Vivekananda, who, after his return to India, had been severely grappling with health issues, was advised by his western friends to travel to West where they thought his health might improve. Yielding to their affectionate persuasions and also with aim of furthering his work in that part of world, the Swami decided to sail from Calcutta in June 1899. As companions he had his brother-disciple Swami Turiyananda and Nivedita.
The idea was that Nivedita would collect funds for her school and future plans for Women’ work in India. It had become clear in the initial experience that for her work to be done on a sustained basis it would need ample financial resources.
Thus the three sailed westward and Swami Vivekananda wrote some marvellous writings in Bengali for the newly started journal Udbodhan which he had helped launched some months back. His writing style was refreshingly new and not in line with the dominant stream of prose writing that was in vogue then. It was both lauded as well as criticised for its informal and overtly colloquial style. Its English translation brought out a separate book ‘Memoirs of European Travel’ is also eminently readable.
They had not yet crossed the river on the first afternoon of the voyage when the Swami made one of his now famous utterances, “Yes! The older I grow the more everything seems to me to lie in manliness. This is my new gospel.”
Nivedita again got ample opportunity to hear Swami’s deepest thoughts on issues ranging on an astonishingly large canvass during the sea voyage. She later wrote:
To this voyage of six weeks I look back as the greatest occasion of my life. I missed no opportunity of the Swami’s society that presented itself, and accepted practically no other, filling up the time with quiet writing and needle-work; thus I received one long continuous impression of his mind and personality, for which I can never be sufficiently thankful. … From the beginning of the voyage to the end, the flow of thought and story went on. One never knew what moment would see the flash of intuition, and hear the ringing utterance of some fresh truth.
In Ceylon
When their ship halted at Colombo, the three visited the Buddhist Girls school set up by Ms Marie Musaeus Higgins in 1891, a German married to an American theosophist, who had answered to the call of Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, the leader of the Theosophical Society, to take up the role of Principal of the small school in Ceylon. Ms Higgins was also attracted to the Buddhist traditions. She encouraged Nivedita to start a Hindu School in Ceylon.
Ms. Higgins had been an extraordinarily dedicated woman and she built and served this institution till her death at the age of 71 in 1926. This school, at present called the Musaeus College in honour of its illustrious founding Principal, is now more than 130 year old, and has on its roll more than 6500 girls from the age of 3 to 18 as pupils.
In England
They disembarked at the Tilbury docks on 31st July and Vivekananda lived in a lodge very near to the Noble family home in Wimbledon. He usually took his meals there. Nivedita’s mother Mary, her younger sister May, and brother Richmond all had a very warm relationship with the Swami. The household was then preparing for May’s wedding. An interesting incident that happened during this time was when the Swami took Nivedita’s brother Richmond to a restaurant and treated him to beef-steak when the latter had revealed that Nivedita had banished beef from the menu at home during the days of Swami’s presence.
Onto America : Ridgeley Manor
After spending a fortnight there the two Swamis proceeded to sail for the American east coast. There they were to spend about three months at the Ridgeley Manor – the country house of the Francis and Betty Leggett (elder sister of Josephine Macleod) who ranked among Vivekananda’s ardent ardent admirers. The place was a couple of hours outside New York city and very near to the river Hudson. The Swami had also stayed there for about four weeks during his first visit to the West. This place is now a much visited Retreat Centre of the Vedanta Movement in America.
Nivedita joined them at the Ridgeley Manor in September but was soon enjoined by the Swami to take up her lecture tour across the America, endeavour to raise awareness about Indian culture, and in the process try to galvanise support and resources for her work for girls and women in India. For this Nivedita formed the ‘Ramakrishna Guild of Help for Girls’ and Women Welfare’ and also drew a manifesto stating its aims. It had as its members persons like Betty Leggett and Colonel Thomas Higginson, a person of varied experiences about whom it would be fair to mention more.
Colonel Higginson was a remarkable figure – a clergyman who had studied from Harvard Divinity School, a military commander, a politician, an abolitionist, a women’s rights activist – he, doubtless, was a multidimensional personality. The Colonel was also the famed author of ‘Army Life in a Black Regiment’, considered as an important book in the history of Black ethnic groups in America published in 1870, in which he recounted his experiences with the First South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment that comprised the former slaves, which he had commanded. He was a close personal of the great Transcendantalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and a literary mentor to the celebrated American poetess Emily Dickinson, and was chiefly instrumental in publishing many of the latter’s works after her untimely death at the age of 36. Higginson, a good forty years older than Vivekananda, had become close to him and as the President of Free Religious Association had invited the Swami to speak in New York in 1894. He subsequently became his ardent admirer and also took interest in the Swami’s work and plans for India. .
