mere patriotism,it was an urge to give
India a universal outlook that engulfed art, literature, science, education, socialism and culture.
In other words, nationality to her was a national renaissance. She tried to give an active and
definite shape to the enlightened concepts of Indian national ideals she received from her Guru
Swami Vivekananda.
Her role in forming the national ideal of India cannot be overemphasized. It demands a thor-
ough study. Whatever little has been discussed on Sister Nivedita, beyond the Ramakrishna-
Vivekananda legacy, it has an unnatural obsession on her role in revolutionary activities, or at
1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
best taking on a more liberal view, on her activities in women education. Admitting her stagger-
ing influence in those fields, it cannot be denied, that a hundred times more was her influence
on education in general and cultural renaissance of India.
Her dream to see India as a Nation, is clearly reflected in one of her letters to Miss Josephine
Macleod. She says:
The whole task now is to give the word Nationality to India in all its breadth
and meaning. The rest will do itself. India must be observed by this great conception.
Hindu and Mohammedan must become one in it, with a passionate admiration of
each other.
So, in a sense, she was a true revolutionary. She wanted revolutions in the deepest strata of
the social and cultural realm of India. How she succeeded in instilling this idea of nationality
and helped the country to reach unprecedented glory, will be discussed during the course of
dissertation.
The daunting task of building a nation she took up on her shoulders. it was carried out with
an equally heroic zest in merely 9 years from 1902 to 1911. But within the garb of valour of
a hero lay the tender most heart of a mother. Was it her own trait that Swami Vivekananda
perceived or did he himself instill in her through his poem — ‘A Benediction’?
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.
Swami Vivekananda believed that an ideal character can only be formed with the valour of
a hero and the heart of a mother.Nivedita echoes her guru’s ideas in her The Master As I Saw
Him when she says:
A modernised Indian woman, on the other hand, in whom he saw the old-time
intensity of trustful and devoted companionship to the husband, with the old-time
loyalty to the wedded kindred, was still, to him, "the ideal Hindu wife." True wom-
anhood, like true monkhood, was no matter of mere externals. And unless it held
and developed the spirit of true womanhood, there could be no education of woman
worthy of the name.. . . The mother’s heart, in the women of the dawning age,
must be conjoined with the hero’s will. The fire on the Vedic altar, out of
2
Figure 1.1: Blessings of Swami Vivekananda
which arose Savitri, with her sacred calm and freedom, was ever the ideal
background. But with this woman must unite a softness and sweetness, as
of the south winds themselves.1
Once in an interview with a representative of the then American daily Detroit Free Press
the questioner asked Swami Vivekananda: ‘But will it not be an impossibility to find in the great
combative Western countries, where such tremendous energy is needed to develop the pressing
practical necessities of the nineteenth century, this spirit which prevails in placid India?’ To this
he replied with a smile, ‘May not one combine the energy of the lion with the gentleness of the
lamb?’ In later years, when Swami Vivekananda returned to India, once again he expressed the
very same idea in his plans for the universal temple of Sri Ramakrishna. In his conversation
with Prof. Ranadaprasad Das Gupta, founder of Calcutta Jubilee Art Academy, he said, ‘On the
two sides of the door will be represented the figure of a lion and a lamb licking each other’s body
in love — expressing the idea that great power and gentleness have become united in love’.2
Did it ever materialize in a human form? Yes, Sister Nivedita stands firm as a testimony to
1 Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, Vol 1, p.195
2 The present temple of Belur Math, has two elephants — gently carrying lotuses on their truknks — on the arch
of the entrance of the Main Temple. This also signifies the blending of gentleness with great power.
3
her Gurus words,that indeed the ‘great power and gentleness’ can mingle into one stream and
form the most wonderful character!
In the following chapters we shall briefly touch upon various facets of Sister Nivedita’s per-
sonality which give us glimpses of her unique character that blended motherliness with heroism,
strength with sweetness and took up a decisive role in the making of the future India. Although
all the facets we discuss in the later chapters to explore her contributions in Indian cultural
renaissance do not speak of this blending explicitly, it will not be difficult for us to find that such
a blending, shaped all her activities and gave them a divine dimension. As already discussed,
the political activities of the Sister has been the centre of emphasis in common lore for years. So,
we have purposefully refrained from discussing her activities in that field and concentrated our
studies solely on her role in the cultural renaissance of India.
4
HAPTER
2
C
S WEETNESS WARRING A GAINST S TRENGTH
“In me, sweetness wars against

strength, and strength against
sweetness ..."

p.560
y birth Sister Nivedita had Celtic blood in her. Her grandfather played an instrumental
B role in Irish freedom movement. Thus, revolution and the spirit of fighting were running
through her veins. Still, buried deep inside was a heart that bled for others, that was
sensitive to the minutest suffering of others. These two streams of manliness and motherliness
mingled in her and the unmistakable undercurrent was her sincere love for India and her people.
All her efforts were concentrated in reawakening the eternal spirit of India — the task entrusted
upon her by her guru Swami Vivekananda.
She was always the ‘Hero’ in India’s defence. Whenever the ideals of India were challenged
or compromised, she unsheathed the sword of her pen or eloquence in its defence. This apparent
harshness adorned her character. She was indeed the ‘lioness’, who without hesitation plunged
in any danger to protect her cubs, and the next moment found caressing the little ones with the
love of a mother.
Nivedita was perfectly sincere to her ideals. She wrote in a letter to Ms. Macleod (on 3 April
1909) :
My thoughts will be worked out by unnumbered generations,and I would rather

