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Selecting the third day of every February, India celebrates National Women Day to remember the year of birth of Sarojini Naidu, among the most renowned icons of the country concerning the struggle to gain independence and to secure the rights of women. This is her 147th birth anniversary on 26th May 2026 and the occasion marks the need to look back and appreciate her immense works during her period as a poet, freedom fighter and a leader of equality of the sexes.

Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879 in Hyderabad to a progressive Bengali Brahmin family and showed great talent in literature since her early years. Being a real prodigy, she wrote a 5-line long poem when she was 12 years old and went to London and Cambridge to get higher education. Her poetry books such as The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912), and The Broken Wing (1917), made her the loved name of Nightingale of India, as Mahatma Gandhi called her. Her poems reflected the cultural beauty of India, the air of independence and the intent of people very well.

Naidu became one of the strong men in the independence movement beyond literature. She became a member of the Indian National Congress at a very young age and also took part in important campaigns like the Non-cooperation movement and the Salt-Satyagraha. In 1917, she helped to establish the Women Indian Association with her and they lobbied so hard to get women the right to vote and she even traveled to London to lay demands to the British government. The first Indian woman to preside the session of Indian National Congress at Kanpur in 1925 was her landmark.

Naidu kept on breaking barriers after independence. Later in 1947 she became the first woman Governor of an Indian state (United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh) a position she held until her death in 1949. In her life, she advocated the education, political involvement, and social change of women and had decreed that the freedom of India was not complete without empowering the women.

As India plans to celebrate the progress of women representation in politics, education, science, sports and entrepreneurship in the years 2026, on the occasion of the National Women Day, the legacy of Sarojini Naidu comes as an effective reminder. Her words will not go out of fashion: We want more heartiness of intent, more boldness of speech and zeal of deed. Her biography is an icon of how intelligence, boldness, and empathy can change the world.

This February 13, the country does not only celebrate one extraordinary woman, but also the thousands and thousands who she managed to make strong and stand up, speak and lead.