To kickstart Nivedita’s fundraising efforts, Betty Leggett contributed a thousand dollars. However, the response from her lecturing efforts in terms of monetary contributions was rather disappointing but the experience of the exercise certainly enriched Nivedita in many ways.
Nivedita in Chicago : The Hull House and Jane Addams
For quite some time Nivedita lectured in the mid-west region. At Chicago she stayed at the Hull House which had been set up by two extraordinary woman humanitarians – Laura Jane Addams (known generally as Jane Addams) and Elen Gates Starr. The Hull House had been founded as settlement, a place where diverse immigrants and people from different classes of the American society lived together, with the aim of empowering themselves and each other in that community. They also initiated several social reforms like opposition to child labour. In a sense they were civil society workers much before the professional non-government and non-Church actors and entities had come into being in America.
Jane Addams was a remarkable visionary who wrote several books for strengthening America’s racially and ethnically fragmented society. She also helped Nivedita in her work in Chicago as gratefully recorded in the latter’s epistles of the time. Three decades later, in 1932, Miss Addams became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She also has an enduring reputation as a sociologist and social philosopher in America. Both Gandhi and Tagore were fervent admirers of Addam’s work and had been personally in touch with her. At some point during this visit Vivekananda also addressed a gathering at the Hull House and a picture of his is still there.
In an article titled ‘Chicago Notes’, Nivedita described the Hull House and it indicstes the tremendous impact its concept and the personality of Jane Addams made on her and how it fuelled her own dreams and vision for similar initiatives in India. She writes :
“Yet in her women America has reached a height which all the culture and religion of other countries has not enabled them to reach. I have been here only for a few months, yet already I have met, in my own personal circle, whom a whole continent might be proud to have produced.
“One of them is the mistress of this house – and this is a Social Settlement. Let me describe it first. Hull House must once have been the home of a wealthy merchant, comfort and beauty have both been considered in the building of the oldest part of it : today it stands in the heart of Chicago slums, and this old dwelling is now only the central feature of a mass of buildings which include a lecture-hall, a gymnasium, a work-shop, a concert-room, a school, and a host of other things. There is a nursery, too, where mothers going out for a day’s work may leave their babies, and near by is a home for working women of which I spoke before, while last but not least is an excellent coffee-house, or restaurant, where well-cooked food may be had at lowest prices, most attractively served. And all the clubs and classes and manifold activities that are housed under the roof are served by some twenty men and women who make their home in the central building.
“I am a guest here just now, and never in my life I dreamt of anything like this. To begin with there are innumerable calls at the front door. Any one who is at hand is expected to fulfil any request that he can, and I have been proud, when occasion offered, to act as Durwan. But it was little use. For I had no idea of what to do with people I admitted. One – poor woman! – wanted food, and someone came presently and I sent her to the housekeeper. Another needed hospital assistance, and it needed a doctor’s clear head to unravel his perplexity. Someone else required the personal advice of a particular resident at once on his family affairs. The next case consisted of four or five persons who arrived close upon each other’s heels to be shown around; and so on and so forth. And I was Durwan only for ten or fifteen minutes.
“Then in the evening, there are so many classes and clubs and lectures and concerts going on at the same time, in different parts of the house, that one can never be sure of seeing any one person once in course of a whole day except meals. The ceaseless, tireless activity of it is more like a kaleidoscope than anything else.
“And yet at the head of it all sits a woman with quiet grey eyes, who never seems disturbed! She is, if anyone ever was, an embodiment of that “ Wise one amongst men, the Yogi and the doer of all action who sees inaction in midst of action.” Ten years ago her passion for the People called this house together, conceived the idea, and gave a fortune to the expression of it. Today, other fortunes have followed hers, it has grown and developed, a small army of workers make its ideals its own; she is leader of almost every section of the foreign population round her : and apparently it has never occurred to her that the secret of the whole thing lies in a her personality! She is quiet, clear-headed, and most unassuming. She writes well and lectures well, yet there is no stray paper on her writing desk; she is the head of the house, yet none ever hears the tone of irritation or authority; above all, she is a good woman who keeps herself surrounded by good people without becoming the victim of any person or clique, or the mistress of any community or individual. One asked her of motive of work such as this – “to bring the benefits of civilization and other good things to those who might otherwise have been unable to share them,” – she answered quietly.