be penniless, than cease to be an idealist.1
1 Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 2, p.960
5
CHAPTER 2. SWEETNESS WARRING AGAINST STRENGTH
She spared no pains to establish what she thought right for her work. Her outright sincerity
was expressed in such an uncanny straightforwardness, that it seemed harsh to many. But Ra-
bindranath Tagore was one of the few who could understand her in proper light. He was moved
by the rare combination of ‘heroism’ and ‘motherliness’ in one personality. He wrote:
Hers was a multifaceted talent, along with that she had another gift that was her
heroism.
. . . I was inspired by the remembrance of her character and feeling a deep sense
of devotion to her.
Her motherly love for the men and women was as soft as flower but on the other
hand it was as fierce as the tigress encircled by her cubs.
A scathing repartee to Curzon
In his lecture on 11 February 1905 in the Convocation of Calcutta University Lord Curzon openly
criticized the Indians as liars. Many educated Indians silently, without any protest, digested the
insult. Nivedita was also there. She abhorred imbecility, she could not accept that insult. Red
with anger, she dragged Sir Gurudas Bandyopadhyay out to the Imperial Library and took out
the book ‘Problems of the East’ by Curzon. There Curzon shamelessly elaborated on his own lies.
He lied about his age to the President of the Foreign Section of Korea. On the very next day
when she wrote in fiery language about the lies of Curzon, his head stooped low — he was paid
back in his own coins. Nivedita was much pained to see the thick-skinned Indians, who could
hardly be stirred out of their inertia, even by the bitterest epithets hurled at them! In a letter
she wrote: .
With Bipin Chandra Pal
We see the fiery Nivedita once again, when both she and Bipin Ch. Pal were guests in Sara Bulls
house. During one of the conversations she entered the topic of caste system in India. Bipin
Chandra Pal who happened to be present there commented harshly on the caste system and
said that the caste system actually crippled the Hindus. Nivedita challenged him sharply and
in reply Bipin Babu said that Swamiji would not have influenced the Western society as he had
done, had it not been for the absence of caste system. Nidedita also did not accept defeat and
carried on the argument farther. But, the most wonderful trait of her character perhaps was the
utter absence of the conceited ego. She would vomit fire if need be, but in the next moment if
the very person happened to be responsive to the glory of Indian culture, she would assume a
completely different role. The same thing happened with Bipin Chandra Pal. He describes that
experience: When I was lecturing in the Congress of Religions in Boston, Nivedita was visibly
elated with a deep sense of pride, on hearing me eulogizing the richness of spiritual thought in
6
India. Nivedita entirely forgot that I belonged to the Brahmo Samaj and spoke ill of his Guru
only a few days back. I was absolved of all my sins, just because I was praising the culture of
India in front of my western audience. The amount of love Nivedita had for India, could barely
be matched by even that of the Indians.
Many could not bear the blazing character of Nivedita. Fledger Blair saw her as the thun-
derbolt. W. Nevilson thought of her as fire, that destroys and creates, that is terrible and the
most beneficent at the same time. These two apparently contrary traits were manifested in the
tremendous dynamism of her character that helped her to achieve so much in a relatively short
span of time.
The ‘Bairn’ and Arabinda Mohan Bose
Sister Nivedita used to call Dr. J. C. Bose as ‘Bairn’ — ‘the little one’. It is really a wonder how
she could call Dr. Bose as a little one, when he was actually older than her by 10 years! She
was just like a mother to him, she stood by him in his most difficult times and that gave her
the right to call him in such an affectionate way. Whenever she could lend her helping hand to
anybody, she did it in an unselfish, motherly way. How her heart bled for the work of Dr. J.C.
Bose is evident from one of her letters to Rabindranath Tagore. In 18 April, 1903 she wrote to
Rabindranath Tagore detailing the works of Dr. J.C. Bose, expressing her motherly affection and
concern for his pioneering scientific work in India.
. . . The petty daily persecution where perfect sympathy and every facility are
absolutely necessary ; the distracting routine of a paid servant who is never .allowed
to feel independent of daily bread, the constant difficulties thrown in the way by
minor officials who have power enough to impede, but not enough to be raised above
jealousy are these things not enough? And then we ask him to undertake great
work—but what are we willing to do for him? Can we supply him with companions
in learning who will stimulate and encourage the arduous work? Does it trouble us
that he is the one man in India doing work of the first rank, and that to this day he
is paid less than any Englishman, even the commonest, would receive in his place ?
Ah, India ! India ! Can you not give enough freedom to one of the greatest of your
sons to enable him not to sit at ease, but—to go out and fight your battles where
the fire is hottest and the labour most intense, and the contest raging thickest? And
if you cannot do this—if you cannot even bless your own child and send him out
equipped, then—is it worthwhile that the doom should be averted, and the hand of
ruin stayed, from this unhappy and so-beloved land ?2
The same Nivedita encouraged one of Dr. J. C. Bose’s nephews, Arabinda Mohan Bose, to
embrace the life of harshness and austerity. In 10 June, 1909, she writes:
2 The Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 2, p. 255
7
And so you have come to the parting of the ways of life and I know that now and
always you will choose what is hard, and walk blindfolded step by step, grudging no
toil, sparing no sacrifice, that may lead to the high goal. Have you thought how won-
derful is the priesthood of science ? Only hearts that want the Truth-Truth whatever
It costs – are fit for it. Only those who offer themselves for the highest – though they
tread on their own hearts at every step can win its success. I who have watched
your uncles [Dr. J. C. Bose] great life, who have seen how high and holy and austere
is his truth and self-restraint, at every step, I am filled with joy to think that you
are to have the chance of walking in his shadow, of becoming his disciple, as well as
his son. Will you pray, on this birthday, to be worthy of this new temple into which
life is about to lead you?3
Again in 23 June, 1911, she wrote to him[Arabinda Bose] in a fiery language.
I am not going to wish you happiness or possessions or any other toys. I am going
to wish you – as your birthday wish — the power of infinite and patient sacrifice
of yourself sacrifice to truth, to duty, to love — sacrifice that knows nothing of rest
nothing of conditions, nothing of limit— a power of devotion that says always Take!
Take! Take! and never dreams of Give" or Do. And then I am going to wish you the
power to learn infinitely — always to thirst for more knowledge –never to be satisfied
with the truth you know - always to be eager for higher climbing towards the ideal
(not towards the results of the ideal, mind you! fame, beauty, pleasure, wealth!). Ah,
Arabinda, wish you the ideals that absorb one, that slay one —the ideals that can
never be satisfied!4
Caressing a dying child
When Kolkata was inflicted with plague, Nivedita served the Rogi-Narayanas, the patients and
cleaned the filth with her own hands. Even when she was warned by Dr. Radha Gobinda Kar to
avoid the squalor in the time of outbreak of such a contagious disease as Plague, she was found
in a slum caressing a dying boy. Before passing away the boy hugged her calling ’Mother’! The
motherly instinct of protecting her child, even at the cost of her own life, was so very natural to
the Sister. Once she gave away her warm clothing to her servant, herself shivering and thinking
that the poor man must have needed it more than she did. She really had the broad mindset to
deprive herself for the sake of others.
8
Mother’s Khuki
Interestingly, Sister Nivedita who was the fiery protagonist of freedom, the dauntless supporter
of Indian-ness in every sphere of art and culture, the selfless servant of the distressed and a
hard task master of the students, came to the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, she used to be an
altogether different personality. Then she was as if a five-year old girl, as it were, who had come
to her own mother. She was then the ‘khuki’(small girl) of the Holy Mother. She would then be
filled with immense joy if only the Holy Mother looked at her. The Holy Mother also had a great
affection for this Irish ‘daughter’ of Naren (Swami Vivekananda) and repeatedly enquired about
the welfare of the school which Nivedita had established in the Baghbazar locality of Calcutta.
Incident with Dinesh Chandra Sen
Dinesh Ch. Sen, one of the famous literary figures of Bengal, was very close to Sister Nivedita.
She was also fond of him and gave numerous suggestions for his work. But when the occasion
required, she did not hesitate to point out his cowardice in the most severe terms. In his own
words :
One day I really exhibited my cowardice and was ashamed of it.That night, Nivedita,
Ganen and myself were walking on the bank of the Ganges near Baghbazar. I was
in front, Nivedita just behind me and Ganen last of all. Suddenly, a mad bull rushed
towards me. I turned aside and ran to save my life. I did not pause to think that
by my action Nivedita was exposed to the attack of the bull. Ganen jumped forward
and boldly faced the animal which fled away. Then we rejoined. Nivedita laughed
and in an ironical vein addressed me thus: ‘You have thus dashed lustre on the en-
tire masculine race of humanity. Leaving a helpless woman to face a mad bull, you
have saved your skin. This one act of yours will remain as a permanent memorial of
your fame.’ Then she cast off her mock smile of raillery and, becoming serious. said:
‘You are not even a bit ashamed of yourself.’ I felt that I had not acted properly and
remained silent.5
5 Vedanta Kesari, December 1947
Translated by Sri P. Seshadri Iyer. BAML of Travancore University from the Bengali book ‘Gharer Kathan o Yuga-
Sahitya’ by Dr, Dineah Chandra Sen. 1329 B. E. 1923 A. D.)
9
HAPTER
3
C
R EAWAKENING A RT
“The Rebirth of the National art is

my dearest dream. When India
gets back her old art, she will be
on the eve of becoming a strong
nation.”

