ONE
of the finest and rarest gifts that England ever bestowed on India was the
fragile and beautiful personality of Margaret Elizabeth Noble, affectionately
remembered in India as Sister Nivedita. She was the precursor of others like
Annie Besant and Miraben, women of exceptional stature and outstanding
character, who although just a few drops in the mighty ocean of ignoramuses and
narrow biased ‘memasahibs’ that ‘came out’ to India, have left deeper
footprints on the Indian’s memory page.
Margaret
Noble was born on the 28th October, 1867 of Irish parentage. She inherited her
powers of eloquence–her voice like a ‘trumpet with a silver sound’–from her
father, who was a very fine preacher. To him religion meant service and this
lesson also he taught his daughter. The Nobles were well acquainted with India
and the Indian way of life and anyone from India was a welcome guest in their
household. Mr. Noble had always had an inner feeling that his daughter was born
to do something great one day. The parents had resolved that they would not
stand in her way if she made up her mind to do anything–however unconventional
a calling it may be.
Miss
Noble was extremely intelligent and even Thomas Huxley was struck by the
brilliance of her mind; she was well-read in all the thinkers of the day. Hers
was not a sharp, analytic intelligence which is only at home in the realm of
the theoretical; she combined theory and practice; she was a ‘practical
idealist’, to quote a phrase of Mahatma Gandhi’s. She was deeply religious, but
religion to her meant no particular creed or dogma, but simple selfless service
of ‘the poor, the lowly and the lost’. She opened a school for those who did
not have means to afford a good education, in London; especially did she
encourage women to come to her school. Her ideas of education were also not
conventional; to her the main aim of education was to train up people who would
be the servants of the society they lived in.
It
was at this time that she came in contact with Swami Vivekananda, who, after
his triumphal tour of the United States, was giving a few lectures on Hinduism
and Vedantism in London. Miss Noble attended these lectures regularly and
although at first, she was not impressed, gradually she was drawn to the
personality of the Swami, whose deep spiritual powers and desire for selfless
service were so outstanding. The Swami, in turn, at once recognised that here
he had found not only a ‘disciple’ but also a colleague. No one would be better
able to put into practice his various ideals for the amelioration of Indian
womanhood than Miss Noble. Accordingly he invited her to India and she
accepted. He wrote to her at this time: “I will stand by you unto death,
whether you work for India or not, whether you give up Vedanta or remain in it.
The tusks of the elephant come out, but they never go back. Even so are the
words of a man”.
Miss
Noble came to India in 1898 and stayed at Belur–the headquarters of the
Ramakrishna Mission near Calcutta. Here she tried to accustom herself to the
austere mode of life lived at the Ashram. She also travelled a great deal all
over the country with Swami Vivekananda and many of her observations are
recorded in her books, especially in the Footfalls of Indian History. Here
is what she says of Banaras: “Benares is an epitome of the whole Indian
synthesis of nationality. As the new-comer is rowed down the river past the
long lines of temples and bathing ghats, while the history of each is told to
him in turn, he feels, catching his breath at each fresh revelation of builded
beauty that all roads in India always must have led to Benares. In the caves of
Elephanta she found ‘the synthesis of Hinduism’; where as in the paintings of
Ajanta, she saw a ‘nobility and pity that stand alone in human history’. She
was thrilled by the quiet beauty of the ancient cities of Buddhism and by the
unsophisticated grace of Rajgirh–‘an ancient Babylon’. She also visited Punjab
and Kashmir right up to Amarnath. Travel, to Sister Nivedita, was not ‘sight
seeing’ but a study of the history and people of a place–an experience in
living. “I have had spiritual experiences that can never be forgotten. I have
sometimes listened towards that I will always remember. I have at least once
seen the supreme beauty of God”.
Miss
Noble soon accepted Hinduism and then joined the Order of Sri Ramakrishna
Paramhansa; she changed her name to Nivedita–one who is dedicated to the
service of God.
