All the efforts that Nivedita made in diverse domains were to bring about a certain conception of Nationality (that was the term she used) to India, in the hearts and minds of the people. What she meant by Nationality was having a country /nation to identify with, which identification becomes an essential part of the individual’s self-concept. That to Nivedita was the starting point for any national consciousness.
In 1905, the major event of Partition of Bengal galvanized the national consciousness in an unprecedented manner. In addition to what has already been discussed in the earlier section she also played a very active role in the Nationalist movement following the Partition like the educational movement following the anti-Indian Universities Act brought out by Lord Curzon.
Once the partition came into act, whole of Bengal stirred up like nothing before. Nivedita gave full support to the efforts of the Swadeshi campaign and urged people to go all out in this ‘Swadeshi-sadhana’. Her own work with girls and women gave full expression to the practice of ‘Swadeshi’. Her writings at that time bear the testimony of how she passionately advocated not just Swadeshi but its logical development of boycott of foreign goods. In the 1906 session of the Congress she had a stall displaying Swadeshi items put up by the girls of her school.
Many important figures of the National Movement in those times were close to Nivedita. Nivedita had a greater proclivity for what was the stand of so-called ‘Extremists’ in the National Congress then – represented by Tilak, Lajpat Rai, and B.C. Pal who demNded nothing less than complete independemce. But on a personal level she had a closer friendship with the Moderate leader Gopalkrishna Gokhale who used to stay in Calcutta for long periods on account of his membership in the Imperial Council. At tht time he was quite a regular visitor to Nivedita’s house in Bagh Bazaar. Gokhale was also very friendly towards Sister Christine, Nivedita’s housemate When Nivedita was down with life-threatening meningitis in 1905 Gokhale also took turns with Christine to nurse her.
Nivedita, often with her characteristic candour, expressed dissatisfaction towards the concessionary politics practiced by Gokhale, but praised him generously whenever he made an impact in the Council. For the furtherance of the national cause she presented him with several letters of introduction during his visits to Britain with leading opinion-makers there.
For Varanasi Session of the Congress in 1905, in which he was to preside, Gokhale invited Nivedita. She was not a delegate but appeared there aa a correspondent to some publications. Her place of stay at Tilbhandeswar became a meeting point of several important leaders and delegates where long discussions were held for hours. Even though Gokhale, a Moderate, was the President, the resolutions of Swadeshi as well as Boycott of foreign goods were adopted. While Nivedita did not participate in any voting as she was not a delegate, she did make a statement during the Vote of Thanks.
From Varanasi, Nivedita travelled to places of historical interest like Sanchi, Bhopal, Ujjain, and Chittorgarh. She wrote highly scho6alrly essays based on her studies about these places which are compiled in the posthumpusly published volume, ‘Footfalls of Indian History’ – a singularly fascinating intellectual treat, that leaves the reader spellbound with regard to the brilliance of the author’s mind.
In the following year at the Calcutta Congress, Nivedita was quite dismayed at the rift between the two camps and pleaded for a unity in approach when fighting for a common aim. In this regard she expressed her thoughts (what still has continued relevance in at least some affairs today) as follows :
“Young India is fascinated by the political spectacle in European countries : fascinated, and also perhaps hypnotized by it. She imagines, perhaps, that until she can produce the bear-garden of opposite parties, she has failed to emulate the vigour and energy of Western patriotism. This at least is the only excuse for that evil fashion which has made its appearance amongst us, of mutual incrimination and mutual attack. Those who are fighting on different parts of the self-same field are wasting time and ammunition by turning their weapons on each other, instead of a common foe. The fact is, young India has yet to realize that hers is not a movement of partisan politics at all, but a national, that is to say, a unanimous progression.”
She was also in close touch with early Bengal Congressmen like Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose, both of whom were founders of the Indian National Association, precursor of the Indian National Congress. She was fully supportive of their efforts during the Swadeshi Movement. Surendranath Banerjee had setup a Swadeshi Bazar after the movement had largely been crushed where Nivedita took the students of her school. She was a great admirer of Ananda Mohan Bose, who was also the brother-in-law of Jagadish Bose, and founder of the City College, an institution run on the lines of the Brahmo philosophy. She published a moving obituary after the latter’s death in 1906.