p.819
hile Nivedita is remembered in various ways, a very important aspect of her life and
W work in India was her contribution to the reawakening of Indian artistic traditions.
She always had a sharp critical mind on art developed right from her early days of
schooling, which later developed in the company of Ruskin Ebenezer Cooke in England.1 She
had made a deep study in museums across Europe and visited several ancient sites of India like
Sanchi, Bodh-Gaya, Ajanta-Ellora, Udaygiri-Khandagiri, Sarnath, making her well-steeped in
knowledge of artistic traditions of both India and the Occident. In America, she had also deliv-
ered lectures on Indian art. Like Swami Vivekananda, she too strongly rejected the claim that
it was Hellenic art that had inspired Indian art and that there were no proper Indian traditions
before that. The Swami had discarded this view point in his lecture in the Paris Exposition in
1900.
Through her firsthand study across the country, Nivedita began to strongly believe that Indian
art needed a reawakening and a ‘going back to its roots’, as it had become divorced from, and un-
aware of, its own traditions. She observed that in all art schools, the training was given through
Western approaches. The work of late nineteenth-century Indian masters like Raja Ravi Varma
1 Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 2, pp. 655 - 817
10
CHAPTER 3. REAWAKENING ART
was also inspired by Western art traditions. Nivedita strongly believed in the potential of art
as a vehicle for national awakening. Her ideas also got further boost after extensive interac-
tions with the Japanese art critic Kokazu Okakura, who visited India in 1902. Nivedita also
collaborated with Okakura and helped him in the writing of his book, Ideals of the East, herself
writing its introduction. When she met Ernst Binfield Havell, the principal of the Government
Art School in Calcutta, she found someone who too felt the same about the sovereignty of Indian
art traditions, and rejected the idea of it being of a derivative nature a thesis then in currency.
Nivedita was introduced to Indian art by Swami Vivekananda during their tour of North
India in the summer of 1898. On 19 July 1898, Swamiji took Nivedita and his American guests
Mrs Ole Bull and Miss Josephine Macleod to the Temple of Pandrenthan in Kashmir and gave
Nivedita her first lessons in archaeology. Nivedita spoke on Mother Kali and her symbolism in
Calcutta at Albert Hall on 13 February 1899 and at Kalighat on 28 May 1899. The instructions
she received from Swamiji on the spiritual import of Indian art symbols enabled her to perform
creditably on both the occasions. The Kalighat speech bore the germs of what Nivedita was to
preach later as a champion of the new art movement in India. In this talk she made an important
point: that Indian art was great in its inner spiritual beauty and that in any case such beauty
carried greater weight and greater significance than the external beauty of the European art.
Nivedita sounded a note of caution against the imitation of European art which was so much in
fashion at that time among some Indian artists. The message she sought to convey through her
Kalighat lecture was that by Europeanizing her art, India would only downgrade her own great
artistic heritage as also her contemporary art creations.
Through her firsthand study across the country, Nivedita began to strongly believe that
Indian art needed a reawakening and a ‘going back to its roots’, as it had become divorced from,
and unaware of, its own traditions. She observed that in all art schools, the training was given
through Western approaches.
During her stay in London in the summer of 1899. Nivedita visited the London museum
and was deeply impressed by the ivory image of Durga exhibited there. This visit prompted her
to write to Swami Akhandananda requesting him to send her a specimen image of Durga in
brass or wood. Her object in procuring such an image was to explain to the West the beauty and
significance of Goddess Durga’s symbolism.2
While at Chicago in the winter of 1899, she was invited to give a lecture on the arts and
crafts of India. Swami Vivekananda too was in Chicago at the time, which prompted Nivedita to
consult him on the topic. ‘He knows a great deal really’ observed Nivedita3 . She also wrote an
interesting letter to Mrs Ole Bull asking her to send ‘the Kali-print and some picture illustrative
of the European degradation of the Hindu Art.’4 Nivedita’s purpose in asking for these was to
show by comparing the classical image and its modern version Europeanized and degraded, as
4 Letter of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 1, p.248
11
she called it that the classical stood head and shoulders above its modern counterpart, both by
the value of the symbol and by the inner spiritual beauty of the image. Her lecture on the arts
and crafts of India at the Hull House of Chicago went off so well that an elated Nivedita penned
the following lines to Miss Macleod on 4 December 1899 : ‘Friday [December 1, 1899] I had great
joy. I lectured before the Hull House Arts and Crafts Association, on the ancient arts of India,
Kashmir shawl-making, Taj etc. etc. was paid 15 dollars and received orders for Hindi brass
utensils and some embroideries!!!’ 5
It is evident from Nivedita’s utterances at Albert Hall, Kalighat, and Hull House that her
first lessons on the subject of Indian art, ideals, and beauty were obtained from Swami Vivekananda.
Since in her own utterances, letters, and essays Nivedita essentially gave expression to her
guru’s ideas on art, Indian art in particular, a brief discussion of Swami Vivekananda’s views on
art will not be impertinent.
3.1 The Seed — as sown by Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda articulated his ideas on art during a conversation he had in 1901 with
artist Ranadaprasad Das Gupta, the founder and professor of the Jubilee Art Academy,Calcutta.
Swamiji said: ‘I had the opportunity of seeing the beauties of art of nearly every civilised country
in the world, but I saw nothing like the development of art which took place in our country dur-
ing the Buddhistic period. During the regime of the Mogul Emperors also, there was a marked
development of artand the Taj and the Jumma Masjid etc. are standing monuments of that
culture.’
Further, Swamiji pointed out that true art was first an expression of an idea and second,
revelation just not of the external beauty of nature but more importantly, and more profoundly,
of the inner beauty of things. The idea expressed through art should bring out the power and
originality of the artist, and not merely display his skill. After all, art a painting, for example is
different from a photograph in being the likeness as seen and interpreted through the originality
of the artist’s brain.
In bringing this originality into play, Swamiji went on to say, the Indian artist should focus
on ’the characteristic idea’ of the Indian nation: ‘Each nation has a characteristic of its own. In
its manners and customs, in its mode of living, in painting and sculpture is found the expression
of that characteristic idea’. This clearly implies different expressions for different people, in
keeping with their national characteristics, was the order of true art, and this surely rules out
the possibility of imitation of of the characteristic idea of one nation by another nation.
Swamiji observed that the primary bases as also the principal motives of art were different
in Europe and India. In Europe people were largely material realists and hence their art took
fidelity to nature as the primary basis and principal motive of art. The Indians believed in a tran-
5 Letter of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 1, p.254
12
scendent Reality beyond nature and so idealism is the principal motive of artistic development
in India. Each must advance in its own way, innovating as best as it could in the process.
Swamiji observed sorrowfully that such was not the case with the India of his time. The
contemporary Indian artists deviated from Idealism, the characteristic of India, and took to
European ways of expression, which could not but retard the development of art in India. ‘At-
tempts to give expression to original ideas in art are no longer seen,’ Swamiji lamented. He
urged Ranadaprasad to work for the revival of ancient ideals in India art. He cited the example
of his English poem ‘Kali the Mother’ - which captured the idea of Kali, the Universal Mother,
as the union of the blissful and terrible aspects of existence and asked Ranadaprasad to express
through his brush that which he himself had done through his pen.
Swamiji next showed Ranadaprasad the design that he had sketched for the seal of the
Ramakrishna Mission. The logo showed a wavy lake with a lotus in full bloom and a swan, the
rising sun in the background, and a serpent encircling these. On Ranadaprasad expressing his
inability to grasp the significance in the logo, Swamiji explained that the wavy waters of the
lake symbolized karma, the full-blown lotus bhakti, the rising sun jnana, the encircling serpent
yoga and the awakened kundalini, and the swan the Paramatman or the Supreme Self. Taken
as a unit the design expressed the idea that by the union of karma, jnana, bhakti, and yoga, the
vision of the Paramatman is obtained.
Ranadaprasad, who was an artist of some distinction, was left spellbound by Swamiji’s dis-
course on the ideals of art, particularly Indian art, and the vastness of his idea underlying the
symbols of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. ‘I have never heard such instructive words on
the subject of art in my life. Bless me, sir, that I can work out the ideas I have got from you,’ he
said.
Nivedita was not an artist like Ranadaprasad, but what she did by way of giving a new di-
mension to the art movement of India as also her promotion of young artists as the protagonists
of the new art movement with the goal of national awakening in India was singularly signifi-
cant and bore the imprint of her guru’s ideas on the subject. This will be evident as we proceed
further into the subject.
3.2 Inspiring Artists
3.2.1 Okakura Kakuzo
Apart from Swami Vivekananda, Okakura Kakuzo and E B Havell were two other persons from
whom Nivedita drew her nourishment in respect of her ideas on art and the art movement
in India. Okakura came to Calcutta in January 1902 to take Swami Vivekananda to Japan to
attend a congress of religions. Ailing as he was at that time, Swamiji could not make the trip to
Japan, but having known that Okakura was a specialist in traditional Japanese art too, Swamij
accompanied him to Bodha Gaya. During his week-long stay in Bodh Gaya, he explained to
13
Okakura the spirit, artistic nuances, and historicity of the stone sculptures of the Mahabodhi
temple.
Swamiji left his mortal frame on 4 July 1902, but Okakura’s assciation with India and Indian
art continued, with Nivedita stepping in as his guide in India. Art was the common bond between
the two. Okakura was a theoretician of art and a leader of the new art movement in Japan. Like
Swamiji and Nivedita, he was of the opinion that the fashion of imitating Europe in art could
not do Japan any good. His struggles in this respect against the Japanese establishment, his
relinquishment of the post of Director of the Government Art School at Ueno, Tokyo, his founding
of the Nippon Bijitsuin, or Hall of Fine Arts at Yanaka, in the suburbs of Tokyo, and his giving
a new life to Japanese art through the Nippon Bijitsuin — all these, plus his theory that Asia is
one and that Asian countries such as Japan and India must engage in cultural exchange of their
respective treasures in art endeared Okakura to Nivedita so much that she agreed to rewrite
Okakura’s book, Ideals of the East,contributing, in the process, a rich ‘Introduction’ to the book,
published in 1903.
In her ‘Introduction’, Nivedita made the following appreciative points about Okakura’s book:
(I) that Okakura stood firmly for a strong re-nationalizing of Japanese art in opposition to the
pseudo-Europeanizing tendency that was so fashionable throughout the East. (ii) that it was
very reassuring to be told by so competent an authority as Okakura that, like in religion dur-
ing the era of Ashoka, India had once led the whole world in sculpture, painting, and architec-
ture and that her influence in such spheres of art spread first to China and thence to Japan;
(iii) that Okakura discounted the theory of Greek influence on Indian sculpture, just as Swami
Vivekananda did at the Paris Exhibition of 1900; and (iv) that Japan borrowed her ideals of art
from India.
To these appreciative points about Okakura’s book, Nivedita added the hope that art in India
may rise again ‘in a few decades and the world may again witness the Indianising of the East.’
3.2.2 E B Havell
Like Swami Vivekananda and Okakura, E B Havell, the British principal of the Government
School of Art, Calcutta, stood in opposition to the Europeanization of Indian art and strongly
promoted its re-nationalizing. As Havell’s approach to art was very similar to that of Nivedita,
a bond of friendship de veloped between the two from their very first meeting on 28 February
1902 in Calcutta. This relationship flowered in course of time and had far-reaching influence on
the new art movement in India.
Havell’s orientation to the Indian art as well as his position as principal of the Government
School of Art at Calcutta enabled him to emerge as the champion of the new direction Indian
art movement was to take. Unlike his predecessors in the office of the principal - Schaumburg
and O’Gilardi - Havell, in the face of opposition from some of his Indian students, springing from
their addiction to Europeanising - so fashionable then among many students - as also ridicule
14
and harassment by members of the British bureaucracy, was successful in introducing into the
curriculum of the art school the age-old art styles of India: Ajanta, Mughal, Rajput, and the like.
He encouraged his students to take to Indian subjects in painting, sculpture, and other forms of
art and to follow in their artistic development the norms of what Swami Vivekananda, and later
Nivedita, called ‘Indianness’ and ‘ideality’. Like Swamiji, Havell too considered the imitation of
the European art style by Indians as ugly. All this brought Nivedita and Havell together in the
promotion of the new art movement in India.
Macleod shows in a letter that she was first introduced to Havell by one Miss Hay: ‘She took
me to see the head of the Art School here - which was a success.’ Nivedita reports Havell as
saying to her in the first meeting that the government’s orientation towards promoting Euro-
peanism in Indian schools of art was not right and that though he was doing his best to turn
the tide, he could only ’teach a man to draw and paint’, but he ’cannot make him an artist or a
genius!’
Many of Havell’s assertions — for example, about the idealism and Indianness of Indian art,
and the absurdity of the contention of Greek influence on Indian art—had already found ex-
pression in Swami Vivekananda’s utterances. The fact that Havell too subscribed to such views,
articulating them in his own words and style, gave Nivedita special joy. Havell performed a dif-
ficult job under equally difficult circumstances. His colleagues, particularly in the bureaucracy,
were not happy with his approach to Indian art. Havell sought release from mental tension in
Tantric exercises. Unfortunately, the result was otherwise; he lost his mental balance for some
time and had to resign from the principal-ship of the Calcutta art school and return to England.
But he recovered soon and continued in his role of defender and patron of Indian art. During
his stay in England,Havell kept writing on Indian art. He would take part in scholarly meet-
ings in England and protest against denigration of Indian art whenever the occasion would so
demand. In one such meeting, in February 1910, he registered his protest against Sir George
Birdwood’s observation that the Buddha statues of India had some ugly features. Far from be-
ing ugly, Havell countered, the Buddha statues were among the best creations of art. He sent a
copy of this speech to Nivedita. In her letter of 3 March 1910, Nivedita fully endorsed Havell’s
view, emphasizing that the Buddha statues of India were not only among the finest specimens of
Indian art but were also among ‘the noblest symbols in the history of man’. She regarded Bird-
wood’s remarks on the Buddha statues as ‘the very effrontery of Philistinism’, indicating noth-
ing else than his inability to appreciate that the Indian ideals of meditative equanimity of mind
found its best portrayal in the Buddha images of India. Commending Havell for the ‘splendid
fight’ on behalf of Indian art, Nivedita wrote in her letter of 7 April 1910: ‘We were all delighted
with your splendid fight. You are doing wonders for Indian Art – and I now see how even your
resignation of the work here can be made to serve the great cause’ (2.1085). As for Grunwedel’s
observation that the Hindus were incapable of evolving real sculpture, Nivedita remarked: ‘I
cannot understand what Grunwedel means by his strictures. Surely the fact that these [Ellora]
15
statues stand against a rock does not constitute them mere relief!!!’ (2.1086). Nivedita affirmed
that each of her visits to Elephanta and Ellora filled her with awe and admiration for Hindu
sculpture of the pre-Muslim period. Again: ‘It [Ajanta] is a vastly greater factor in the history
of India than one cd. [could] have dreamt. And Hindu sculpture of 600 to 1000 a.d. is magnif-
icent! Such slenderness and beauty – especially of limb–one has never seen. This of course at
Ellora and Elephanta. The sculpture at Ajanta could not be compared with it. But the painting,
especially of the Young Buddha and Yasodhara of Cave! Magnificent!’
3.2.3 Abanindranath Tagore
In her effort to make Indian art truly nationalist and powerful, with imaginative presentation of
ideas, Nivedita got an enthusiastic ally in Abanindranath Tagore. Abanindranath was appointed
vice principal of the Calcutta art school in 1898. Havell was the man behind the appointment,
and it was he who persuaded Abanindranath to accept the offer. At first, Abanindranath was
hesitant to take up this assignment. He did not have any previous job experience. Besides, he
was deeply grieved by the death of one of his young daughters and was not keeping good health.
He also had the habit of smoking hookah seven times a day and was polite enough to point
out that, being given to such a habit, he could not possibly be good enough for any job. But
Havell would not relent. He promised to take care of Abanindranath’s personal habits, as also
of his health, by making suitable arrangements, including his mid-day meal at the art school.
As for routine office-work, Havell assured Abanindranath that this would be handled by the
headmaster and head clerk of the school, and that Abanindranath would be left free to do his
own paintings and teach the young students at the school. It was only through such persuasion
that Havell was able to induce Abanindranath to accept the post of vice principal at the Calcutta
art school. This undoubtedly speaks volumes for Havell’s unbounded love for Indian art and his
recognition of Abanindranath’s talent.6
Having joined the Calcutta art school, Abanindranath was quick to appreciate the work that
awaited him: he was to create paintings with Indian ideas and make art a vehicle for expressing
the glory of national life–past, present, and future. Nivedita constantly stressed this theme. This
common perception of Indian art drew Nivedita and Abanindranath close to each other and gave
the new Indian art movement a great boost. Abanindranath gave expression to the nationalist
philosophy of art through such masterpieces as Bharat-Mata during the nationalist Swadeshi
movement.7 Published in the June 1906 number of the magazine Bhandar, Bharat-Mata gave
6 Abanindranath was not a student of Havell. Yet, in his autobiography Jorasankor Dhare, he reverentially refers
to Havell as his guru and unhesitatingly acknowledges that but for the wholehearted support of Havell he could not
have landed the vice-principalship of the art school. He also acknowledges candidly that Havell gave him more love
than he himself could ever give to his own disciples such as Nandalal. See also Letters of Sister Nivedita, 2.1287.
7 We have it from Nandalal Basu that Abanindranath drew this picture during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal
and named it Banga-Mata. At the time of its publication in Bhandar, however, the picture was titled Bharat-Mata.
According to Nandalal, it was Sister Nivedita who suggested this change in name. See Panchanan Mondal, Bharat
Shilpi Nandalal, 4 vols (Bolpur: Rarh Gabeshana Parshad, 1389 be), 1.435.
16
Figure 3.1: Bharat-Mata by Abanindranath Tagore
expression to the heritage, glory, and aspirations of the nation that was India. Nivedita wrote
appreciatively:
We have here a picture which bids fair to prove the beginning of a new age in
Indian art. Using all the added means of expression which the modern period has
bestowed upon him, the artist [Abanindranath] has here given expression neverthe-
less to a purely Indian idea, in Indian form. The curving line of lotuses and the
white radiance of the halo are beautiful additions to the Asiatically- conceived figure
with its four arms, as the symbol of the divine multiplication of power. This is the
first masterpiece, in which an Indian artist has actually succeeded in disengaging,
as it were, the spirit of the motherlandgiver of Faith and Learning, of Clothing and
Foodand portraying Her, as she appears to the eyes of Her children.8
The picture marks the beginning of a new age in Indian painting in emphatically conveying
the idea that if Indians were to be worthy children of Bharat Mata, they were to make ‘nation-
ality, and the civic ideal, and every form of free and vigorous cooperation for mutual service and
mutual aid’ the distinguishing marks of their lives. The symbolism of Bharat-Mata was meant to
give such direction to the Indians in the decades ahead (3.5760). It is the feature mentioned last
that Nivedita characterized as the central function of art in contemporary India. Nivedita went
8 Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 3.57. The Bengali translation of Nivedita’s comments appeared in the Au-
gust 1906 number of Prabasi.
17
ecstatic over Bharat-Mata as she saw it fulfilling this central function of art towards nation-
making in India. She wrote how she would utilize this painting to unite the people of India in
their love towards ‘the Spirit of the Motherland, the giver of all good’: ‘I would reprint it, if I
could, by tens of thousands, and scatter it broadcast over the land, till there was not a peas-
ant’s cottage, or a craftsman’s hut, between Kedar Nath and Cape Comorin, that had not this
presentment of Bharat-Mata somewhere on its walls’ (3.60).
3.3 Rejuvenating Social and Civic Ideals in Indian Art
A perusal of Nivedita’s letters written between 1903 and 1906 shows the gradual flowering of
her interest in various facets of Indian art. Her visit to places featuring various aspects of Indian
art and painting, sculpture, architecture was an offshoot of this interest. Her letters bear pen-
pictures of some of the places she visited—Ajanta, Ellora, Chittaurgarh, Bodh Gaya, Sanchi,
Bhopal, Ujjaini, Ajmer, Agra, Allahabad, and Benares.
The one supremely important point to be highlighted is that Nivedita was interested not
only in ancient and religious art but equally in social and civic art. Tireless in her campaign to
direct the attention of young artists to the social and civic aspects of art, she would point out
that such aspects of art were developed in Europe and in order to give them due place, modern
India will have to join hands with Europe. As she observed, in matters of art India was not
to hark back to old ways alone; she was to consider the suitability of new approaches as well,
within, of course, the framework of Indian conventions and associations. To be really Indian, art
must, above all, appeal to the Indian heart in an Indian way; and to be of the highest mark,
it must arouse in Indians such sensibilities as would make them feel nobler.It was with this
conceptual framework that Nivedita advocated relating Indian art to civic and social ideals and
recommended that India take a lesson or two from the works of such European artists as Puvis
de Chavannes, a master of civic paintings.
Of Puvis de Chavannes’s murals, ‘Sainte Geneviève Watching over Paris’ elicited the greatest
admiration from Nivedita. The fresco painted on the walls of the Pantheon in Paris shows Sainte
Geneviève praying for the well-being of Paris in the dead of night, when the whole city is asleep.
It is the idea of the picture—the prayer of the selfless soul for the well-being of humanity which
appealed to her most. The mural was, in her opinion, among the finest portrayals of civic and
social consciousness.
The idea had such an irresistible appeal for Nivedita — dedicated as she was to the work of
extending national consciousness in all spheres of Indian life that she arranged to fix a picture
of the mural over her writing desk in order to have it always before her eyes.
It was Nivedita’s firm conviction that the masses could be empowered only by infusing higher
ideals and a higher consciousness into their very being. Art, she opined, must be directed to the
realization of this goal. Short of such consciousness, external measures to promote the well-being
18
of people will be short of depth and be superficial in nature.