“How I wish we in India could get our scheme of model Bustees started, and could have a Hull House in every model Bustee!…And then for the women, a Hull House of a quite kind, pleasant rooms, and books and pictures – Indian, every one of them – and simple gymnastics, and a manual training school ! One’s heart beats fast at the prospect and assurance rises that it shall be realized – the day shall come when material difficulties shall cease to be all-important and we Indian men and women for the Indian people, shall be allowed to start a scheme such as this. When it comes, would it not be a worthy thought to name our first women’s home after this American woman – my first friend here amongst strangers in the Indian cause – Jane Addams?”
Clearly, Nivedita was highly inspired by Jane Addams.
Lecturing across America cities
Nivedita travelled to several American cities, like Jackson in Michigan, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Boston-Cambridge area. Even though as far as the financial contributions were concerned the outcome was quite disappointing for her, but, she, nevertheless, gained much experience in lecturing on Indian themes, its family and social ideals, particularly pertaining to Indian women. She also got valuable experience in defending and responding to difficult and positively insidious questions born out of sustained negative propaganda by the evangelists who had portrayed the conditions of Indian women in a deeply unfavourable light. There had also been, not long before, Pandita Ramabai, a Maharashtrian Christian, who had visited several American cities and established support groups for the her cause. Ramabai’s position with regard to Indian women in particular and Hindu society in general, was not much different from that of western evangelists.
These experiences and prejudices that Nivedita witnessed even among the educated classes of the western society with regard to India, disturbed her but at the same time also enriched her own thoughts and later helped her in developing broad contours of her next major book ‘The Web of Indian Life’. The biggest financial gift for her Indian work, however, was not through her own lecturing efforts but through an introduction Swami gave her to one Mrs Huntington, whose family had substantial interests in railways and press in the American west coast. She met Mrs Huntington in New York and she received about five thousand dollars from her.
Later Nivedita stayed in Boston as a guest of Mrs Bull, where she spoke about India alongside Bipinchandra Pal, the fiery nationalist leader who also had enjoyed the hospitality of Mrs Bull around that time. The two often engaged in fierce arguments with each other with regard to the course that nationalist movement should take, which one fancies, caused no little discomfiture to their host. But all the same the two had undoubted admiration for each other for had no doubts with regard to their sincerity for the cause of India.
In the east coast Nivedita also met eminent Scottish polymath – sociologist, biologist, geographer, town planner, and a multi-disciplinarian stalwart – Patrick Geddes, whose interdisciplinary work and original ideas greatly attracted her. Geddes was soon visiting the Paris Exposition where Vivekananda and Nivedita would also go.
All this while Vivekananda did his own work mostly in California till the following June. He was at his most inspiring and lofty mood during this period and his presence and work led to formation of Vedanta Societies on the American west coast. In California he was most devotedly helped by a family of three sisters – the Mead sisters – particularly the second of the sisters, Mrs Alice Hansborough, a widow with a four year old daughter who served and accompanied him almost as his shadow during those months. She was at once his chief volunteer, secretary, cook and attendant. Mrs Hansborough’s contributions during this period are rather unfortunately much less known and under-acknowledged. A proper account of her life and service to the Vedanta movement in California is still awaited.
In France
After returning from California and having a brief stay in Chicago and New York, the Swami went to Paris for a short period primarily to attend the Paris Exposition. He had learnt French adequately enough to deliver a lecture in that language. But this exposition was more of the nature of an academic seminar with formal paper presentations and not quite like the ‘Parliament of Religions’ at Chicago.
Vivekananda also met Jagadish Bose in Paris and proudly hailed him as a great fellow countryman whose works in Physics ‘and Botany were already attracting keen attention even though many of Bose’s subsequent path-breaking works were still to come.
Nivedita had already arrived in Paris a month before the Swami with the intention of assisting Patrick Geddes. She hoped she could learn quite a lot from Prof. Geddes that would later help her in her Indian work.
Patrick Geddess and Vivekananda has first met in Chicago and later became quite friendly in Paris in 1900 where both of them spoke. Later Geddess and his wife Anna taught simple breathing and meditation exercises to their children inspired by Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga. In 1910 Geddess wrote the preface of the French translation of Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga. He later visited India in the second decade of the 20th century and was the pioneer of Indian town planning undertaking the survey of about fifty urban areas. Between 1929 and 1924 Geddess served as the first professor of sociology and civics at the Bombay University. Geddess had been in touch with Mahatma Gandhi and a close personal friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and sharing with the poet his ideas for the development of Vishwa Bharati which Tagore was at that time involved with. Besides Tagore, Geddess was for long years very close to Jagadish Bose and authored the first major biography of the great Indian Scientist published in 1920.