Challenging Viceroy Curzon
Nivedita was always greatly scornful of actions of Viceroy Lord Curzon even before he had announced the Partition of Bengal. There is a comical incident when she took on Curzon head on after the Viceroy in a Convocation lecture at Calcutta University had loftily praised the moral standards of the British people, particularly their steadfastness to truth, which he opined was something Indians could well learn from.
Nivedita who had knowledge of Curzon’s past and his writings was aware of his own admission that he had lied about his age in Korea early in his career as a diplomat just to command respect. Nivedita published the relevant extract from Curzon’s memoirs in ‘The Stateman’ and ‘Amrita Bazaar Patrika’. This episode did the Viceroy hardly any credit and he became a source of much mockery in learned Indian quarters. Curzon had forgotten that there was somebody in India who was aware of his long paper trail and his own printed words would come to haunt him later.
Nivedita was also deeply condemning of another great, but much lesser-known misdeed that the Viceroy had indulged in – it was the Tibetian expedition for prospecting mineral deposits, supposedly done at the bidding of some Jewish financiers who, it was widely surmised, had influenced Curzon through his Jewish wife. The expedition was a disaster and about 750 persons lost their lives in that fruitless exercise.
A Flag and Emblem for the Nation
It was during that time that she also felt the need for an Emblem for the whole country. And for that she chose the ‘Vajra’ (The Thunderbolt). The Vajra had a long history in Indian tradition symbolizing the ‘power of selflessness’. The idea first occurred to Nivedita during a trip to Bodh-Gaya when she found that the ‘Vajra’ was a common Buddhist symbol – used in worship and other rituals. In Tibet and Myanmar the Vajra stood for the Buddha himself. The Lamas did their Puja holding a miniature ‘Vajra’ in their hand.
Nivedita wrote,
“The gods, it is said, were looking for the divine weapon par excellence – and they were told that only if they could find a man willing to give his own bones for the substance of it, could the Invincible Sword be forged. Whereupon they trooped up to the rishi Dadhichi and asked for his bones for the purpose. The request sounded like a mockery. A man would give all but his own life-breath, assuredly, for a great end, but who, even to furnish forth a weapon for Indra, would hand over his body itself? To the rishi Dadhichi, however, this was no insuperable height of sacrifice. Smilingly he listened, smilingly he answered, and in that very moment laid himself down to die – yielding at a word the very utmost demanded of humanity.
“Here then, we have the significance of the Vajra. The Selfless Man is the Thunderbolt. Let us strive only for selflessness, and we become weapon in the hands of God. Not for us to ask how. Not for us to plan methods. For us, it is only to lay ourselves down at the altar-foot. God does the rest. The divine carries us. It is not the thunderbolt that is invincible but the hand that hurls it. Mother! Mother! take away from us this self! Let not fame or gain or pleasure have dominion over us! Be Though the sunlight, we the dew dissolving in its heat.”
In Nivedita’s design there are two Vajras crossed in order to signify coordinated and selfless actions of multiple individuals (of the nation) acting in effect as one national organism. Nivedita got some designs embroidered by the girls in her Calcutta school and had it displayed in the Exhibition organized by the Congress in 1906 in Calcutta. Quite a few eminent persons of the time started using this as an emblem. It later came to be used as the Emblem of the Bose Institute founded by Jagadish Chandra Bose. The Paramvir Chakra also has the double-vraja as a major component of its emblem. It is quite possible that it was Nivedita’s inspired idea that was at its root too.
Nation as Mother
Nivedita was one of the pioneering practitioners of the idea of worship of the nation as mother, an idea that was in currency for a few decades before that, and most powerfully portayed in Bankimchandra’s novel ‘Anandamath’ and the song ‘Bande Mataram’. Following the Partion of Bengal when the government prohibited the chanting of singing or chanting of ‘Bande Mataram’, Nivedita continued it as a part of her school’s prayer. She passionately communicated the idea of worshipping the nation-mother. “Dedicate some part of every puja to this thought of the Mother who is Swadesh. Lay a few flowers before Her, pour out a little water in Her name”, she said.