It would be relevant to point out that while Nivedita was all praise for ‘Sainte Geneviève
Watching over Paris’, she was not fond of some of Puvis de Chavannes’s other pictures. The
‘Sacred Forest’, for example, which adorned the walls of the amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, was
not to her liking. While appreciating the forms and colour effects of the composition, she felt that
the painter had lost his sense of proportion in the portrayal of human characters. She thought
that the artist’s presentation of some characters in the nude was not well-conceived.
Nivedita was not fond of Western nude paintings. While she did not deny that even physical-
ity could be presented in spiritually significant terms, she advised Indian artists against blind
imitation of their Western counterparts and their style in this regard. ‘High art’ that advocated
sensuous presentation was not her cup of tea. She could not subscribe to the view of art for art’s
sake and was firmly of the view that art must sub-serve civic, social, and national ends. After
all, she argued, man was not an isolated being. On the contrary, he was, by all means, a social
and spiritual being and therefore he must be accountable to his city, to his society, and to his
nation for his artistic creations. However prudish Nivedita might sound today, the relevance of
her viewpoint on art, in the context of the particular need for national awakening in the India
of her time, cannot be denied. Further, she was an Advaita Vedantist. So a higher ideal, with its
spiritual significance, was more important to her than mere sensual satisfaction. Nivedita sug-
gested that, like the walls of the Pantheon in Paris, the walls of the Federation Hall in Calcutta9
be also covered with civic and historical paintings of the type represented in ‘Sainte Geneviève
Watching over Paris’. As for the architecture of the Federation Hall, Nivedita suggested that it
follow the architecture of Cave Nineteen of Ajanta, which in her opinion was ‘one of the architec-
tural triumphs of the world ’. Nivedita observed that the architectural richness of ancient India
was such that India could be an example to the rest of the world and ruled out any borrowing
the West in respect of the architecture of the proposed Federation Hall. Why should India ever
desert the noble voice of her past for the hybrid models of Western architecture? She threw up
this all-important question which demanded serious introspection.
9 The foundation stone of the Federation Hall was laid on 16 October 1905—the day the partition of Bengal came
into effect—both as a protest against the partition and as a symbol indicating the partition could not destroy the
unity in spirit that prevailed among the Bengalis on either side.
19
HAPTER
4
C
T HE B OSE WAR
‘You ask about the Science. For the

last year we have been writing
bombshell.

