Padmaja Naidu was an Indian politician and freedom fighter. She is best known for being the daughter of Sarojini Naidu. Padmaja served as the 5th Governor of West Bengal from 3 November 1956 to 1 June 1967; She was the first woman and longest serving Governor of West Bengal.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Padmaja Naidu was born on Saturday, 17 November 1900 (age 74 at time of death) in Hyderabad State, British India (now, Hyderabad, India). His mother, Sarojini Naidu, the first Governor of the United Provinces, was a major influence on his daily life. At a time when India was fighting for independence, she watched her mother Sarojini Naidu and other freedom fighters prepare for a revolutionary war to free India from the rule of the East India Company. She was greatly influenced by her mother and decided to devote her efforts to the betterment of the country and became a revolutionary herself.
Family
Padmaja Naidu belonged to a Telugu family from Hyderabad.
parents and siblings
Padmaja was born to Mutyala Govindarajulu Naidu and Sarojini Naidu. His father was a Telugu physician, and his mother was a famous Bengali poet, Indian political activist and freedom fighter. He had four siblings, Jayasuriya, Leelamani, Nilavar and Randhir.
Padmaja Naidu’s parents
Padmaja with her mother Sarojini Naidu
relationships/affairs
Padmaja and Jawaharlal Nehru were in close relationship with each other. He had family connections with the Nehru family, including Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Indira Gandhi’s friend Pupul Jayakar, an Indian cultural activist and writer, heard from Vijaya Lakshmi that her brother and Padmaja lived together for many years; However, Nehru did not marry Padmaja because he did not want his daughter Indira Gandhi to be unhappy with this marriage. Reportedly, Padmaja also wanted to marry Nehru and spent her entire life waiting for him to propose. In MO Mathai’s memoirs on Nehru, there is a chapter titled “Nehru and Women” in which Sarojini Naidu’s daughter Padmaja Naidu says, “Nehru is not a ladies’ man!”, which suggests that Nehru had affairs with other women. Women too. Even after retirement, she lived in a bungalow on Teen Murti Bhawan Estate, the official residence of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, until her death. Later, it was converted into a museum as a tribute to him.
livelihood
Politician
At a very young age, he co-founded the Indian National Congress Party in the princely state of Hyderabad in 1921; She was 21 years old. When the Quit India Movement was going on in full force, Padmaja was fighting against the British along with Harishchandra Heda, Gyan Kumari Heda, Vimalabai Melkote, GS Melkote and others. Padmaja courageously replaced the flag on the Residency Building with the Congress flag. For this action, he was arrested and put in jail. After India’s independence from British rule, Padmaja was elected as a Member of Parliament; However, due to ill health he had to give up his membership.
Governor of West Bengal
In 1956, Padmaja Naidu was appointed Governor of West Bengal; She held the position from 3 November 1956 to 1 June 1967, becoming the longest serving Governor of West Bengal.
Padmaja Naidu appointed Governor of West Bengal
Freedom fighter and philanthropist
In 1942, Padmaja actively participated in the “Quit India” movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi for which she was sent to jail. He encouraged people to use Indian products, such as wearing Khadi clothes, and boycott foreign goods. Later, she joined the International Red Cross Movement, a voluntary humanitarian organization that protects human life and health, and became president of the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) from 1971 to 1972. Apart from this, she was also associated with Bharat Sevak. Society, Nehru Memorial Fund and All India Handicrafts Board. After India’s independence, he was selected as one of the members of the National Flag Presentation Committee.
award
- Padmaja Naidu was awarded the Padma Vibhushan award in 1962.
legacy
Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park also known as Darjeeling Zoo is named after Padmaja Naidu. It is located in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India and was opened on 14 August 1958. It is the highest high altitude zoo in India with an average altitude of 7000 feet and is visited by more than three lakh people every year. The zoo has special breeding programs for animals adapted to alpine regions and successful captive breeding programs for animals including the snow leopard, red panda and the Himalayan wolf, which are highly endangered.
A zoo in Darjeeling has been named after Padmaja Naidu.
Death
He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in New Delhi, India, on 2 May 1975, at the age of 74.
Facts/General Knowledge
- She was close friends with Ruthie Petit, wife of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
- In the 1970s, Padmaja handed over her mother’s residence, The Golden Threshold, to the University of Hyderabad. First, it was converted into the Department of Social Sciences, then the Sarojini Naidu School of Communication and now the Center for Distance and Virtual Education. Reportedly, the university is planning to convert this place into a museum-cum-culture centre.
- Padmaja loved keeping collections of letters and manuscripts, and after her mother passed away, Padmaja collected all her mother’s poems and released the collection as a book titled ‘The Feather of the Dawn’ in 1961.
The book named ‘The Feather of the Dawn’
- Sheela Reddy, who has written the book ‘Mr. and Mrs. Jinnah: The Marriage that Shook India’, credits Padmaja Naidu’s collection of letters written by Ruthie (Jinnah’s wife) to Padmaja for helping her write the book. Found. Talking about this in an interview, Sheela said,
Ruthie (Jinnah’s wife) wrote letters to both Sarojini and Padmaja Naidu, but her letters to Sarojini are now lost because due to her itinerant life, Sarojini never met her many friends and acquaintances and even her children. Did not bother to keep the letters received. Husband. It was thanks to Padmaja Naidu, who kept every letter she received from both her mother and Ruthie, that I was able to piece together the story of Jinnah’s marriage.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn