abhijeet roy asked 7 years ago
What is relationship between India and its people as seen in Sarojini Naidu’s poem ‘The Gift of India’?
In Sarojini Naidu’s poem The Gift of India, mother India is the speaker. She thinks all the people of the country as her children — her sons and daughters. That is why she says:
Lo! I have flung to the East and West
Priceless treasures torn from my breast,
And yielded the sons of my stricken womb
She feels the sorrow when her sons die in war and the pride when they do well.
Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weep
Or the pride that thrills thro’ my heart’s despair
Mother India prays for her children, and here in the poem, appeals for the recognition of those who contributed to the war and died there.
Remember the blood of my martyred sons!
So, the relation between India and its people is that of a lenient mother and her children. The poet has depicted that very well here.
‘The Gift of India’ is a patriotic poem written by Sarojini Naidu which shows the grief of Indian mothers who gave their sons to sacrifice their lives for the interest of the British. She thinks all the people of the country as her children — her sons and daughters. That is why she says:
Lo! I have flung to the East and West
Priceless treasures torn from my breast,
And yielded the sons of my stricken womb
The poem evokes a sense of pride as well as grief at the loss of a number of Indian soldiers who laid down their lives in the war. In this poem Sarojini Naidu personified Mother India whose heart bleeds for her sons who have been torn away from her bosom ruthlessly and deployed in foreign land to serve British interests.
The poem has personified the country India as the mother of all its people. The boundless grief of Mother India for her heroic sons, who were killed in foreign lands, is expressed in the poem. One of the critics mentioned that “It is India only, the great India, which represents itself as eternal Mother India, who loves her sons and daughters as a real mother does…”.
Mother India’s soft and tender feelings for her brave soldiers are seen through the words, ‘like pearls’. She likens her brave sons to pearls in oysters. Through the simile she compares the dead soldiers lying in graves … foreign lands to beautiful pearls in oysters. The lines also reveal a mother’s sorrow for her sons as well as her pride in them. This reveals great poetic sensibility on part of the poet.
To the Mother India the soldiers are as delicate as flowers. She is greatly grieved to hear of their bodies being mutilated on the warplanes of Flanders and France. The pale faces refer to the dead bodies of the slain soldiers whereas ‘broken arms’ tell us that they fought bravely before succumbing to death.
The Mother realizes sorrowfully that once the war is over these powerful nations shall commemorate their soldiers and their contributions. There shall be memorials raised in their honour. The European and the English army men shall be remembered for their bravery. She is rightly apprehensive that the sacrifices made by her sons shall be largely forgotten.
She plaintively asks the Western powers not to forget the precious Indian blood that was shed in their cause. They must not forget the precious Indian lives lost in a battle that was not theirs.