Annie Besant

A CONGRESS PRESIDENT and freedom fighter, Annie Besant was born in London on October 1, 1847. Says Iqbal Masud: “She was a product of Western Culture, but was attracted to the exoticism of the East. But with due respect to her, she could never be a national leader because she didn't have her roots in India. To fight for India’s Problems, you have to be an Indian.”

      She married Reverend Frank Besant, a Cambridge graduate, but since her married life turned out to be unhappy, she separated from her husband in 1973. Immediately after the split-up she plunged into public life, first becoming a member of the National Re-former was later co-edited by her along with Charles Bradlaugh. It was as an editor that she used her gift of expression most elo-quently in the cause of free thought.

       Next, she flitted from concept to concept she joined the Fabian Society and become a close associate of Sydney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, George Lamsburg and Ramsay MacDonald; after Col. Olcott’s death in 1907 she was elected President of the Theosophical Society, with which she was involved till her death.

        A Westernized woman, Besant came to India in 1893 and lectured on Hinduisum. In 1895 she set up a home in the holy city of Benares, where she completed the translation of the Bhagwad Gita. She labouredly to set up the Central Hindu Collage, which grew into the nucleus of the Benares Hindu University.

          When Besant was elected President of the Theosophical society, she made Madras her permanent home. To carry out her political duties she founded a weekly newspaper, Commonwealth, in 1914. In the same year she bought the Madras Standard and renamed it New India, which fast became a medium for propagating India’s freedom. Her unflagging political efforts fructified when she was elected Congress President at the Culcutta session in 1917. She went on to establish several schools and colleges, founded the Boy Scouts Association and was awarded the order of the silver Wolf. Says Masud: ”The importance of Annie Besant is not her contribution to the freedom movement but her contribution to the Theosophical Society of India.” A restless soul, Besant died on September 21, 1933.