Padmaja Naidu was an Indian politician and freedom fighter. She is best known for Sarojini Naidu’s daughter. 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.
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Wiki/Biography
Padmaja Naidu was born on Saturday 17 November 1900 (age 74 at death) in Hyderabad State, British India (now Hyderabad, India). His mother, Sarojini Naidu, who was the first Governor of the United Provinces, had a great influence on his daily life. At a time when India was fighting for independence, he watched his mother, Sarojini Naidu, and other freedom fighters prepare for a revolutionary war to free India from the rule of the East India Company. He was greatly influenced by his mother and decided to devote his efforts to the welfare of the country and became a revolutionary himself.
family
Padmaja Naidu belonged to a Telugu family in Hyderabad.
parents and siblings
Padmaja was born to Mutyala Govindrajulu Naidu and Sarojini Naidu. His father was a Telugu doctor and his mother was a famous Bengali poet, Indian political activist and freedom fighter. He had four siblings, Jayasuriya, Leelaman, Nilawar and Rendher.
Parents of Padmaja Naidu
Padmaja with her mother Sarojini Naidu
Relationships/affairs
Padmaja and Jawahar Lal Nehru were on close terms with each other. He had a familial relationship with the Nehru family, including Jawahar Lal Nehru’s sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Indira Gandhi’s friend Pupul Jayakar, who was an Indian cultural activist and writer, heard from Vijaya Lakshmi that her brother and Padmaja had been living together for many years; However, Nehru did not marry Padmaja because he did not want his daughter, Indira Gandhi, to be angry about the marriage. Padmaja also reportedly 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” where Padmaja Naidu, Sarojini Naidu’s daughter, exclaims, “Nehru is not a one woman man!”, stating that Nehru had affairs with other women as well. Even after his retirement, he lived in a bungalow in the teenage Murthy Bhavan estate, the government residence of Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, until his death. It was later converted into a museum as a tribute.
Career
politican
At a very young age, he founded the Indian National Congress Party in the princely state of Hyderabad in 1921; He was 21 years old. When the Quit India movement was in full swing, Padmaja Harishchandra Heda, Giankumari Heda, Vimalabai Melkote, G.S. He fought with Melkote and others in the battle against the British. Padmaja bravely replaced the flag on the residence building with the Congress flag. He was arrested and imprisoned for this action. After India’s independence from British rule, Padmaja was elected as a Member of Parliament; However, he had to leave the membership due to his health condition.
Governor of West Bengal
In 1956, Padmaja Naidu was appointed Governor of West Bengal; He held office from 3 November 1956 to 1 June 1967, becoming the longest serving Governor of West Bengal.
Padmaja Naidu as Governor of West Bengal
Freedom fighter and philanthropist
In 1942, Padmaja actively participated in the “Quit India” movement started by Mahatma Gandhi, for which she was sent to prison. He urged people to use Indian products like wearing khadi clothes and boycott foreign goods. Later, he joined the International Red Cross Movement, a voluntary humanitarian organization that protects human life and health, and became the Chairman of the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) from 1971 to 1972. Also, he was associated with Bharat Sevak Samaj, Nehru Memorial Fund and All India Handi. After India’s independence, he was elected as one of the members of the National Flag Presentation Committee.
ᐯildo
- In 1962, Padmaja Naidu was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
inheritance
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 inaugurated on 14 August 1958. It is India’s largest high-altitude zoo at an average altitude of 7,000 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 has successful captive breeding programs for animals including snow leopards, red pandas and the critically endangered Himalayan wolf.
Padmaja Naidu Zoo in Darjeeling
death
On May 2, 1975, at the age of 74, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in New Delhi, India.
Facts/Trivia
- He was close friends with Ruth Petty, the wife of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
- In the 1970s, Padmaja bequeathed her mother’s residence, Golden Barrier, to the University of Hyderabad. First it became the Department of Social Sciences, then the Sarojini Naidu School of Communication, and now the Center for Distance and Virtual Education. According to available information, the university is planning to transform this place into a museum-cultural center.
- Padmaja loved having a collection of letters and manuscripts, and after her mother’s death, Padmaja collected all of her mother’s poems and published the collection as a book titled Dawn Feathers in 1961.
A book called “Dawn’s Feather”
- Sheela Reddy, who wrote the book Mr. and Mrs. Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, credits Padmaja Naidu with a collection of letters written by Ruti (Jina’s wife) Padmaja, who helped her write the book. Speaking about this in an interview, Sheila said:
Ruti (Jina’s wife) used to write letters to both Sarojini and Padmaja Naidu, but her letters to Sarojini are now lost, as Sarojini in her wandering life never bothered to preserve the letters she received from many friends and acquaintances, even from her own children and husband. It was thanks to Padmaja Naidu, who kept all the letters she received from her mother and Ruth, that I was able to compile the narrative of Jinnah’s marriage.”
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Source: dienchau2.edu.vn