p.681
n November 30, 1917, Dr. J.C. Bose dedicated the Bose Institute with the words:
O I dedicate today this Institute not merely a laboratory, but a temple.
As one enters this ‘temple’, one sees at the entrance a fountain, ‘the memorial fountain with
its bas-relief of a woman carrying light to the temple’.
Who is she? Who is the ‘Lady with the Lamp?
The memorial carries in its bosom the mortal remains of Sister Nivedita. Sister Nivedita
is the lady who with lamp of her genius presented the world one of the finest Indian scientific
intellects of all time.
A score and four years of intense struggle came to an end at the realization of this cherished
dream of Jagadish Chandra, and it was natural that on such an occasion, when his glory had
reached the pinnacles, he remembered his comrades. In a reminiscent mood he said, ‘In all my
struggling efforts I have not been altogeher solitary; while the world doubted, there had been a
few, now in the City of Silence, who never wavered in their trust.’ Among them was surely Sister
Nivedita.
Nivedita used to refer to this work of Dr. J. C. Bose as ‘The Bose War.’ Considering the strug-
gles she had to go through for the sake of Indian science, its being a war can never be overem-
phasized.
20
CHAPTER 4. THE BOSE WAR
According to one of the letters of Sister Nivedita to Rabindranath Tagore, she was acquainted
with Dr. J.C. Bose towards the end of 1898. She shuddered at sight of the pitiful conditions under
which one of the brightest scientists of the world was struggling. A true Indian scientific prodigy
and yet such a condition! Her heart welled up with emotions, mingling with her dreams of a
glorious India. She never knew passive sympathy. She plunged heart and soul in Dr. Bose’s
work -’the Bose war’!
Before going into the mainstream, it would not be impertinent to know how actually she got
involved in it.
Sister Nivedita came to India in 1898 in response to a call from Swami Vivekananda to
serve the cause of education of Indian women. The first lesson that she took from her Guru
was that she had to forget her own past and work for India in the Indian way. Her interests
in life were manifold, and being gifted with a penetrating intelligence, it did not take her long
to enter the Indian way of life, completely forgetting her old self. To quote Mrs. Bose: She had
so completely identified herself with us that I never heard her use phrases like Indian need or
Indian women. It was always our need, our women. She was never an outsider who came to help,
but one of us who was striving and groping about to find the way of salvation.’ When the revival
of India became her sole passion in life, she emphatically said that India’s hope for salvation lay
in revitalizing its own forces; in reliving its own ideals. She incessantly spoke and wrote about
them. She saw how indifferent the foreign government was to the sufferings of the Indians and
how its political interests led to the exploitation of the country. With the freedom-loving Irish
blood in her veins, she was vexed with any hindrance put in the way of the Indians. In utter
disgust, she wrote to Miss MacLeod in 1901:
‘India was absorbed in study; a gang of robbers came upon her and destroyed her land. The
mood is broken. Can the robbers teach her anything? No, she has to turn them out, and go back
to where she was before. Something like that, I fancy, is the true programme for India. And so I
have nothing to do with Christians or government agencies as long as the government is foreign.
That which is Indian for India, I touch the feet of, however stupid and futile. Anything else will
do a little good and much harm, and I have nothing to do with it. Yes, my way will do some harm,
to, but it will be vital to the people themselves. Good and evil of their own, not any other, and
for such harm I care nothing. They need it.’
It is not surprising then that, when Sister Nivedita came to know about Dr. Bose, his discov-
eries, and his single handed fight on the world-stage for having his theories recognized on the
one hand, and for establishing the importance of India’s contribution in the field of science on
the other hand she became interested in his work. In 1898, along with Mrs Bull, she had gone
to meet Dr. Bose. He was at that time engaged in his new investigations on ‘Response of the
Living and non-Living’. He was invited in August 1900 to the International Congress of Physics
arranged at the Paris Exhibition. The Government of India had deputed him to go there amidst
a world gathering, to read his paper on ‘Response of inorganic and Living Matter’.
21
Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita were in Paris at that time. Both felt proud that
an Indian was invited to speak of his discoveries in such an international gathering. Swami
Vivekananda later wrote in a letter how impressed he was by Bose’s exposition of his new re-
searches: ‘Here in Paris have assembled the great of every land, each to proclaim glory of his
country. ... Among these peerless men gathered from all parts of the world, where is thy rep-
resentative, O thou the country of my birth? Out of this vast assembly, a young man stood for
thee, one of thy heroic sons, whose words have electrified the audience, and will thrill all his
countrymen. Blessed be this heroic son and blessed be his devoted and peerless helpmate who
stands by him always.’1
After his return to England from Paris, Dr. Bose had a physical breakdown. He was operated
upon in December. After that, he was invited to stay at Sister Nivedita’s mother’s house in
Wimbledon. In a letter of 4th January, 1901, she wrote to Miss Macleod: ‘Dr.B. is practically
well, and Mother has left her little house to them and us, and gone away, so we are now staying
in Wimbledon.’Later, when Mrs. Bose was ill, she was also restored to health at Wimbledon.
The ‘Bose War’ actually started after his Paris paper. His scientific papers were not allowed
to be published, or were deliberately misrepresented, as we have known from the letters quoted
above. Dr. Bose was tired, and did not want to continue writing papers for scientific societies. He
desired to write books, but felt no urge to do so. He wrote to his friend Rabindranath: ‘My work
is in a way stopped, because I have written 11 papers and not one has been published. I do not
understand what has happened. I think of writing books, but do not feel like looking at those
writings again.’
It was in this work that Sister Nivedita became a great help to him. From her personal
notes, we come to know that from 1904 onwards she had been constantly engaged in revising
and editing Dr. Bose’s papers. In 1905, she informed Miss Macleod: ‘I hope we shall have a book
on botany out in the autumn that ought to be very astonishing in the scientific world. ’2
Referring to the book, she writes, in 1906, to Mrs. Bull:
‘Vines has written a long letter setting out the hard criticism which the book
will have to meet. Poor. B., it has alternately depressed and angered him, but this
morning we shall have to answer it, and then I hope it will cease to rankle.
There will certainly be an outcry, because he has quoted others so little, but you
know we decided on that deliberately, because it seemed better not to quote names.
Whom to quote would simply be to pillory for foolishness and error. It simply means,
as I said to B., that he was to turn his face away from the past and look to the future.
The old, whom we superseded, will hate him, but the young will hear his voice and
follow him. Leaders and prophets must need to be solitary, so he hopes you will not
1 Pattrick Geddes, The Life and Work of Sir Jagadish C. Bose, p. 91
2 Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol 2 , p.730
22
be bitterly disappointed, because there will be no chorus of welcome and applause.’ 3
That Sister Nivedita was always occupied in helping Dr. Bose is also recorder by Sister Deva-
mata in her book, Days in an Indian Monastery. In 1909, she stayed at Sister Nivedita’s school
as a guest, and referring to those days she wrote: ‘Literary work absorbed Sister Nivedita too
profoundly to enable her to take part to any extent in teaching. She was occupied also in assist-
ing the famous botanist, Dr. J.C.Bose, in preparing a new book on plant life. He spent several
hours every day at the school and sometimes lunched there, so I had a delightful opportunity to
know him.’
Besides helping Dr. Bose with writing, she also sought financial help for the publication of
his books from her friends like Mrs. Bull. Praising Mrs. Bull for spending her money usefully,
she wrote to her in 1910: ‘You know this school is really yours, and my writings are really yours,
and the science books are yours, the laboratory will be yours. ... Don’t you feel that it is a goodly
array of things that you have made possible by your support? ... No, I must say that used as you
have used it, money seems to me a great and good thing.’4
But the greatest gift of Sister Nivedita to Jagadish Chandra was perfect comradeship. She
was a seeker of truth and therefore knew no fear. She keenly felt the wrong done by the Western
scientists to him and considered it shameful. In no uncertain terms she condemned it. ‘As for
England’, she wrote to her friend, Miss Macleod, ‘this Bose War seems to spell individual and
general degradation. I am sure if he were in England he would do much he could not help doing
much but as fas as she herself is concerned, England, or all that was noble in her, at least seems
dead.’ And in an emotional outburst she adds: ‘Oh India,India! Who shall undo this awful this
awful doing of my nation to you? Who shall atone for one of the million bitter insults showered
daily on the bravest and the keenest nerved and best of all your sons?’5
In India, she became a bearer of this message that Indians should no longer look to the West
and accept what it offers, but must enter the arena of modern thought and knowledge as masters
and vindicate their intellectual superiority. She prayed for this ‘Man of Science’, and exhorted
the people to remember him at their prayers daily. In her last birthday greetings to him, sent
from Geneva in 1910, she hailed him as an adventurer and the leader of people:
When you receive this, it will be our beloved 30th, the birthday of birthdays.
May it be infinitely blessed and may it be followed by many of ever increasing
sweetness and blessedness! Outside there is the great statue of Christopher Colum-
bus and under his name only the words, ‘La Patrie’, and I thought of the day to come
when such words will be speaking silence under your name how spiritually you are
already reckoned with him and all those other great adventurers who have sailed
trackless seas to bring their people good.
23
Be ever victorious! Be a light unto the people and a lamp unto their feet! And be
filled with peace!
You the great spiritual mariner who have found the new worlds!6
Since 1900, when Sister Nivedita became a friend of the Boses, she spent every holiday
with them in India or abroad; on pilgrimages or on hill stations. To restore her ill health, she
went during the Puja vacation of 1911 to Darjeeling with them, and there on the 13th October
breathed her last.
What a loss it was to Jagadish Chandra, only their intimate friends knew. Sister Christine
wrote in a letter to Miss Macleod in 1913: ‘Dr. Bose is much better physically and mentally, and
one no longer has the fear that he may not be with us long. But life is so dull for him now. He
constantly says: I do not know how to pass my days. Margot(Siter Nivedita) gave him sympathy,
understanding, enthusiasm, inspiration, and help in his work. You can imagine what a void she
left.’
After Dr. Bose’s fourth deputation to the West in 1914, all his struggles came to an end. His
discoveries were universally accepted, and his instruments made famous. In 1916, he again went
to the West. In 1917, his dream of a Research Institute was fulfilled. He lived on till 1937, a great
and successful man, quite a long passage of time for people to forget about his friends of old. But
all did not forget. On receiving the news of his death, his dear old friend Rabindranath Tagore
spoke about him to his students in Santiniketan, ending thus: ‘In the days of his struggles,
Jagadish gained an invaluable energizer and helper in Sister Nivedita, and in any record of his
life’s work, her name must be given a place of honour. Thenceforward, his renown spread all
over the world, overcoming every obstacle.’
6 Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol 2, p.1164
24
HAPTER
5
C
I NTERPRETING I NDIAN H ISTORY
“One of the first tasks before the