It was in Brittany in France just before Swami was on his way back to India that he gave a unique blessing to Nivedita saying, “‘Go forth into the world and there, if I made you, be destroyed! If Mother made you, live!” He gave complete independence to Nivedita to carve out her own direction of work.
While the Swami had returned to India after visiting with a group of friends Vienna, Athens, Constantinople and Alexandria, Nivedita continued to work with the Scot professor for a few months but did not quite derive much intellectual satisfaction out of it as her work was mostly secretarial and lacked any significant creative involvement. She, therefore, travelled to England where Mrs Bull, Jagadish and Abala Bose too were staying.
In England Scotland, and Norway
While in London Nivedita had several experiences that convinced her that the most pressing need for India was to wrest freedom from the yoke of foreign rule. She was livid at the treatment Jagadish Bose had always received at the hands of the British scientific establishment. She also got enough experience of this haughtiness and racial arrogance of the colonial regime when they tried the best to thwart the scheme of Mr Tata to establish a scientific institute in India for which Nivedita tried her best to lobby support. This will be dealt in much greater detail in a later section.
During this time she also had profitable intellectual interactions with the eminent social theorist and philosopher of anarchy – Prince Pyotor (Peter) Kropotkin who was then living in exile in Britain whom she had known him since 1891. Nivedita was profoundly impressed by the scholar’s work ‘Mutual Aid’ which greatly emphasised the value of cooperation in social progress as against the Darwinian ideas and Herbert Spencer’s theory of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ which was the dominant thesis at that time. She hailed Kropotkin as the ‘King of Modern day Sociologists’. Incidentally, Kropotkin had also met Vivekananda at Paris as had Geddes.
Nivedita later moved to Scotland where Geddes was a Professor and lived with his family. She delivered some lectures at Edinburgh University. This time the interactions with the great Scot intellectual were much more fruitful to her as compared to the experience in Paris. In fact, these ideas gave her a framework to write on India and she began to gather ideas in her mind which would eventually result in her major work ‘The Web of Indian Life’ in which she hoped to act as an interpreter of India to the West. In Edinburgh she was attacked quite fiercely by Christian missionaries and this prompted her to write a booklet ‘Lamb among the Wolves.’
After returning from Edinburgh in an overwrought state she spent a week in a convent in London to sooth her nerves. Soon after, on invitation of Mrs Bull she went to Norway where an event to honour Ole Bull, latter’s husband and the great Norwegian violinist, was to take place during his birth centenary year. At Mrs Bull’s house in Norway Nivedita also had as a fellow guest, Romesh Chunder Dutt, who also had a significant influence on her.
Dutt was, as the phrase goes, a man of many parts. He had been the second Indian to be appointed in the ICS after Satyendranath Tagore, Rabindranath’s elder brother. He took retirement from the ICS at the age of 39 and thenceforth devoted himself to intellectual pursuits. He wrote a seminal treatise on economic exploitation of India under the colonial rule. A formidable scholar, he also brought out translations of the Mahabharata and the Rig-Veda. Dutt also wrote the history of Bengal and an account of glorious days of Rajputana and Maharana Pratap.
Besides writing in English Dutt also wrote a few novels in Bengali and helped enrich the language, an enterprise, that had been a key feature of what is called the Renaissance, or at any rate, a great cultural and intellectual awakening in Bengal in nineteenth century. He had also presided over the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad in the 1890s with young Rabindranath as the Vice-President.
He later served as Dewan of the Baroda State on invitation of Maharaja Sayaji Gaekwad and passed away there. Nivedita then published a moving tribute to this great man. Without doubt R.C. Dutt represented to her a great patriot who particularly in his later life dreamt and strove for realising a resurgent India.
During the time they stayed together in Norway, Dutt continuously inspired Nivedita to work on her book ‘The Web of Indian Life’ and in fact suggested that she should leave Europe only after having it published. The publication of ‘The Web of Indian Life’, however, was to come out later in 1903 but in the mean time Nivedita realised that the place for her now was back in India. These experiences and engagements during the latter part of her western sojourn not only firmed her conviction regarding main line of her future work in India but also supplied her with broad contours – of intellectual as well as activist nature – that were to inform her later nationalist work in India.
It was during this time in the West when Nivedita realized that what India needed most immediately for its overall regeneration was freedom from the oppressive foreign rule. She felt that her Master’s teachings were so vast and so sweeping that she needed a definite reference point in order to put them into action. For her the cause of Nation-building or ‘Nationality’ as she used to call it, was to be the primary line of her work. She felt she had something definite to contribute in that sphere. And with a clearer vision she sailed to India with Mrs Bull and R.C. Dutt.