During
the bubonic plague that raged in Calcutta, Sister Nivedita organised a band of
volunteers and rendered yeoman service in relief work. At this time, Swami
Vivekananda, who was ailing, was advised a sea voyage, and both he and Sister
Nivedita set out for England. It was on this voyage that Sister Nivedita
started a close and accurate study of the Swami’s works, which she expounded so
nobly to the world thereafter in The Master as I Saw Him.
From
England, Sister Nivedita went on a lecture tour of the United States, where she
spoke to large audiences on the spirit of India as embodied in her women. On
her return to London, Sister Nivedita collected money for the school that she
wanted to start for Indian women. Soon after her return, the Swami died and
although Sister Nivedita was grief-stricken, it only strengthened her resolve to
follow in her Master’s footsteps and carry on his mission.
She
rented a house in the most orthodox quarter of Calcutta and completely
identifying herself with the people among whom she lived, she
became one of them. Not only did she teach the women who came to her school to
read and write, but also the elementary rules of hygiene and how to nurse the
sick and suffering. She gave shelter to widows and orphans in her home and her
house began to be known as the House of the Sisters.
Side
by side with her teaching, she gave public lectures and wrote books on Indian
subjects, which showed a keen and penetrating insight into Indian life.
Although she had imbibed Indian ways and modes of life, she was objective
enough in her estimate of things Indian. She neither condemned nor praised
uncritically, but always went to the root of the matter and saw the good and
evil equally well. She loved and appreciated the beauty in Indian life, art and
literature and expounded it to the world in some of her books especially in The
Web of Indian Life which is almost the only book in England which presents
such a correct and at the same time philosophical interpretation of Indian
life. In tender and beautiful words she describes the Indian Mother: “For what
thought is it that speaks supremely to India in the great word ‘Mother’? Is it
not the vision of a love that never seeks to possess, that is, content simply
to be–a giving that could not wish return: a radiance that we do not even dream
of grasping, but in which we are content to bask, letting the eternal sunshine
play around and through us?”
Sister
Nivedita understood and loved India more than many Indians of her generation or
even of today. She preached the love of India with as much fervour as some
people preach a particular religion. Although she lived in Bengal, she had a
clear vision of the synthetic unity that is India. Again in The Web of
Indian Life she says; “Another feature of the Indian synthesis is its
completely organic character in a territorial sense. Every province within the
vast boundaries fulfils some necessary part in the completing of a nationality.
No one place repeats the specialised function of another. And what is true of
the districts holds equally good of the people as a whole, and the women in
particular. In a national character we always find a summary of the national
history. Of no country is this more true than of India.”
During
the terrible famine that overtook Bengal in 1906, Sister Nivedita, at the cost
of her own health, went visiting the distressed villages of Barisal on foot,
sometimes wading for miles through swamps and malarial water. She was attacked
by malarial fever, but in spite of it she worked and toiled unceasingly till
she breathed her last in Darjeeling on the 13th of October, 1911.
Sister
Nivedita’s was a three-fold task of service: not only did she interpret India’s
culture and heritage to the Western world, but she gave the best that is in
Western life and thought to India. And above all, she made Indians–ignorant of
their own great heritage and seeking their salvation in the superficialities of
the West–aware and conscious of themselves. Perhaps this last was her greatest
service-of helping the lost soul of India to find and reassert itself.
A
distinguished son of India–Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy–has paid her the following
tribute: “Sister Nivedita brought to the study of Indian life and literature a
sound knowledge of Western education and social science, and an unsurpassed
enthusiasm of devotion to the peoples and ideals of her adopted
country...Sister Nivedita was not merely an interpreter of India to Europe, but
even more, the inspiration of a new race of Indian students, no longer anxious
to be Anglicized, but convinced that all real progress, as distinct from mere
political controversy, must be based on national ideals, upon intentions
already clearly expressed in religion and art.”