Indian people is the rewriting of
their own history. And this, in
accordance with the tacit rule of
modern learning, will have to be
carried out, not by one, but by a
combination of individuals ; in
other words, by an Indian learned
society."
— Sister Nivedita, Complete

Works, Vol. 4, p.122
ivedita felt keenly the need for a through rewriting and reconstruction of India’s history
N on a truthful and sound basis. In her writings we find abundant proofs of her knowledge
of Indian history particularly religious history. But she felt that there was need for re-
discovering India from her ancient past to later phases. At her time knowledge of Indian history
was quite limited and inadequate. Available historical works at the time were mostly written by
Britishers. In these works distorted accounts were furnished of India’s history. That made the
task of re-writing of India’s history on truly national lines all the more urgent.
5.1 An Interesting Correspondence
In an interesting letter to the historian Dr. Radha Kumud Mukherjee,1 Siter Nivedita strongly
emphasized the need for proper historical research in India. In this connection she mentioned
1 Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 4, p.389
25
CHAPTER 5. INTERPRETING INDIAN HISTORY
several points. We may note these one by one. She wrote:
In all that you do, be dominated by the normal aim. Remember that Truth, in its
fullness, is revealed, not only through the intellect, but also through the heart, and
the will.
The historical researcher must have a strong moral sense and a deep regard for truth. This
meant that even if some unpleasant facts were found, these also had to be recorded. Another
implication of proper research was that the approach was not only to be intellectual, but it was
also to be guided by the heart and will. That is to say, a deep feeling and a firm determination
were also to be guiding factors. There was to be the element of sympathy, and also the will to
know.
Never be contended with the ideas and the wisdom which are gathered in the
study. We are bodies, as well as minds. We have other senses and other faculties,
besides those of language. We have limbs, as well as brains. Use the body. Use all
the senses, use even the limbs, in the pursuit of truth. That which is learned, not
only with the mind, by means of manuscripts and books, but also through the eyes
and the touch, by travel and by work, is really known. Therefore, if you want to
understand India, visit the historic centres of each age.
In other words, all the powers of mind and body must be used to the full. Important historical
centres must also be visited in order to gain the right perspective.
Never forget the future. ‘By means of the Past to understand the Present, for
the conquest of the Future’. Let this be your motto. Knowledge without a purpose is
mere pedantry.
This is a highly significant instruction. Historians usually become too much involved in the
past. To discover and reveal the past becomes often an obsession for the historian. In that event
historical research misses its true aim. It becomes purposeless. The right procedure will be
to know first the past, then to understand the past in the light of the present, then with the
knowledge attempts should be made to mould the future. Thereby a high purpose is fulfilled.
And now comes the question of the scope of your work the question of what you
are actually to do. On two points I know you to be clear, first, you are determined,
whatever you do, through it to serve the Indian Nationality, and second, you know
that to do this, you must make yourself a world authority in that particular branch
of work.
26
Thus the historian is to have two high ambitions. First, through his knowledge he must
endeavour to serve the cause of the nation. Secondly, he should study his subject so deeply and
widely that he may become an international authority in his branch of specialization. She also
points out that the field of labour may be widened to such an extent that the Indian may truly
assimilate the modern spirit. Three elements are necessary modern science, Indian history and
the world-sense or geography. A person may specialise in any one of those three, but he may also
try to have a broad background of historical knowledge.
To illustrate the above point, she says:
... if you were a worker in science, you might read a good deal of history, in in-
teresting forms, as recreation. And so on. One of the modes by which a line of high
research becomes democratised is this.
But whatever you do, plunge into it heart and soul. Believe that, in a sense, it
alone, - this modern form of knowledge, young though it maybe, - is true. Carry into
it no prepossessions. Do not try through it, to prove that your ancestors understood
all things ...
In other words the spirit of work must be thoroughly scientific, absolutely free from any bias
or prejudice. There should not in particular, be the tendency to glorify the past in an emotional
way.
And now as to the subject itself. Already you have progressed in the direction of
History and Indian Economics. It is to be supposed therefore that your work itself
will be somewhere in this region. But side by side with your own specialism ... do not
forget to interest yourself in subjects as a whole.
In this context Nivedita suggests that a person studying history must study geography also.
Similarly, the specialist in geography must study history also. This is a very practical sugges-
tion, because there is a close interconnection between the two subjects. Another point made by
Nivedita in this context is:
Again if Indian History be your work of research, read the finest European trea-
tises on Western History. They may not always be valuable for their facts, but they
are priceless for their methods.
This is also a highly instructive suggestion. This will not only broaden the horizon of knowl-
edge, but will ensure a thorough training in methods of historical research.
Then Nivedita refers to some specific historical works published by European writers and
underlines their comprehensive and positivist approach. She proceeds to say:
27
In Indian history, such a point of view is conspicuous by its absence. Some writers
are interested in Buddhist India ... and some in various stages of Mahratta or Sikh
or Indo-Isalmic History ... But who has caught the palpitation of the Indian heart-
beat through one and all of these? It is India that makes Indian History glorious. It
is India that makes the whole joy of the Indian places.
5.2 Pointing The Throbbing National Unity
This daughter of India from the other shores was in full sympathy with the aspirations of the
Indian masses. She wanted to contribute to the rejuvenation of the Nation which was the sole
mission of her Guru. In the beginning she had placed much reliance on the sense of justice of the
British people. However later on she realised that the exalted British claims of human rights
and rule of law is only for the Britishers and not for the masses of the colonies. She therefore
became fully sympathetic to the aspirations of the Nationalists. She was an able defender of
India and her civilisation. Her book The Web of Indian Life was a convincing reply to the unfair
criticism of the European missionaries, notably Ms Catherine Mayo.
Her premium for Indian rejuvenation was national unity. She wrote: ‘The Mogul Empire fell
into decay and failed, simply because it did not understand how to base itself on a great popular
conception of Indian unity. It could neither assimilate the whole of the religious impulse of India,
nor yet detach itself completely from it. Hence, as a government, it succeeded neither in rooting
itself permanently, nor in creating that circuit of national energy which alone could have given
it endurance.’2 She also wanted to instill a sense of pride in the intellectual achievements of our
ancestors and readily conceded their superiority to the Europeans. On her visit to Rajgir, the
ancient capital of Magadha, she remarked: ‘Well may the Indian people glory in the ancestry
which already lived in this splendour, while that of Northern and Western Europe went clad in
painted woad.’3 Such kind remarks from a European were welcome at a time when Missionaries
rejoiced in deriding India and her religion.
In his introduction to her famous work The Web of Indian Life, poet Rabindranath Tagore
wrote ‘And this was the reason which made us deeply grateful to Sister Nivedita, that great-
hearted Western woman, when she gave utterance to her criticism of Indian life. She had won
her access to the inmost heart of our society by her supreme gift of sympathy. She did not come
to us with the impertinent curiosity of a visitor, nor did she elevate herself on a special high
perch.’4 These words are sufficient to prove that the observations of Sister Nivedita on Indian
history and culture were constructive and helpful to inspire the young.
2 Sister Nivedita, ‘The Web of Indian Life’, The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 2.247
3 Sister Nivedita, Footfalls of Indian History, The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 4.30.
4 Rabindranath Tagore in his ‘Introduction’ to ‘The Web of Indian Life’, The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita,
2.253.
28
HAPTER
6
C
E DUCATIONAL I DEAS OF S ISTER N IVEDITA
“Education! Ay, that is the

problem of India. How to give true
education, national education;
how to make you full men, true
sons of Bharatvarsha, and not
poor copies of Europe? Your
education should be an education
of the heart and the spirit, and of
the spirit as much of the brain; it
should be a living connection
between yourselves and your past
as well as the modern world!"

