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ANNIE BESANT - A RADIANT MESSENGER

Annie Besant’s presence in India was like that of a glorious rainbow, bridging East and West, spirituality and practical endeavour, intellect and compassion. Unfortunately sixty years after her departure to higher worlds and a century after her arrival in India. She is remembered, if at all, only for her political work to liberate India from colonial rule and not for her larger work to regenerate India.

Annie Besant did not care for political action for its own sake. The political freedom of India was for her just a step to awaken the Indian people to the immense value of their moral and spiritual heritage. To ac­complish this, she laboured tirelessly in multifarious directions, making a powerful impact on the life of the nation - its religions, education, social life, the treatment of women, children, the underprivileged and many other things besides. This made Gandhiji to remark: “It is Dr. Besant who has awakened India from her deep slumber and I pray that she may live long to witness a free India� (New India, 2 Oct. 1928).

Dr. Besant was no stranger to India when she set her foot on this soil for the first time on 16 November 1893 at Tuticorin. She has worked with Charles Bradlaugh, the great English radical reformer, for the upliftment of the poor, and the right to liberty of all peoples, poor or rich, coloured or white, Annie Besant’s passion was the service of the world, particularly of the oppressed and helpless, for her nature overflowed with love. She had achieved renown for championing the cause of labour, of free meals to poor children (She was on the London School Board), the right of women to higher education, the humane treatment of criminals and numerous other causes. She was fearless, energetic, a great organizer, yet tender, generous and loving in surprising measure.

All over England, she had awakened the conscience of the great audiences she addressed, with the tremen­dous eloquence and power which were at her disposal, about Ireland, India and other colonized nations. Her pamphlet England, India and Afghani­stan had been widely circulated.

Though she was born in Eng­land, Annie Besant’s soul was Indian. She took naturally to the Indian way of life, sitting cross-legged, wearing a sari, adopting a simple ascetic life, and feeling one with the Indian people. But she was no narrow nationalist, but a large-hearted world citizen, concerned with both the material and spiritual welfare of all people, towards which she believed India could contribute a wealth of wisdom.

After Annie Besant settled down in Varanasi in 1895 she spent several years studying Indian lore to under­stand the philosophy and culture of the land. She learnt Sanskrit, and translated the Bhagavad Gita. She associated with learned men, and studied the principal teachings of all the great religions of India. She ac­quainted herself with Indian customs and conditions, and the problems of the rural as well as educated people. She prepared herself for the later dynamic activity.

That kind of India had she in her mind? :The India I love and revere and would fain see living among the nations, is not an India Westernized, rent with the struggles of political parties, heated with the fire of political passions, with a people ignorant and degraded, while those who might have raised them are fighting for the loaves and fishes of political triumph. The India to which I belong in faith and heart is a civilization in which spiritual knowledge was accounted highest title to honour and in which the people reverenced and sought after spiritual truths. To help in turning India into another Great Britain or another Ger­many is an ambition that does not allure me. Therefore the India that I would give my life to help in building is an India learned in the ancient phi­losophy, pulsing with an ancient relig­ion, an India to which all other lands should look for spiritual life - where the life of all should rye materially simple but intellectually noble and Spiritually sublimne.�

So, even while she studied and learnt, she gave eloquent lectures all over India on the deep truths of the great religions. She stressed the need to be religious without being sectarian, devoted without being fanatical, to love one’s own faith without decrying or hating the faiths of others. “Make religion a unifying force, not a separa­tive�. She taught. “I make no apology here for the variety of religious beliefs, for I assert that in that variety lives their greatest value to men. Men are of different temperaments, of different types, they are put together in differ­ent ways. Would you have religion one in its forms as well as one in its essence? Then tell the sun to send out but a single ray of colour: and make all the varied world one color, because you only have one hue out bf the white.�

Soon, Annie Besant realized that the youth of the nation was sadly ignorant of their own culture and faith. Education under British rule deprived them of self-respect. Hence, she founded the famous Central Hindu School and College (1898-99) in Be­nares. She kept these institutions free of control by the British rulers which meant shouldering enormous financial responsibility. The institutions grew into celebrity as they built the spirit of patriotism and unselfish devotion in young hearts without bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Several princes came forward with support and eager young men threw up their jobs to teach. She herself inspired the stu­dents by talks about their duties, the teachings in the Ramayana and Mahabharata, about citizenship, and many other essential subjects. “Re­member the old model of the Aryans�. She said, “the same as the model of western chivalry; strong and gentle, knightly and courteous.� That was the motto held to her students. She was completely against cramming.

“Sharpening the memory at the expense of the mind�. Education had to endow the boys and girls with the powers of observing, reasoning, and drawing sound conclusions.

