SOURCE: "Sarojini Naidu: The Poet as a Politician," in Indian and Foreign Review, Vol. 17, No. 6, January 1-15, 1980, pp. 13-15.

In the following essay, Das Gupta discusses ways in which Naidu's poetic sensibilities affected her political career and actions.

When John Stuart Mill drew up an antithesis between eloquence and poetry and said that while the one was heard the other was over-heard, he did not add that one could not at once be an orator and a poet. Mill, however, did not know of any fine public speaker who was also a fine poet. The combination of the two in Sarojini Naidu is unique in the history of letters even in the language she used in speech and song.

When the lofty eloquence of Sarojini Naidu's presidential address at the fortieth session of the Indian National Congress held in Kanpur in 1925 drew the applause of the entire audience...