p.560
he meaning of the word India and the place of India in the world together
T
tre.
with a burning desire to serve India, the soil and the people,are the things
that are to be recognized as education for women. These things are the cen-
So wrote Sister Nivedita. The quoted lines contain the essence of the educational ideas of
Sister Nivedita which she sought to translate into practice by opening a school for girls and
women in the Baghbazar area of Calcutta.
29
CHAPTER 6. EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF SISTER NIVEDITA
6.1 The Rationale
What was the need and rationale for establishing such a school? The rationale lay in the fact
that the system of education as it was prevalent at that time was a discipline rather than a
development. Taking jnto account the three R’s at the primary stage, and higher education at
the university stage, the prevalent system covered only a handful of Bengali girls — a mere
six and a half per cent of the total populatlon of Bengal. There was, therefore, a great need for
further diffusion of education along meaningful lines. Having established the rationale, Nivedita
pointed out that education in her school should mean development adapted to the actual needs
of lives.
It is undeniable that if we could add to the present lives of Indian women, larger
scope for individuality, a larger social potentiality and some power of economic re-
dress, without adverse criticism,direct or indirect, of present institutions, we should
achieve something of which there is dire necessity.
Nivedita was asked in the West about the purpose in establishing her school in India. The
answer that she gave deserves to be quoted in view of the clarity with which she articulated
her purpose:
To give education [not instruction merely] to orthodox Hindu girls in a form that
is suited to the needs of the country. I recognise that if any Indian institutions are
faulty it is the right of the Indian people themselves to change them. We may only
aim to produce ripe judgment and power of action. A1so, I consider that we should
confer a direct benefit on any Indian woman whom we could enable to earn her own
living, without loss of social honour.
Implicit in the above statement is the educational philosophy of Sister Nivedita on two
counts. First, like her Master1 , she believed in natural growth. Education must have the stand-
point of the learner and help him/her to develop in his/her own way. This philosophy of natural
growth found explicit statement in a letter she wrote to Alberta Sturges (Lady Sand witch) on
27 September 1908.
The fact is, Education, like growth, must be always from within. Only the inner
struggle, only the will of the taught is of avail. Those who think otherwise do so only
because they are ignorant of education as a science by itself. We know that it is true
of ourselves as individuals, that only the effort we make ourselves advances us. All
1
...all is a growth from inside out ... the seed can only assimilate the surrounding elements, but grows a
tree in its own nature
See Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 4,p. 347
30
the hammering in the world from outside,would be useless — if indeed it did not
repel, and destroy our will to climb. The same is true of societies as of individuals —
education must be from within.
Secondly, she would do nothing to disturb the existing social, religious, or economic order. She
would offer no criticism of the existing institutions with which the Indians were familiar, believ-
ing that every country had a right to lay down its own etiquette — and was entitled to have
respect for it. This was where the Christian missionaries had gone wrong — in seeking not the
furtherance of Indian social life but its disintegration. As she says,
The missionaries are mistaken because, whether right or wrong in their assertion
of the present need of education, they are not in a position to discriminate rightly
the elements of value in the existing training of Oriental girls for life.
The Christian educationists disregarded the value of education that a girl received from her
grandmother at home. Far from neglecting such education, Nivedita put a premium on it:
There ought to be interaction between school and home. But the home is the chief
of these two factors. To it, the school should be subordinated, and not the reverse.
That is to say, the education of an Indian girl should be directed towards making of
her a more truly Indian woman. She must be enabled by it to recognize for herself
what are the Indian ideals, and how to achieve them; not made contemptuous of
those ideals and left to gather her own from the moral and social chaos of novels
by Ouida. ...Indian ideals of family cohesion, of charity, of frugality and of honour;
the admiration of the national heroes; the fund of poetic legends, must be daily and
hourly discussed and commented on. All that makes India India, must flow through
the Indian home to make it Indian.
What courses would Nivedita offer in the school to drive this sense of Indianness to the very
bone of Indians? Founded on the kindergarten system, the school would offer:
1. Bengali language and literature
2. English language and literature
3. Elementary mathematics
4. Elementary science
5. Manual training,
by which she meant the use of hands for the making of handicrafts. The immediate objective
of the last subject was to enable every pupil to earn her own living without leaving her home.
31
Its ultimate objective was to bring about a revival of old Indian industries and arts. It should
not go unmentioned here that in including manual training in the curriculum, Sister Nivedita
anticipated one of the basic foundations of Gandhiji’s Nai Talim and what goes by the name
of vocational education at the present time. Worthy of mention in this connection is the fact
that Nivedita proposed to take the help of the Hindu widows in her school 2 ‘to organise two or
three industries for which promising markets can be opened up in England, India and America.
Amongst these, the making of native jams, pickles and chutneys is to be included.’ 3 This sort of
thinking in terms of making women stand on their own legs economically should be considered
revolutionary in view of rigid orthodoxy of the Hindu society of that time.
Since Nivedita’s school was modelled on the kindergarten, 4 it is thus necessary to note what
exactly she meant by this system. She despised imitation and all things foreign, and yet how is it
that she followed a system which was of foreign origin? Is there any apparent contradiction? No,
there is no contradiction if the real import of what she meant by its use in the Indian context is
understood. The system was, no doubt, of foreign origin in that the Swiss educationist Pestalozzi
laid down its broad principles and the German educationist Froebel made the first application
of these principles in certain directions. Nivedita made it clear from the very outset that the
kindergarten in Europe and the kindergarten in India were two different things. She Indianized
the kindergarten, making that system an ‘efflorescence of Indian life itself.’ As she insightfully
observes in her letter to Swami Akhandananda,
India cannot swallow the kindergarten as practised in Germany. But she can
learn to understand that, and then make one of her own, different in details, but
concordant in intention.’
Nivedita suggests the development in schools of home art5 such as clay modelling, paper cutting,
and drawing in the form of alpana. She also found great virtue in the image-worship of the
Hindus, in cow- puja6 and in the traditional religious vows or vratas observed by Indian girls.
Writes Nivedita:
2 She had a women’s section added to the girls’ section in her school in 1903
3 Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, Vol 4, p. 377. It should be noted here that a great advocate of industrial
education and economic emancipation of women, Swami Vivekananda talked of setting up cottage industries at
Belur Math and he was the first to moot the idea to Sister Nivedita that the girls at her school could make jam
etc. greatly elated over this idea, Nivedita wrote in her letter to Ms. Macleod, dated 07.06.1899: "It strikes me as
excellent. You have no idea of the deliciousness of green mango jam. And of course you know Bengali chutney. I am
sure we can do this, and it would be widening the scope of our work educationally. To be managed entirely by women,
think of that! Of course, we would make very small beginning. Oh, I am dying to really earn what we want."
4 Kindergarten, literally means the garden of children. In the system of the school is likened to a garden, the
teacher to a gardener and every child to a plant.

5 ‘The right course is not to introduce a foreign process’, she writes, ‘but to take home art and develop it along its
own lines, carrying it to greater ends, by growth from within’ See Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol 2, p.580
6 Nivedita writes in a footnote in The Web of Indian Life: ‘I was informed by so authoritative a body as the
professors in the Minnesota College of Agriculture, USA, that this procedure of the Hindu women is strictly scientific
’. ‘The cow is only able to yield her full possibility of milk to a milker whom she regards as her own child’. See Complete
Works of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 2, p. 55
32
The religious education of Hinduism is a complete development not only of the

religious, but also of the domestic and social mind... The image is a means of basing
the idea of divine energy on concrete sensation. The girls’ vratas, the cow- puja,
and fifty other things, are a complete inclusion of this theory [ Kindergarten] in
Hinduism itself, and the right way would be to start from them, and go further if
possible. Meanwhile, the beginning of education may be in the concrete, but its end
lies in the trained attention, and power of concentrating the mind — and that India
understands, as Europe never can.
6.2 Imparting National Consciousness
This discussion on Nivedita’s educational ideas will remain incomplete without mentioning how
she. sought to give her pupils national consciousness in her own school at Baghbazar.In view
of the great purpose she sought to realize, her school may unhesitatingly be called the first na-
tional school for girls on modern lines. She taught her pupils geography, history, needle- work
and drawing. Most interesting were her classes on Indian history. She had a passion for it. She
believed that ’a national consciousness expresses itself through history, even as a man realizes
himself by the memories and associations of his own life’.18 While talking about historical per-
sonages in the class she would even forget that she was in the class room. This happened one
day when she was talking in the class about her visit to Chitor: ‘I went up the’ hill and sat down
on my knees. I closed my eyes and thought of Padmini. I saw Padmini Devi standing near the
pyre and tried to think of the last thought that might have crossed Padmini’s mind’.She would
relate the story with gestures and manners so lively that it would seem as if she were in Chitor
at that moment in time. Her objective in bringing back alive to her pupils the history of India
was to excite their imagination and emotions and thus nurture in them the idea of India as an
absorbing passion.
Having told her girls stories about the Rajput women, she would exhort them: ‘You must
all be like them. Oh Daughters of Bharata! You all vow to be like the Kshatriya women.’ It is
worth quoting Pravrajika Atmaprana, the biographer of Sister Nivedita, on how Sister Nivedita
always reminded the girls that they were the daughters of Bharata-Varsha :
During the Swadeshi Movement she took the girls to the Brahmin Girls’ School
so that they might listen to lectures given in the adjoining park. In the Swadeshi
Exhibition organised by the Congress in 1906, Nivedita sent .the handicraft of her
students for display. She introduced spinning in her school and appointed an old lady
for the task whom the girls called Charka- Ma. At a time when the singing of Bande-
Mataram was prohibited by the Government, she introduced it daily in her school
prayers.
Elsewhere Atmaprana Mataji writes :
33
When the Swadeshi Movement started she (Nivedita) came forward to boycott
foreign goods and encouraged her pupils to do the same.. . . The idea o,f a national
flag first came to Nivedita’s mind in 1906 during the Calcutta session of the Congress.
She chose the design of the vajra, the thunderbolt, had it embroidered by her pupils,.
and displayed it in the Congress Exhibition. By such activities she instilled into
her students the spirit of patriotism and love for - their own historical and cultural
ideals.
She was greatly fond of education by public spirit, and by travel — not purposeless travel,
but travel for an idea. ‘To prepare one’s daughters to understand their country when they see her,
would not be a bad way of summing up the object of childhood schooling’, she wrote. Lack of
funds did not allow her to take her girls to historic places like Puri and Bhubaneswar, Chitor
and Benares, Ujjain and Rajgir, Elephanta and Conjeevaram. But she made up that deficiency
to some extent by taking them on short trips to places such as the Calcutta zoo and museum
and Dakshineswar. The educational value of such trips would be obvious from what she told her
pupils during a moment of crisis on one of such trips.They were all going by boat which rolled
on one side as the river was rough. The girls were very much afraid when Nivedita said: ‘Why
are you afraid? Don’t fear the big waves. Good boatmen remain firm at the helm and go over the
waves safely. If in our lives we too learn to remain stead- fast, then we will have no fear in life
— never.’ It is this Upanishadic message of fearlessness, strength, courage and steadfastness in
goal that her Master preached all his life and it is this message that Nivedita was seeking to
make true in the life of her pupils.
‘Straighten up your back, never crouch’ was the advice she would give her students. Don’t
indulge in over exuberance,7 or be exhibitive but be creative by all means. Anybody visiting her
small room in the school could see Nivedita’s room decorated with toys and paintings made by
her girls under her creative advice. She displayed these very proudly to all her visitors. On one
such visit, Ananda Coomaraswamy, the great art connoisseur, praised a small alpana design
drawn by one of Nivedita’s pupils. At this, Nivedita was beside herself with joy. This shows the
great emphasis Nivedita gave on developing the artistic talents of the students, her ultimate
objective in this regard being the revival of ancient Indian art. She exclaimed: ‘How happy will
be that day when Sanskrit written on palm leaves by my girls will decorate my room’.
6.3 Education based on personal relationships
The personal interest that Nivedita took in the day to day development of her pupils can be seen
from the notes she kept of them. Here are two examples.
7 A great disciplinarian herself, Sister Nivedita once punished a girl student who indulged in blurting out the
answers to questions asked of other girls. See Pravrajika Atmaprana, Sister Nivedita, p.230. She also made her
students take regular physical exercise in the form of drill in the garden attached to her school.
34
Bidyutmala Bose: Attended 45 times out of 60. One of the strongest characters I
have ever seen. Her courage and determination are wonderful. And she has exquisite
taste. She was troublesome and disobedient till I had a quiet talk with her the other
day — since then a smile has been enough. And the daintiest offerings have con-
stantly arrived. She has fire and will enough for anything, but will be smothered in
marriage8 of course. Her sewing is particularly good.
M.N.: Attended 39 times out of 60. Such a good, sweet, quiet, painstaking child.
One of the best, sweetest and cleverest children I have ever known. Most retiring
and ceaselessly good. Easily lost in work.
The motherly care she took of her pupils was unparalleled. Her day at the school began with
greeting the girls at the school gate, saying ‘Ah ! my children have come, my children have come’.
This was no formal greeting. She meant it with all her heart. When Mahamaya a girl student of
her, had tuberculosis, she who had been suffering privations herself, spared whatever she could
from her meagre resources to bear the medical expenses of the child and to find her a rented
home at Puri so that she could be at peace in the last days of her life. Giribala was a 22 year old
widow with a child living in her uncle’s house at Baghbazar. She started coming to school only
to find herself criticized by her neighbours. Society being what it was at that time, such attitude
born of orthodoxy was not unusual in those days. In the face of criticism she stopped coming.
Nivedita not only implored her uncle to send her to school but gave Giribala her own shawl so
that she could come to the school covering herself with the shawl: ‘My child, henceforward you
will be able to attend the school regularly’ . The most moving example is that of Prafullamukhi,
a child-widow, and student of Nivedita. On Ekadasis, the day of fast for Hindu widows, Nivedita
used to send for her and give her fruits and sweets to eat. On one such day it so happened that
after the day’s work for the school Nivedita went to the house of Dr. J . C. Bose. The moment
she remembered there that it was an Ekadasi and that poor Prafullamukhi remained unfed for
the whole day, she rushed back to her place and sent for Prafullamukhi, telling her with all the
love of a mother :‘My child, my child, I quite forgot! How unjust of me: I did not give anything to
you to eat but ate myself, how unthoughtful of me !’ It was this undiluted pure love of a mother
that Nivedita extended to the whole of India. It was the fullest extension of a woman’s family
ideal to the national ideal. The whole of India was Nivedita’s family. It was only in the fitness
of the poetic vision of Rabindranath Tagore that he named Nivedita Lokamata. Can India ever
repay the all-embracing love and selfless giving of this noble lady who was more Indian than any
Indian could ever be and whose life was one long message on the urgent necessity of national
unity and national integration of India? ‘Be a nation. Think great of yourselves. Believe in your
organic relatedness. Imagine a life in which all have common interests, common needs and
8 One practice that Nivedita always regretted was the early marriage of Indian girls which left them little time
and years to complete even their primary education. She was pained to see the early end to the studies of promising
young girls.
35
mutually complementary duties’: this was the message Sister Nivedita left behind — a message
which is even more relevant for India of today than it was for India of the time she lived and
worked for.
36
HAPTER
7
C
S UNRISE FROM THE S INKING B OAT
‘The boat is sinking but I can yet

see the sunrise.’
— The last words of Sister

Nivedita
ivedita’s concern for India was not restricted to gaining freedom from British tyranny.
N She knew where the malady exactly was, and how to fight against its creeping influence.
She relentlessly spoke, wrote, and did everything possible to make the Indians aware of
their own greatness and stand on their own without imitating the West. She drew our reluctant
gaze to our own history, art, science, and the illimitable wealth of literature — mythologies
included; she went on to reinterpret everything in an altogether unknown positivity. It was
Nivedita who, while inspiring the whole nation to unite and stand free, did not forget to remind:
‘It requires a foreign eye to catch the wonders of Indian solidarity. It was Englishmen who first
saw that our unity was so great, and our ignorance of that unity so universal, that an immense
harvest might be reaped from administering our affairs and taxing us, as a unit.’1 But she knew
that even with this knowledge from the English, people were not aware of the steps to be adhered
to for bringing the needed changes. So she began to steer the people as best as she could.
Here space hardly permits us a re- look into her galvanising words touching almost all areas
of India’s inherent greatness, which she uttered or wrote from her deep conviction to arouse
the nation, the sleeping leviathan. But in essence, while contrasting India with the West and
pointing out merits and demerits prevailing in both, she writes: ‘Let the Indian millions once
arrive at a simple, united idea of what they need and mean to have, nothing in the world could
resist them. ... Ours is only to recognize the significance of causes, leaving results to take care of
1 The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, Vol. 5, p.158
37
CHAPTER 7. SUNRISE FROM THE SINKING BOAT
themselves’2 And to achieve this she suggested the need of ‘self-organisation’, substituting the
oft-used word in those days — ‘Regeneration’. She never was of the opinion that India needed
regeneration. But neither for a moment she ever thought of blocking the best from the West;
her direction was clear: ‘Interchange of the highest ideals — never their contrasting, to the
disadvantage of either—was the motto of our great Captain [Swamiji], and the wisdom of this
ought to be easily set forth’. 3
2 The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 5.174

3 The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 5.68
38

Dr. Sayan

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The Confluence

Probationers’ Training Centre

(B R . S AYAN ) (S WAMI T YAGARUPANANDA )

2 Sweetness Warring Against Strength 5

4 The Bose War 20

5 Interpreting Indian History 25

6 Educational Ideas of Sister Nivedita 29

7 Sunrise from the Sinking Boat 37

“Do not cease to ask it for me and

— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

n a letter to Sister Nivedita, Swami Vivekananda wrote,

I ...I am sure, you have the making in you of a world-mover.

These words came literately true afterwards, as we shall see.

The mother’s heart, the hero’s will,

Figure 1.1: Blessings of Swami Vivekananda

“In me, sweetness wars against

— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

My thoughts will be worked out by unnumbered generations,and I would rather

A scathing repartee to Curzon

With Bipin Chandra Pal

The ‘Bairn’ and Arabinda Mohan Bose

Again in 23 June, 1911, she wrote to him[Arabinda Bose] in a fiery language.

Caressing a dying child

Incident with Dinesh Chandra Sen

5 Vedanta Kesari, December 1947

“The Rebirth of the National art is

— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

3.1 The Seed — as sown by Swami Vivekananda

3.2 Inspiring Artists

3.2.1 Okakura Kakuzo

3.2.3 Abanindranath Tagore

Figure 3.1: Bharat-Mata by Abanindranath Tagore

gust 1906 number of Prabasi.

3.3 Rejuvenating Social and Civic Ideals in Indian Art

of people will be short of depth and be superficial in nature.

‘You ask about the Science. For the

— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

O I dedicate today this Institute not merely a laboratory, but a temple.

be bitterly disappointed, because there will be no chorus of welcome and applause.’ 3

6 Letters of Sister Nivedita, Vol 2, p.1164

“One of the first tasks before the

— Sister Nivedita, Complete

5.1 An Interesting Correspondence

several points. We may note these one by one. She wrote:

5.2 Pointing The Throbbing National Unity

“Education! Ay, that is the

— Sister Nivedita, Letters, Vol. 2,

6.1 The Rationale

1. Bengali language and literature

2. English language and literature

teacher to a gardener and every child to a plant.

The religious education of Hinduism is a complete development not only of the

6.2 Imparting National Consciousness

Elsewhere Atmaprana Mataji writes :

6.3 Education based on personal relationships

‘The boat is sinking but I can yet

— The last words of Sister

2 The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita, 5.174

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