The Central Hindu College and Schools were situated in fine buildings on beautiful land. But in a character­istic gesture of generosity, she gave it all away to provide the nucleus of the Benares Hindu University. Then her phenomenal energy was directed to creating a series of national schools all over India with lofty ideals. “Our work is the training of thousands of India’s sons into noble manhood, into worthi­ness to become free citizens in a free land, some of you imagine, unthinking - for the young are hasty and do not always stop to think - that freedom is lo be won by loud talking, by violent speeches, by noisy demonstrations, by tumultuous processions through the streets. I tell you that Liberty is too lofty and too divine a goddess to de­scend into a country until purity of heart, noble thing, self-sacrifice, disci­pline and self-control have made of the citizens a throne on which she may sit and reign.�

So successfully were the young boys and girls in her institutions trained into a sense of responsibility and of public duty that even in stress­ful circumstances there never was any indiscipline or trouble in any of them.

Girls were prepared for citizen­ship as much as boys. The Central Hindu Girls School at Varanasi had been founded in 1904, a time when parents had to be induced to send their daughters to school. But the pioneers were not daunted and many national girls schools sprang up later. Annie Besant stated: “Few realize the immense strength latent in Indian womanhood...India’s uplift will come speedily when her daughters put to it their delicate but strong hands. It was under her inspiration that her Theoso­phist helpers like Margaret Cousins started the Women’s Indian Associa­tion and other bodies to bring women into the mainstream.

As the educational work pro­gressed, she campaigned to reform the social structure. She spoke against superstitious beliefs and undesirable customs. With the help of a number of stalwarts, parents pledged themselves not to give their daughters in marriage until they were mature. The humane treatment of widows, prevention of cruelty to animals - there was hardly a false belief which she did not attack as she tried to breathe new life into the Indian consciousness.

Since 1894, much before Dr. Besant prepared for political action, she preached and practised Swadeshi. Everything she used - her furniture, clothes, etc - was Swadeshi. In 1916 she started the Home Rule movement with branches of the Home Rule League in every town. Home Rule became “a Mantram in every house­hold�. When others were hesitant, she demanded that nothing less than complete self-rule would do for India. It was because of Annie Besant that there was an “Indian lobby� in the British Parliament. Her daily news paper New India was a vibrant voice claiming India’s freedom in no uncer­tain terms. Though she stressed the need for constitutional struggle, she was “externed� by the Government of Bombay and the Central provinces in 1916 and “interned� by the Govern­ment of Madras in 1971. But Public enthusiasm in her favour was strong and she was soon released. With great jubilation she was elected as the first woman President of the Indian Na­tional Congress in 1917.

Her popularity vanished when she refused to go along with Civil Disobedience when Gandhiji started it. She said: “Defiance of law for the mere sake of defiance encourages a spirit of lawlessness among the igno­rant and the criminal classes, which strikes at the very foundations of soci­ety. If the present Government permit­ted this to continue unchecked, they would bequeath to their Indian suc­cessors the painful task of reducing to order the chaos they had permitted, instead of handing over to them a well-­ordered and law-abiding people.�

Ironically, after independence, the Indian Government has given a mafia role to the “ignorant and crimi­nal classes�. How far-sighted she was! By teaching the masses to break the law, we have indeed built into a public consciousness a deplorable disregard for order, and day by day the country slides into a state of anarchy.

In 1907 Dr. Besant has suc­ceeded Col. H.S. Olcott as President of the Theosophical Society, whose main object is to build the universal broth­erhood of humanity, without distinc­tions of race, creed, sex, caste, colour and so forth. Till her death in 1933 she held this office as the members wanted none other. Thousands all over the world looked up to her as their spiritual teacher. She always urged them to love. “Do nothing to increase the spirit of hate, even towards those who are ‘enemies� in the physical world today..You cannot go wrong in love; you are sure to go wrong in hate; hate dulls the intellect and hardens the heart.� She also gave valuable instructions on self-development, meditation and spiritual living.

In a short space it is impossible to give an account of all she did - of how she founded scouting in India when Baden Powell declared Indian boys unfit for it; how she trained the young in Youth Parliaments and Young Men’s Indian Associations; the books she wrote; the new character she gave to the Indian National Con­gress; and so on and so forth. In one life, she is said to have lived several lives. What was the keynote of all her accomplishments? Biographers so far have shown no understanding of what moved her to great deeds; they have not seen that the one thing that mattered in her life was the service of others (loka-sangraha). Sacrifice is a joy and not a sorrow, she declared. Late though it is, if even now Indians will listen to her message, there is hope for India of a bright future.